The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Well it's raining, it's pouring
You didn't bring a sweater
Nebraska'll never let you come back home
Now on Hollywood and Vine
By the Thrifty Mart sign
Any night I'll be willin' to bet
There's a young girl
With sweet little dreams and pretty blue wishes
Standin' there just gettin' all wet
Now there's a place off the drag
Called the Gilbert Hotel
And there's a couple letters
Burned out in the sign
And it's better than a bus stop
They do good business every time it rains
For little girls with nothing in their jeans
But pretty blue wishes and sweet little jeans
And it's raining it's pouring
The old man is snoring
Now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
All my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
I'd rather die before I wake
Like Marilyn Monroe
And you could throw my dreams out in the street
And let the rain make 'em grow
Now the night clerk he got a club foot
He's heard every hard luck story
At least a hundred times or more
He says: check out time is 10 am
And that's just what it means
Go on up the stairs
With sweet little wishes and pretty blue dreams
And it's raining it's pouring
And Hollywood's just fine
Swindle a little girl out of her dreams
Another letter in the sign
Now never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark
Be careful of that old bow tie he wears
It takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun
To put those scarlet ribbons in your hair
No that ain't no cherry bomb
Fourth of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun
No that ain't no cherry bomb
Fourth of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun
You didn't bring a sweater
Nebraska'll never let you come back home
Now on Hollywood and Vine
By the Thrifty Mart sign
Any night I'll be willin' to bet
There's a young girl
With sweet little dreams and pretty blue wishes
Standin' there just gettin' all wet
Now there's a place off the drag
Called the Gilbert Hotel
And there's a couple letters
Burned out in the sign
And it's better than a bus stop
They do good business every time it rains
For little girls with nothing in their jeans
But pretty blue wishes and sweet little jeans
And it's raining it's pouring
The old man is snoring
Now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
All my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
I'd rather die before I wake
Like Marilyn Monroe
And you could throw my dreams out in the street
And let the rain make 'em grow
Now the night clerk he got a club foot
He's heard every hard luck story
At least a hundred times or more
He says: check out time is 10 am
And that's just what it means
Go on up the stairs
With sweet little wishes and pretty blue dreams
And it's raining it's pouring
And Hollywood's just fine
Swindle a little girl out of her dreams
Another letter in the sign
Now never trust a scarecrow wearin' shades after dark
Be careful of that old bow tie he wears
It takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun
To put those scarlet ribbons in your hair
No that ain't no cherry bomb
Fourth of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun
No that ain't no cherry bomb
Fourth of July's all done
Just some fool playin' that second line
From the barrel of a pretty blue gun
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira, edited by Mellow_Harsher
A Sweet Little Bullet from a Pretty Blue Gun Lyrics as written by Tom Waits
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
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This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
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“Head > Heels” is a track that aims to capture what it feels like to experience romance that exceeds expectations. Ed Sheeran dedicates his album outro to a lover who has blessed him with a unique experience that he seeks to describe through the song’s nuanced lyrics.
I like the contrast in this song between the delicacy of the key lyric—"it takes a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun / To put those scarlet ribbons in your hair"—and the savage reality of the act it describes. That contrast strikes me a metaphor for Hollywood itself. It's an industry that sells glamor and beauty. But scratch that thin, glitzy veneer and you'll find the grime: the sweet, pretty little girl who buys into a bankrupt dream of stardom, runs away from home, and burns her bridges, only to end up used, cast aside, and driven to the end of her rope in some roach-infested flophouse.
Waits actually said himself that this song was about a girl who committed suicide at 15 years old. She jumped out of a window with a guitar.
It's about being deceived by life, realizing how hard, cruel and ruthless it can be some times and that it often hurts naive people the most.
it's absolutely a suicide. I think the girl referenced by Waits was the inspiration for, not the subject of this song. Here, she get's shot in the head. "It take's a sweet little bullet from a pretty blue gun to put those scarlet ribbons in your hair" would seem to describe the blood soaked hair, and obviously if it's not a cherry bomb it's a gunshot. Chilling song.
I would have to agree with sideshow here. The song is lyrically morbid but in true Waits fashion, his more morbid subject matter, he makes the music upbeat and swinging