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I'm a junkyard full of false starts
And I don't need your permission
To bury my love under this bare lightbulb
The moon is a sickle-cell
I'll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Like spun glass in your sore eye
While the moon does it's division
You're buried below
And it's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses fall in love
The things that you tell yourself
They'll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Spinning in the night sky
While the moon does its division
You're buried below
And it's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses
So you got in a kind of trouble
That nobody knows
It's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses.
And I don't need your permission
To bury my love under this bare lightbulb
The moon is a sickle-cell
I'll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Like spun glass in your sore eye
While the moon does it's division
You're buried below
And it's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses fall in love
The things that you tell yourself
They'll kill you in time
Your cold white brother alive in your blood
Spinning in the night sky
While the moon does its division
You're buried below
And it's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses
So you got in a kind of trouble
That nobody knows
It's coming up roses everywhere
You've gone red roses.
Lyrics submitted by EnjOy IncUbus
Track duration: 03:11
"Coming Up Roses" as written by Steven P. Smith
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"I don't need your permission to bury my love under this bare light bulb"
A bare light bulb or one that has been hollowed out, are used by tweakers to smoke meth or freebase other substances.
Some gas stations/liquer stores sell roses inclosed in a glass tube. When you extract the rose from the tube with tweazers, it becomes a smoking device often reffered to as a bubble. Glass stained black is what results from getting high using these instruments(bubbles/light bulbs). That might be what Smith was reffering too given the many referrances to meth in the song (spun glass, sore eyes, ect)
"cold white brother riding yr blood
like spun glass in sore eyes"
This phrase doesnt necessarily pertain to injecting meth but more so the substance being active in one's system given any form of consuming the substance; all forms of consumption pass through the blood stream. For those that still think the song is about Heroin, please look up "spun" in the drug dictionary. No one has ever been spun out on heroin, they get strung out on Heroin. Even mainstream acts such as Green Day know this, "Fucked up and spun out in my room. on my own here we go" --Insomniac album
In conclusion, no one will really know the lyrical interpretation of Elliott Smith songs, only Elliott himself. With that said, I feel his songs much like all songs are subjected to the listener's personal experience and their own application to what the lyrics mean to them. Elliott once said that you can take a picture of New York and one person could feel sad and others would feel happy. Point being that art, music, lyrics, ect are subjected to individual interpretation and the real reasons dwell in the mind of its creator.
"the moon is a sickle cell, it'll kill you in time.
you cold white brother riding your blood, like spun glass in sore eyes"-
This to me, sounds like he's talking about hitting a depressive mood swing and uses the moon as a metaphor for that depression. As well as a sickle cell anemia metaphor, once again to describe the depression as a "diseased cell" that can kill you. Making for two great metaphors rolled into one line. The "cold white brother riding your blood, like spun glass in sore eyes" is simply his metaphor for self medicating the depression.
this songs about how things are going to shit and it seems rather sarcastic to me when he says "coming up roses." like pretending everything is fine and dandy when it's not.
now that you have a good explanation, go do your smack.