Jesus, don't cry
You can rely on me, honey
You can combine anything you want

I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around

Don't cry
You can rely on me, honey
You can come by any time you want

I'll be around
You were right about the stars
Each one is a setting sun

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around

Voices whine
Skyscrapers are scraping together
Your voice is smoking
Last cigarettes are all you can get
Turning your orbit around

Our love
Our love
Our love is all we have

Our love
Our love is all of God's money
Everyone is a burning sun

Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around

Voices whine
Skyscrapers are scraping together
Your voice is smoking
Last cigarettes are all you can get
Turning your orbit around

Last cigarettes are all you can get
Turning your orbit around
Last cigarettes are all you can get
Turning your orbit around


Lyrics submitted by jonesth

Jesus, Etc. Lyrics as written by Jay Bennett Jeff Tweedy

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

Jesus, Etc. song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

101 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +7
    General Comment

    When I first heard this song in late September 2001, I was stunned by how much its lyrics evoked the WTC attack. Obviously Tweedy had written it beforehand, but I wonder what he meant by this song. I'm inclined to understand it, like "Ashes of American Flags," as a lament for a materialistic, decadent, and unholy society. Amid collapsed skyscrapers (perhaps metaphorical for economic markets) and human sorrow, the "bitter melodies" have a notable effect: "turning your orbit around." This, I think, turns out to be much more than "throwing you for a loop." The key is the image of "God's money," which scorns the fallen monuments to human money. "All of God's money" is not in the tall buildings which house investment banks and law firms, but in "our love," which is really "all we have" anyway. The images of sun and stars convey the ephemeral and precious nature of life. There are the lines, "You were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun," depicting each of us -- "everyone is a burning sun" -- in imminent demise. I understand this part in a positive way: while our existence is brief, it is also passionate and glorious.

    jonesthon January 20, 2002   Link
  • +7
    General Comment

    "Jesus, don't cry." Sounds to me like an exasperated plea from someone at the limit of their patience with a their depressive muse. In other words: Oh, for Christ's sake would you stop? You know I won't leave you. This because it's followed by: "You can rely on me honey" as if the reliability of the speaker has come into question and needs to be proven. "You can combine anything you want." Which is to say: It's easy to put together any two different ideas to support your point (kind of like song interpretations). "I'll be around", reassuring loved one that speaker is not going to abandon them. "You were right about the stars" you know, what you said that night while we gazed at the heavens? that I disagreed with? Well, it was quite profound and it stuck with me. I appreciate and remember the things you say. "each one is a setting sun" everything is relative based on point of view. "tall buildings shake" bad things happen in this world, great plans crumble; "voices escape singing sad, sad songs" producing the pained voices in our world "tuned to chords strung down your cheek/ bitter melodies turning your orbit around." even though I don't want you to cry, when you do you not only give me local inspiration for my music, by letting your feelings out, you change your own attitude. Jeff Tweedy seems to have an on-going relationship with this depressive muse: "Cheer-up, honey I hope you can." and seems to need her for his gifts as poet/ and bed-side cheerer-upper in order to reach their potential. I hope my flippancy is not mistaken as disrespect; I am a huge Tweedy fan. "Our love is all we have", simply true. "each one is a burning sun." expresses an appreciation for the luminous brilliance of every living thing.

    dionflyon March 22, 2005   Link
  • +4
    General Comment

    This song is amazing. Nothing in the world puts me in a more peaceful mood than listening to this. I don't interepret it as a commentary on society, although it very well could be. The sense I get from it is...an...opening up to someone with whom Jeff shares an extremely close connection. I'm not sure about the nature of the connection (a romantic love, a relative, whatever), but it just seems to be the...thing you'd say to someone you love when something happens to make you realize how much they mean to you. Which is a fascinating idea to me: what would you say to the people who mean the most of you, if you thought you had just a flicker of a moment left with them? Well, Jeff has captured it here, to me. "Don't cry/you can rely on me, honey/You can come by anytime you want." Gosh...this song just rocks my socks. Jeff Tweedy is awesome.

    VegasJameson August 05, 2002   Link
  • +3
    General Comment

    this song seems to be tweedy's idea of the apocalypse, the the world crumbling around him and he is saying the only thing that will be worth anything anymore wil be love. an he is also playing the most serene music over this as it happens showing that he simply could care less about it.

    fatboyinawagonon June 17, 2003   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    I believe it is about comforting someone who is feeling spirtually lost. "you can combine anything you want" you can take whatever you want from what any religion preaches.

    I think Jeff is an athiest, look at "I Can't Stand It", "Your prayers will never be answered again" and "No loves as random As God's love I can't stand it"

    The song is saying believe what you want to believe, I don't believe in god and that makes the world a better place, no love is as randon as God's love. You don't need to have an understanding and a definition for life and the universe, I'm here for you and the beauty of people caring for each other is wonderful enough.

    alltogetheron January 10, 2006   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    If you go by 'I Can't Stand It', you could say that Tweedy is an atheist or an anti-theist. This song boggles my mind, though. I would think that he's saying that in the face of extraordinary events that are well beyond our grasping, we rely on things, not people.

    a town like parison August 01, 2008   Link
  • +2
    General Comment

    This song isn't about 9/11 -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was originally meant to be released on September 11th, 2001.

    mjknlron February 22, 2013   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    Aw man, what a song. The first song ever to make me cry. It has one of the most astonishing set of lyrics I've ever seen. "Skyscrapers are scraping together" and "you were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun" stand out as two particularly amazing phrases, but really the whole thing is unbelievable. All this coupled with a beautiful melody and that heart-tugging violin. This will always remind me of warm summer nights. The sequence on YHF of Jesus Etc - Ashes Of American Flags - Heavy Metal Drummer is arguably the best three-song sequence I've heard.

    walking_barefooton November 28, 2004   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    i think that it hints on the evitable that all things good or bad must past. "each star is a setting sun"

    "our love is all we have" --enjoy life while got it

    "each one is burning sun" we too our burning stars and we have our moment and then we are gone.

    or it could very well be about drugs

    whistlersmammyon April 15, 2005   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    mikeyg,

    I agree with your interpretation. I believe that the writer recognizes that we are small and insignificant in an infinitely large universe but that we can seek comfort in eachother's love and companionship.

    thebot108on March 16, 2006   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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"
Album art
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve. The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future. Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere" The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Album art
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
Album art
Magical
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Album art
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it. “I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.