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It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
It feels like a hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
One hundred years
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
It feels like a hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
One hundred years
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My interpretation of the song is, taking the name literally - One Hundred Years - It's essentially about a century of bloodshed, bloodlust, anger, greed and darkness. All the downfalls of human nature and their consequences. The different stanzas could be seen as referring to a different period from the last century - 'Ambition in the back of black car' (which might be metaphorical), 'In a high building [office block] there is so much to do' - suicidal or terrorist connotations. 'Going home time,
A story on the radio' - Returning from the meaningless job you hate, a short-lived break from harsh reality, and listening to the radio to hear the same awful news stories about war or suffering in the world - the insignificance of a working man's life in the modern day.
In the following stanzas - references to soldiers and war, take your pick from the many political conflicts and wars which have occurred over the last century (Baring in mind it was the past hundred years from when the song was written).
The lyrics could be seen as revealing short stories in their own right, but I don't think there's any deep, meaningful, revealing context to be gleamed from the lyrics. The whole song is just a despairing look everything wrong in the world. The human race makes advances on the surface, but nothing really changes with time; human greed and selfishness and suffering are ever-present. All the same problems that plague humanity continue to exist over an entire century, just as they have for the already centuries past. One Hundred Years of darkness, suffering, inquality and despair. The opening line is essentially a summary of the whole song 'It doesn't matter if we all die' - and the world probably wouldn't suffer one bit from it.
The song in general is about the meaninglessness of life, and how we will all die anyway. But i took a more literal look at the lyrics and this is what i came up with:
The song switches POVs between a soldier and his daughter. The daughter had once been depressed about life thinking it was pointless, but once her father died at war, she again adopted this way of thinking and freed herself from her horrible life by killing herself. The soldier, her father, also thought the world was pointless too because he was at war, where he could be killed any moment, and not at home with his family. He ends up getting killed, and later more of his fellow soldiers get killed too, making the meaning of the song "It doesn't matter if we all die" even more true.
Of course, i could be wrong but lyrics are subjective anyway.
Very depressing and haunting song. I adore the Cure especially their goth era!
The first verse eludes to a rich or powerful person heading to work in the back of a limo, woks in a high rise, busy day, finally time to go home, unhappy or apathetic about his job, he is depressed. He listens to the radio...
But here is where there is something different. I don't think he and his beloved are married yet. I think they are living together in a forbidden relationship. One that has serious issues. One is living with the other out of need, the other, in love is desperate for reciprocation. They sit over dinner and, like the other reader said, they find a common amusing situation (something small falls out of your mouth and we laugh) but that is the small glimmer of light that night (pray for something better)
That night they are watching the invasion of their country, or possibly footage of a war where their countrymen fell, watching the patriots get shot. Perhaps they are watching footage of a war where the father was killed, and then a flashback to receiving the body of their father.
The pain of losing a parent never dies and the most simple things can trigger a memory and lead to depression.
Caressing an old man, painting the face... a mortuary and the preparation of the body.
New meat - soldiers are commonly referred to as this when they first engage in battle.
Yellow moon, the plunge taken just before death and movement into the next form of life. The soldiers closing in may be the haunting of the memory of the father's death and the yellow moon symbolizing the knowledge of what the person is about to do (commit suicide)
All shadows and deliverance... Clouded judgement and release of pain.
Under a black flag - the black flag symbolizes resistance, the opposition of repression (of the pain) and then of course, the ribbon slipping around the neck is the suicide...
I didn't explain it all, but thats all I could get from it... what do you think?
JFK
The existentialist...thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be a priori of God, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is that we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoyevsky said, If God didn't exist, everything would be possible. That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to.
--Jean Paul Sartre
going as far as he could to describe it on "Pornography", all elements of existencial pain are there,
randomly citing phrases, of events in desolation totally emotionless, remoted to his own feeling,
cold, jaded and with the feeling he's turning to stone. so obviously his outlook on life was being fully tormented and overwhelmed. which in itself is a pretty sane thing for a young person to go through...
for having a hard time with cruel nature of things, leaving childhood behind and facing what is all but an ideal world to live in.
Anyway, I have a great appreciation for this powerful sad song, despite the tricky fact that it tends to make you make you sink as low, with it, through that abyss of despair, blame music who has such strengths to articulte human emotions so well, that it can chew and spit it all in your face, so much better than any other form of expression I believe.
then, for writing such a collection of songs, I would think that Smith was actually going through a bad relationship, some break up that sucked all life out of him, which could have add up to his initial awareness and pain regarding life.
I guess from there it all went snowballing... into the darkest state of mind, as it often is, these kinds of things happen to trigger the worst in human souls.
funny if only then he'd knew that some 8 years later, he would be hugely loved and respected, making amazing music, and clowning around singing light and lovely things like "Friday I'm in Love"...... isn't life is full of surprises :)
HAHAHA
This story seems to me to be set during a uprising/revolution. The woman seems to be entering a very dangerous situation into the heart of some organization (perhaps to spy or as an assassin) and is driven towards some objective by "The death of her father pushing her," and is stroking her hair "as the patriots are shot" and trying hard to please or convince someone in order to gain higher access. I think she is in fear for her life as described in "Creeping up the stairs in the dark Waiting for the death blow" and is discovered and executed as she feared, "The ribbon tightens round my throat I open my mouth And my head bursts open A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water."
The song's intro "It doesn't matter if we all die" is a statement of assurance not dispair because the people in a setting where "Over and over We die one after the other after the other..." in this setting where the people feel like they have been under "A hundred years of blood." I take the intro as a statement of rather dying than giving in.
"It doesn't matter if we all die" is a general statement about
hopelessness in life.
"Ambition in the back of a black car" Black symbolizing death,
the car could be a hearse, and ambition is in the back of it because
of those suicidal feelings of never being able to amount to anything.
"In a high building there is so much to do" now emphasis is being put
on the size of the building, with depressing lyrics preceding this. Likely
he (Smith) is hinting at jumping to one's own death.
And the "Going home time, the story on the radio" would be suggestive
of how the News would broadcast the suicide incident, and how even though
the individual took his life, all he is to the rest of the world is just
another story to sell.
One Hundred Years definately sets the tone and theme of Pornography,
one of The Cure's Darkest and brooding albums that deals with the decay
of life, the fall into madness, and general hopelessness in living.
Well, that's how i see it anways.