The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight - R.E.M.

One explanation of the song - allegedly told backstage during a tour  

The song is about: Trying to buy Crystal Meth... here is how... Note the fact he repeats lines a lot throughout the song. This is because he was trying to get across how anxious he was to get his fix.

"This here is the place where I will be staying
There isnt a number you can call the pay phone
Let it ring a long long long long time
If I dont pick up hang up call back let it ring some more"

At the time, he didnt have a phone. He was living with people who couldnt know what he was doing. So he told his dealer to call the payphone number when she was able to bring him his stuff. He wanted her to keep calling just incase he had to leave for a minute. If she didnt call, he wouldnt pick up the phone therefore the sidewinder, which is the metal line that links the phone to the booth is called a sidewinder, would just stay in a coil

"Call me when you try to wake her up"

He called his friend who knew the dealer. His friend said she was asleep after staying awake for a very long time. So his friend said he would go try to wake her up, but it didnt look like it was happening.

"Theres scratches all around the coin slot"

While waiting for the call, he was sitting and staring. He noticed all the scratches

"Like a heart beat baby trying to wake up"

He felt as if he was trying to get the feeling of a heart being asleep and then started up again

"This machine can only swallow money"

He kept feeding the machine quarters but nothing happened. It was just swallowing his money. She never picked up and it was a waste.

"You cant lay a patch by computer design"

He used to call lines of meth patches, because it patched him up and made him feel better. The computer design is the phone system. You cant get it through the phone system.

"Its just a lot of stupid stupid signs"

When he would call, he would reach the voicemail of his dealer which was a sign she wasnt ready yet.

"Tell her she can kiss my ass then laugh and say you were only kidding that way she'll know that its really... me"

He told his friend to tell her this. When he got frustrated he would flip out and tell her to kiss his ass. He didnt want her to not call him so he said to laugh about it. It was their thing so it was like a authentification.

"Baby instant soup doesnt really grab me today I need some more substantial"

When he was on meth, all he would eat was a cup of noodles once every couple days. Now that he isnt on it anymore, he needs something more substantial, real food, because his hunger is coming back.

"A can of beans or black eyed peas, some nescafe and ice... candy bar, a fallen star or a reading of Dr. Suess"

He is naming off the foods he liked to eat when he was poor. He associated those foods with being poor and not being able to afford fancy stuff. His favorite author was Dr. Suess. He loved Dr. Suess books. He could never focus and read one when he was on meth. So now that he isnt high anymore, he is able to sit down and read it.

"Cat in the hate came back, wreck a lot of havoc along the way"

He was able now to read Cat in the Hat, however he was going through withdrawls. So the ability to read Cat in the Hat brought havoc in the form of withdrawl symptoms.

"Always had a smile and a reason to pretend"

Basically how he used to treat the dealer. The reason to pretend an smile was he could potentially lose his connect if he was a dick to her.

"There world is flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream"

If you have ever been on meth, after a couple of days on it, if you do not move your eyes, they go black. Its almost as if you are blinded for a moment. So the black backgrounds is all they see in their world, being that of a meth addict. When your on meth, you cant sleep. A few days into a binge, you start to feel like your in a dream. So you dont have a need to sleep but you have a need to dream.

"The sidewinder sleeps on its back"

Still no call.

"I can always sleep standing up"

He is determained to wait for the call

"Weve got to moogie moogie move on this one"

Originally he intended to say boogie, but one of his trademarks is if he screws up, its fine (hence the laugh after "a reading by Dr Suess") He finally decided to move on from this dealer and it actually led to him quitting meth. He started again, but he left that dealer.

"Ligeia" short story by Edgar Allan Poe

 

The story is told by an unnamed narrator who describes the qualities of Ligeia: a beautiful, passionate and intellectual woman, raven-haired and dark-eyed. 

He thinks he remembers meeting her "in some large, old decaying city near the Rhine." 

He is unable to recall anything about the history of Ligeia, including her family's name, but remembers her beautiful appearance. Her beauty, however, is not conventional. He describes her as emaciated, with some "strangeness". He describes her face in detail, from her "faultless" forehead to the "divine orbs" of her eyes.

 They marry, and Ligeia impresses her husband with her immense knowledge of physical and mathematical science, and her proficiency in classical languages. She begins to show her husband her knowledge of metaphysical and "forbidden" wisdom.

After an unspecified length of time Ligeia becomes ill, struggles internally with human mortality, and ultimately dies. The narrator, grief-stricken, buys and refurbishes an abbey in England. 

He soon enters into a loveless marriage with "the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine".

In the second month of the marriage, Rowena begins to suffer from worsening anxiety and fever. 

One night, when she is about to faint, the narrator pours her a goblet of wine. Drugged with opium, he sees (or thinks he sees) drops of "a brilliant and ruby colored fluid" fall into the goblet. Her condition rapidly worsens, and a few days later she dies and her body is wrapped for burial.

As the narrator keeps vigil overnight, he notices a brief return of color to Rowena's cheeks. She repeatedly shows signs of reviving, before relapsing into apparent death. As he attempts resuscitation, the revivals become progressively stronger, but the relapses more final. As dawn breaks, and the narrator is sitting emotionally exhausted from the night's struggle, the shrouded body revives once more, stands and walks into the middle of the room. 

When he touches the figure, its head bandages fall away to reveal masses of raven hair and dark eyes: Rowena has transformed into Ligeia.

The narrator relies on Ligeia as if he were a child, looking on her with "child-like confidence". On her death, he is "a child groping benighted" with "childlike perversity".

despite this dependency on her, the narrator has a simultaneous desire to forget her, perhaps causing him to be unable to love Rowena. This desire to forget is exemplified in his inability to recall Ligeia's last name. The story tells us however that the narrator never knew her last name at all.

Ligeia, the narrator tells us, is extremely intelligent, "such as I have never known in a woman". Most importantly, she served as the narrator's teacher in "metaphysical investigation", passing on "wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden!" So, her knowledge in mysticism, combined with an intense desire for life may have led to her revival.

Ligeia and Rowena serve as aesthetic opposites: Ligeia is raven-haired from a city by the Rhine while Rowena (believed to be named after the character in Ivanhoe) is a blonde Anglo-Saxon. This symbolic opposition implies the contrast between German and English romanticism.

Exactly what Poe was trying to depict in the metamorphosis scene has been debated, fueled in part by one of Poe's personal letters in which he denies that Ligeia was reborn in Rowena's body (a statement he later retracts).

 If Rowena had actually transformed into the dead Ligeia, it is only evidenced in the words of the narrator, leaving room to question its validity. The narrator has already been established as an opium addict, making him an unreliable narrator. 

The narrator early in the story describes Ligeia's beauty as "the radiance of an opium-dream". He also tells us that "in the excitement of my opium dreams, I would call aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night... as if... I could restore her to the pathway she had abandoned... upon the earth". This may be interpreted as evidence that Ligeia's return was nothing more than a drug-induced hallucination.

If Ligeia's return from death is literal, however, it seems to stem from her assertion that a person dies only by a weak will. This implies, then, that a strong will can keep someone alive. It is unclear, however, if it is Ligeia's will or her husband's will that brings Ligeia back from the dead. Her illness may have been consumption.

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe

 "The Raven" is a narrative poem by  Edgar Allan Poe. 

the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere

It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a mysterious visit by a talking raven. The lover, often identified as a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further antagonize the protagonist with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore". 

The poem makes use of folk, mythological, religious, and classical references.

"The Raven" follows an unnamed narrator on a dreary night in December who sits reading "forgotten lore" by a dying fire as a way to forget the death of his beloved Lenore. A "tapping at [his] chamber door" reveals nothing, but excites his soul to "burning". The tapping is repeated, slightly louder, and he realizes it is coming from his window. When he goes to investigate, a raven flutters into his chamber. Paying no attention to the man, the raven perches on a bust of Pallas above the door.

Amused by the raven's comically serious disposition, the man asks that the bird tell him its name. The raven's only answer is "Nevermore". The narrator is surprised that the raven can talk, though at this point it has said nothing further. The narrator remarks to himself that his "friend" the raven will soon fly out of his life, just as "other friends have flown before"  along with his previous hopes. As if answering, the raven responds again with "Nevermore". The narrator reasons that the bird learned the word "Nevermore" from some "unhappy master" and that it is the only word it knows. 

Even so, the narrator pulls his chair directly in front of the raven, determined to learn more about it. He thinks for a moment in silence, and his mind wanders back to his lost Lenore. He thinks the air grows denser and feels the presence of angels, and wonders if God is sending him a sign that he is to forget Lenore. The bird again replies in the negative, suggesting that he can never be free of his memories. 

The narrator becomes angry, calling the raven a "thing of evil" and a "prophet". Finally, he asks the raven whether he will be reunited with Lenore in Heaven. When the raven responds with its typical "Nevermore", he is enraged, and, calling the bird a liar, commands it to return to the "Plutonian shore" but it does not move. 

At the time of the poem's narration, the raven "still is sitting" on the bust of Pallas. The raven casts a shadow on the chamber floor and the despondent narrator laments that out of this shadow his soul shall be "lifted 'nevermore'".

The main theme of the poem is one of undying devotion. The narrator experiences a perverse conflict between desire to forget and desire to remember. He seems to get some pleasure from focusing on loss. 

The narrator assumes that the word "Nevermore" is the raven's "only stock and store", and, yet, he continues to ask it questions, knowing what the answer will be. His questions, then, are purposely self-deprecating and further incite his feelings of loss.

 Poe leaves it unclear whether the raven actually knows what it is saying or whether it really intends to cause a reaction in the poem's narrator.

 The narrator begins as "weak and weary", becomes regretful and grief-stricken, before passing into a frenzy and, finally, madness

He is reading in the late night hours from "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore". Similar to the studies suggested in Poe's short story "Ligeia", this lore may be about the occult or black magic. This is also emphasized in the author's choice to set the poem in December, a month which is traditionally associated with the forces of darkness. The use of the raven—the "devil bird"—also suggests this.

 This devil image is emphasized by the narrator's belief that the raven is "from the Night's Plutonian shore", or a messenger from the afterlife, referring to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld (also known as Dis Pater in Roman mythology). 

A direct allusion to Satan also appears: "Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore..."

Poe may also have been drawing upon various references to ravens in mythology and folklore.

 In Norse mythology, Odin possessed two ravens named Huginn and Muninn, representing thought and memory.

 According to Hebrew folklore, Noah sends a white raven to check conditions while on the ark. It learns that the floodwaters are beginning to dissipate, but it does not immediately return with the news. It is punished by being turned black and being forced to feed on carrion forever.

 In Ovid's Metamorphoses, a raven also begins as white before Apollo punishes it by turning it black for delivering a message of a lover's unfaithfulness. 

The raven's role as a messenger in Poe's poem may draw from those stories.

Nepenthe, a drug mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, erases memories; the narrator wonders aloud whether he could receive "respite" this way: "Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"

Poe also mentions the Balm of Gilead, a reference to the Book of Jeremiah (8:22) in the Bible: "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?" In that context, the Balm of Gilead is a resin used for medicinal purposes (suggesting, perhaps, that the narrator needs to be healed after the loss of Lenore). In 1 Kings 17:1 – 5 Elijah is said to be from Gilead, and to have been fed by ravens during a period of drought.

Poe also refers to "Aidenn", another word for the Garden of Eden, though the narrator uses it to ask if he shall reunite with his Lenore in Heaven.

Eulalie

 

Eulalie

I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride —
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride. 

And ah! less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl,
And never a flake
Their lustre can make
Of the vapor and gold and pearl
Can vie with the sweet young Eulalie’s most unregarded curl —
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl. 

Now Doubt — now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines bright and strong
Astarté within the sky,
And ever to it dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye —
And ever to it young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

Eulalie by Edgar Allan Poe,

 

"Eulalie," or "Eulalie — A Song," is a poem by Edgar Allan Poe,

The poem is a bridal song about a man who overcomes his sadness by marrying the beautiful Eulalie.

The woman's love here has a transformative effect on the narrator, taking him from a "world of moan" to one of happiness.

Lenore - Edgar Allan Poe

 

Lenore

Edgar Allan Poe - 

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?--weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung!--
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young--
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
"And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her--that she died!
"How shall the ritual, then, be read?--the requiem how be sung
"By you--by yours, the evil eye,--by yours, the slanderous tongue
"That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?"

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride--
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--
The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.

"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
"But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!
"Let no bell toll!--lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
"Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.
"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven--
"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven--
"From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."

Bon Jovi Track Seven

 Jon Bon Jovi, in an interview, once said that his best song was "Track 7", to "listen to track 7" and "it's all about track 7" 

Back in the old days, everyone bought rock albums on Vinyl and an album typically had 10 tracks, 5 each side 

Track 7 would be Side 2, track 2

On cassette, and later CD, track 7 would be track 7, the concept of of Side Two only remembered by those who had built up vinyl collections, or who made a point of still buying a 12 inch vinyl, up to the point where you still could 

Bon Jovi "First Album"

Track 7 - Track 2, Side 2  - Burning For Love 

7800 Degrees Fahrenheit 

Track 7 - Track 2, Side 2 - Hardest Part Is The Night 

Slippery When Wet 

Track 7 - Track 2, Side 2 - Without Love 

New Jersey 

Track 7 - Track 2, Side 2 - Wild Is The Wind 

It gets trickier when an album has 6 tracks on side one - does track 7 mean literally the 7th track, now track one on side two, or symbolically would the best track still be in it's place of Side Two Track Two, now the eighth track on the album?

Keep The Faith 

Track 7 - Dry County 

Track 2, Side 2 - Woman In Love 

Dry County is considered one of their best compositions, also a single, while Woman In Love is a great rock track, an obscure album track to all but the true fans

Some view I Believe as the "bonus" track that opens the album, with the title track, it's lead single, being the true track one, which makes Woman In Love the track 7 

From Keep The Faith onwards, all Bon Jovi albums, now leading with CD sales rather than vinyl, would have at least 12 tracks, making the discussion about whether we consider Track 7 on the CD or "Track 2, Side 2" symbolic - and this depends on what you consider to be the better song, the true "hidden gem" that Jon was talking about 

These Days 

Track 7 - My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms 

Track 2 Side 2 - It's Hard Letting You Go 

It could be that the classic Bon Jovi fan from the vinyl era would still by his Bon Jovi albums on 12 inch vinyl, and would look to Side Two Track Two as Jon's hidden gem, would not buy the CD and ignore the CD listing 

After the 5 year gap between These Days and Crush, Bon Jovi shifted into the Millenium and their new era, where they no longer had the big release singles like Living On A Prayer and Bad Medicine, many people believing It's My Life to be their last great single release, and last great stadium song

So some fans, now buying BJ CDs, find the concept no longer applies. This would be up to a fan whether they wanted to see if the Track 7 listed is the hidden gem, and if they want to compare it to Track 8, the symbolic "Side 2 Track2" 

Crush 

Track 7 - Mystery Train 

Track 8 - Save The World 

The rest you can look up on your collection at home if you were still buying BJ albums at this point 

HAZY SHADE OF WINTER

 

Time, time, time
See what's become of me

Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities

I was so hard to please
Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band
Down by the riverside
There's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned

Carry a cup in your hand
Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again

Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery
Weavin' time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me?

Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground

Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground

Look around
Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground

WINTER by Tori Amos

 

Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose, get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove

I run off where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping Beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice, "You must learn to stand up
For yourself 'cause I can't always be around"

He says, when you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
'Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting
Withering where some snowman was

Mirror, mirror, where's the crystal palace?
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know, Dad, the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
'Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

Hair is grey and the fires are burning
So many dreams on the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud
I always wanted that myself

When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do?
When you gonna make up your mind?
'Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change, my dear

Never change

All the white horses aah-aah
Mmm-mmm

 

How passionately we love everything that cannot last.

The dazzling crystallory of winter,
The spring in bloom,
The fragile flight of butterflies,
Crimson sunsets,
A kiss,

And Life.

This world is the Theatre of the Absurd ...

 

and I am The Lord of Misrule

The Lord of Misrule

In Britain, the Lord of Misrule — known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots — was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the Feast of Fools. 

The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia. The Church held a similar festival involving a Boy Bishop. 

The celebration of the Feast of Fools was outlawed by the Council of Basel that sat from 1431, but it survived to be put down again by the Catholic Queen Mary I in England in 1555.

While mostly known as a British holiday custom, the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from antiquity. In ancient Rome, from the 17th to the 23rd of December, a Lord of Misrule was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the good god Saturn. 

During this time the ordinary rules of life were turned topsy-turvy as masters served their slaves, and the offices of state were held by slaves. The Lord of Misrule presided over all of this, and had the power to command anyone to do anything during the holiday period. 

This holiday seems to be the precursor to the more modern holiday, and it carried over into the Christian era.

Saturnalia

 Saturnalia

Saturnalia became one of the most popular Roman festivals. It was marked by drunken orgies, tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters ostensibly switched places, much like the Lord of Misrule in later Christian celebrations.

Saturnalia was introduced around 217 BC to raise citizen morale after a crushing military defeat at the hands of the Carthaginians.[1] Originally celebrated for a day, on December 17, its popularity saw it grow until it became a week-long extravaganza, ending on the 23rd. Efforts to shorten the celebration were unsuccessful. Augustus tried to reduce it to three days, and Caligula to five. These attempts caused uproar and massive revolts among the Roman citizens.

Saturnalia involved the conventional sacrifices, a couch (lectisternium) set out in front of the temple of Saturn and the untying of the ropes that bound the statue of Saturn during the rest of the year. A Saturnalicius princeps was elected master of ceremonies for the proceedings. Besides the public rites there were a series of holidays and customs celebrated privately. The celebrations included a school holiday, the making and giving of small presents (saturnalia et sigillaricia), massive and multiple group orgies, and a special market (sigillaria). Gambling was allowed for all, even slaves.

The toga was not worn, but rather the synthesis, i.e. colourful, informal "dinner clothes"; and the pileus (freedman's hat) was worn by everyone. Slaves were exempt from punishment, and treated their masters with (a pretense of) disrespect. The slaves celebrated a banquet: before, with, or served by the masters. Yet the reversal of the social order was mostly superficial; the banquet, for example, would often be prepared by the slaves, and they would prepare their masters' dinner as well. It was license within careful boundaries; it reversed the social order without subverting it.[2]

The customary greeting for the occasion is a "Io, Saturnalia!" — Io (pronounced "e-o") being a Latin interjection related to "ho" (as in "Ho, praise to Saturn").