I'm packed and I'm holding,
I'm smiling, she's living, she's golden and
she lives for me, She says she lives for me,
Ovation, She's got her own motivation,
she comes round and she goes down on me,
It begins. The girl is great. There are no problems. She lives for him - or she says she does. Things are going so well that he’s holding on; he packed and ready to go. Great imagery. Packed. Like on a trip? Sure! It’s a journey: and hold on! At the beginning, she’s golden! Unspotted. Nothing is wrong. But then things are complicated by sex.
And I make her smile, It's like a drug for you,
Do ever what you want to do,
Coming over you,
Keep on smiling,
what we go through.
One stop to the rhythm that divides you,
The sex is a drug. But she’s smiling! The motif of the smile recurs throughout the song. No matter what they go through, they’re smiling. The ‘one stop’ metaphor is cool: it’s like a bus stop. In a bus, the bus stops are inevitable: the bus stop symbolizes the fights, when the smiles stop. There’s a certain rhythm that divides her.
And I speak to you like the chorus to the verse,
Drop another line like a coda with a curse,
And I come on like a freak show takes the stage.
We give them the games we play, she said,
I want something else, to get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say, Good-bye.
A coda concludes an event. In this case, it’s the event that divided her, the fight. The fights don’t always end well; the coda is cursed. But remember it’s a rhythm that divides them. What has a rhythm? A song; and a song has verses and a chorus. The coda is built into the structure of the song, the verses and the chorus. That is the metaphor of their relationship: a song, with verses, cut off with a cursed coda, leading into the chorus, and then back to the verses again.
To everyone else it looks like a freak show. Maybe that’s why lovers almost always look absurd to outsiders. They're on a stage and they’re the freak show. Then, the relationship is compared to a game that is ‘given’. Given to whom? The audience. The onlookers, hostile, understanding, or indifferent. But deep down, in spite of all the games, she wants something else to get her out of this semi-charmed life. A charm could be many things. Could it be a spell? A blessing? Delight? I go for blessing.
The sky it was gold, it was rose,
I was taking sips of it through my nose,
And I wish I could get back there,
Some place back there,
Smiling in the pictures you would take,
This is like a perfect modern equivalent to Wordsworth on the power of memory, or even Proust’s title: Remembrance of Things Past.
Wordsworth (‘Tintern Abbey’): it’s been five years since he visited the abbey. He tells us how all the things at the abbey affect him. The cliffs remind him of deep seclusion. Then, he tells how the beautiful form of the cliff affected his memory. The memory gave him, “sensations sweet, / Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.” The present things evoke the memory of them five years ago and there is a bittersweetness and a joy in the evoking. Memory is the anchor of ‘purest thought’; it is a mansion where you can get lost, but it is beautiful all the same.
Doing crystal myth,
Will lift you up until you break,
It won't stop,
I won't come down, I keep stock,
With a tick tock rhythm and a bump for the drop,
And then I bumped up. I took the hit I was given,
Then I bumped again,
And then I bumped again.
Drugs and sex complicate things.
How do I get back there to,
The place where I fell asleep inside you?
How do I get myself back to,
The place where you said,
I want something else to get me through this,
semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say, good-bye,
More memory motifs.
I believe in the sand beneath my toes,
The beach gives a feeling,
An earthy feeling,
I believe in the faith that grows,
And the four right chords can make me cry,
Remember: the metaphor of the relationship is a song. The four right chords can make him cry. The song gets really happy right here.
When I'm with you I feel like I could die.
And that would be all right,
All right, When the plane came in,
She said she was crashing,
The velvet it rips,
In the city we tripped,
On the urge to feel alive,
But now I'm struggling to survive,
The days you were wearing,
That velvet dress,
You're the priestess,
must confess,
Those little red panties,
They pass the test,
Slide up around the belly,
Face down on the mattress,
Another memory motif stretched out. This part is usually edited from the radio version. It’s the radio’s loss. The girl is a crashing plane. Then there’s paradox: tripped on the urge to feel alive ‘and’ struggling to survive? Then he’s at confession and she’s the priestess, confessing how good the sex was.
One,
Now you hold me,
And we're broken.
Still it's all that I want to do.
Feel myself coming off the ground,
I'm scared but I'm not coming down.
And I won't run for my life,
She's got her jaws just locked now in smile
but nothing is all right,
All right, I want something else,
To get me through this,
Semi-charmed kind of life,
I want something else,
I'm not listening when you say,
good-bye.
More paradox. They’re broken, but they hold each other. Despite them being broken, it’s all he wants. The high is amazing. He won’t run for his life. The smile motif comes back to haunt him. But - another paradox - nothing is alright. Alright? Breaking up is out of the question: I’m not listening when you say, “Good-bye.”
The song just really captures the essence and excitement of the ups and downs and paradoxes of a bad relationship full of thrills and absurdities, but always leaving that indelible mark on the memory. The melody is catchy and upbeat, but the lyrics are dark, delving into drug addiction and sex and all the complications that come from that: after all that, the singer ‘wants something else’.
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