High Lonesome

There are also 2 possible references to "I'm On Fire" in "The Patient Ferris Wheel".

-"Not tonight, not tonight, honey I am on fire, I can't feel a single thing but the weight of the wires."

-"Not tonight, not tonight, honey I am on fire, if we don't come through, they're gonna bury us alive."

And that "bury us alive" line might be a reference to "Meeting Across the River", or at least the ideas present in that song.

Also, "Meeting Across the River", "Meet Me By the River's Edge"?

good finds Romeo!

In "Say I Won't (Recognize)"...

-So come on before we get much older, and that could happen any one of these nights.

From The Who's "Baba O'Reilly"...

-Let's get together, before we get much older... Teenage wasteland.

From "Say I Won't"

"Call up your girlfriends to come out tonight, I'll call up my best friends come out tonight"

"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"-Springsteen

and the carnival mentions in Say I Won't, The Patient Ferris Wheel, and The Backseat probly have something to do with the carnival theme present on Springsteen's first few albums

I think the carnival mentions have a ton to do with where Brian is from. Growing up in Red Bank and being close to the ocean....near Asbury Park....those places have that carnival sort of thing going on....he said that that's what Senor and The Queen is mainly about, summer time in Jersey, "back then".

true, and that's probly why Bruce mentioned it so much as well

Exactly.

Never seen a band using that many references like Gaslight actually do, especially here.

Julianne wrote:

"all hope abandon, ye who enter here"

its also written on some door in the movie, The Boondock Saints

The door actually says "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"

All hope abandon sounds so much better than abandon all hope!

Funny eh!

my friend thinks that's a dirty line, because he talks about "entering", and the sign is over the bed...

he has issues

I think that line might come from somewhere else, coz my (old) English teacher used to quote it from time to tim as All Hope abandon ye who enter here. And he doesn't strike me as a Gaslight fan.

Dante's Inferno bro

Jukebox Romeo wrote:

Dante's Inferno bro

It is indeed from the H.F.Cary's English translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. But don't read the passage, if you'be already got the blues.

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd
Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

Dorothy L. Sayers translated it as "Lay down all hope, you that go in by me", which doesn't have the same ring, although you can still make it fit the tune.

To me High Lonesome, although it is my favourite Gaslight song, lacks the 'meaning' of some of the others. Anyone else think the same?

I don't think it's nearly as personal but there is meaning. "I always kind of sort of wish I was someone else" says a lot. We've all felt that. If there's one message in the song, that's it, I think.

Vibes wrote:

I don't think it's nearly as personal but there is meaning. "I always kind of sort of wish I was someone else" says a lot. We've all felt that. If there's one message in the song, that's it, I think.

Definately. I see that as the underlying meaning of the song. I'm glad it wasn't just me thinking it wasn't as 'personal'. To me it's written as if the protaganist is watching the events, rather than being directly involved and connected to them.

the verses don't have a lot of substance really, but i do love the line: "The pounding in the street was your heart in 4/4 time, and the taste of defeat was never too far from your mind". kinda like Wherefore, this song isn't as much of the storytelling kind as it is about feelings and moods

and it's great live when he sings "At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet"

Jukebox Romeo wrote:

and it's great live when he sings "At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet"

this worked a treat at Hyde Park, especially when he got to "maybe you know the rest"

so, I don't think we've discussed this before, but what do you guys think the "powder on the bar" actually is? based on the context of the rest of verse, I would have to say it refers to cocaine, though this doesn't seem like Brian to write about that or to use cocaine

however, he has said that a lot of songs on '59 aren't necessarily about him, but are about the people he knows and grew up with. also, Brian doesn't drink, but the line right before the "powder on the bar" line talks about "getting drinks for the same boys who once bought you everything," so the whole verse could be about someone else

however, it was just that one time, that one night, and only to get by, so maybe Brian did crack just that one time, that one night, only to get by???

I dunno if it's about him specifically, but I can't think of anything else it could be apart from cocaine.

I've had difficulty figuring out the meaning behind some of their songs, but high and lonesome is easy (I think). It's about a girl who graduated HS and is now bartending in the same town. SHe didn't go away to college or find herself, she's just tending bar. She feels a bit embarassed that she never made anything of herself, esp b/c she was hot in HS, and "gravity came And stole the temple that the schoolboys praised". So in order to get by and desensitize her embarassment b/c former friends / students are there, she'll do cocaine, just this one time. She ends up going home with someone and the uncomfy walk to a one night stand is described as "boots they make a high and lonesome sound".
Feasible, right?

Reinvent good times wrote:

I've had difficulty figuring out the meaning behind some of their songs, but high and lonesome is easy (I think). It's about a girl who graduated HS and is now bartending in the same town. SHe didn't go away to college or find herself, she's just tending bar. She feels a bit embarassed that she never made anything of herself, esp b/c she was hot in HS, and "gravity came And stole the temple that the schoolboys praised". So in order to get by and desensitize her embarassment b/c former friends / students are there, she'll do cocaine, just this one time. She ends up going home with someone and the uncomfy walk to a one night stand is described as "boots they make a high and lonesome sound".
Feasible, right?

That's the best explanation I've seen so far...

hm I always thought it was "patter on the bar" like, when people do little drum beats on a table or something