Album: Modern BluesAvg rating:
Your rating:
Total ratings: 4448
Length: 10:15
Plays (last 30 days): 4
share
tweet
I was ready to be humbled
by the words that you had written
by the syllables you mumbled
Yeah, I was ready in my heart
to have my heart invaded
by the fervor of your passion
yes, I came to be persuaded
But when I heard your ragged voice
something switched in my perception
and I knew I was the victim
of a beautiful deception
All my once exact beliefs
like tangled threads unraveled
I walked out stunned and liberated
and so began my travels
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
"You better get yourself a coat"
said the handsome taxi driver
and he sighed like seven bridges
like a natural-born survivor
As we drove into the night
I could feel the forest jangling
all the choices laid before me
and their consequences dangling
We came upon a stricken ship
that must have once been splendid
the captain as he died said
"Boys, our revels now have ended"
I heard a wild holy band
playing jazz that was outrageous
that recalled the days of rapture
when our love was still young and contagious
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
In a dim-lit motel room
two sad lovers were discoursing
on the dignity of exile
and the merits of divorcing
She said "All certainty is gone"
but he leapt up, still denying
cried, "I won't believe the flame I lit
is dead or even dying"
She left him drooling in the dust
and with rucksack packed begun her
bitter journey to the border
which is where I wooed and won her
She was Aphrodite, Helen, Thetis
Eve among the satyrs
she was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Like Dean Moriarty's ghost
I came in quest of secret knowledge
in the winter of my journey
to a crumbling Druid college
There I read the books of lore
and contemplated in seclusion
but I took my leave embittered
still in love with my illusions
In the drizzling Irish rain
as a tender dawn was breaking
in a doorway I stood spellbound by
the ancient music they were making
I took my breakfast with the gods
on a blushing summer morning
to a wind blew them all away
I had misread every warning...
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Under cold electric light
I watched the scenes mutating
like an old-time frontier ballad
or a carousel rotating
As if in a moment from a film
with astonishing precision
the camera zooms in closer
and a figure comes into vision
I'm in Tokyo; it's dawn
and it's raining hallelujahs
down the bright-lit neon canyons
along the sidewalks of Shibuya
I'm trying to take a stance
and rise above my contradictions
but I'm just a bunch of words in pants
most of those are fiction
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
Keep the river on your right
and the highway at your shoulder
and the front line in your sights, Pioneer
keep your eye on the road
remember what you told her
this is all in code, my dear
I'm going to go ahead and *totally* agree. Great riffs! And really cool, trippy lyrics. Very cool stuff. Good call, @kingart!
This
Absolutely love this track, always makes my day.
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
I'm going to go ahead and *totally* agree. Great riffs! And really cool, trippy lyrics. Very cool stuff. Good call, @kingart!
Eve among the satyrs
she was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
If I had a dollar for every woman I've known who met that description ....
Always love to hear this track from the Waterboys!!!!
Yes. EXCELLENT TUNE!!
Always love to hear this track from the Waterboys!!!!
& even better to hear it live!!
"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
I think of this post every time I hear the song because it's so on point.
Kind of a 2000's "American Pie". Crazy, make what you want of it lyrics.
Pretty cool indeed!
-John
SOLID 10
I haven't always listened that closely to this track until today. The Dylan-esque word-smithery is really impressive. The song tells a clear story with a series of vignettes, each containing their own internal rhyming schemes that are consistent and clever. Each vignette evokes strong images of the real and metaphorical variety.
This. Exactly.
And if one reads some interviews regarding this song, it's the author coming to grips with his former path of Christianity.
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
10
Eve among the satyrs
she was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
If I had a dollar for every woman I've known who met that description ....
bastaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa pietaaaaaaaaaaa
I wish I had the PSD button on my app but I don’t.
so MUTE it is!! A solid -5 for me.
compared to their earlier classics
20 stanzas not counting the chorus, and a time of over 10 minutes... this is way too long. If you're going for an epic song it's probably ok, but this isn't it.
especially the lyric
'In "Sir Patrick Spens" I clean forgot the forty-second verse
So I sang the twenty-seventh, twice as loud and in reverse
And no one noticed'
Loving it right now!!
20 stanzas not counting the chorus, and a time of over 10 minutes... this is way too long. If you're going for an epic song it's probably ok, but this isn't it.
7 .1 out of 3 200 plus ratings hmmm you could be in the minority!
They released an album in each of these years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2017, 2015).
Wow, they've been busy - I got some listening and catching up to do :)
10 minutes long! It didn't feel like 10 minutes.
In fact, I thought the organ solo at the end needed to go on a bit longer.
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
Nah.
Good length to hit the water closet or
order a triple whisky neat from the bartender ......and
enjoy as you will
Got this one at a 7
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
I rated it high but I don't care what the overall rating is. Why bother what other people think about a track I like?
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
I did!
its the album cover
ha
theres some dylan vibe here
This track has gotten under my skin. My most listened-to song on Spotify two years running. Always something new to discovery. Ambitious, playful, magnificent, flawed.
Thank you Mike Scott.
- Just a guy with a bunch of words, in pants
It's been said that words are just thoughts with clothes on. I guess that would include pants!
rock and roll poetry
Even though it doesn't seem to even be a story, it has some of the best written stanzas ever! And a great beat with passionate singing and great solos!
Highway 61: Longer,Stranger,and more Golden!
Come on people this is the Waterboys It’s what they do
updated. stand by my earlier comment but will say it's the best tune on the album. actually liked the Waterboys better with Karl Wallinger
two sad lovers were discoursing
on the dignity of exile
and the merits of divorcing"
Yeah, I can identify with this particular conversation.
Come on people this is the Waterboys It’s what they do
Oh, and the organ in this track soars...
"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
thank you grandpa Simpson
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
got to see them 2 yrs back, here in Eugene. A real treat! flicking bic! lol
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
10 10 10
Lyrics are incorrect here
I took my breakfast with the gods
on a blushing summer morning
to a wind blew them all away
without a moment's warning
till the wind blew them all away,
I had misread every warning.....
and I did too......
What a line...crikey!
The one thing this song is NOT is short enough.
Lyrics are incorrect here
I took my breakfast with the gods
on a blushing summer morning
to a wind blew them all away
without a moment's warning
till the wind blew them all away,
I had misread every warning.....
and I did too......
What a line...crikey!
Make
It
End!!!
Please press PSD. Bill's made it easy to skip songs that get on your tits, so there's no reason to be such a grump. If you submit yourself to such torture you're being masochistic.
This is proper minstrelsy, telling a long story, as minstrels have been doing for millennia.
I might have mentioned this before, but:
END THIS INTERMINABLY LONG DRIVEL ALREADY!
and yet.... MORE verses. Just. Stop, dude!
Jeez! Boring, repetitive, pretentious, and mock-rock.
Blech! -1
"Jeez!" PSD dude!
END THIS INTERMINABLY LONG DRIVEL ALREADY!
and yet.... MORE verses. Just. Stop, dude!
Jeez! Boring, repetitive, pretentious, and mock-rock.
Blech! -1
This track deserves a higher rating. It's strange, epic, engaging, and the last couple minutes are high octane. Let's go, RPers, plug it in.
I for one find it quite boring, like some Tom Petty visiting Scotland. Not as boring as Tom Petty though, at least this tune has some progression.
"We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones..."
spot on, brutha. hilarious. how on earth did he remember all of those lyrics for a gig? amazing and impressive.
Every time this song comes on, I rate it a little higher. The lyrics are just so fun and ridiculous. Every line sounds like something your crazy grandfather might say in a given evening. When I find myself singing along to this one, I seek that same passion within myself!
Yes, I'm with you here. It's crazy, like someone wrote the lyrics during a manic episode aided with a bit of acid but it's a goddamned fun crazy.
ok, the song is a little bit repetitive but it's good, and it lasts .... so where is the problem ?
Make
It
End!!!
🤮
Just wish it kept on going......
I still love the song, however!
Funny... for me it brought up ANTIFA Soyboys. I guess it is subjective...
The haters out there just cant decode it...Sad for them...
and my dear, this is all in code.
The Hammond B3 organ makes this tune for me.
I still love the song, however!
The first stanza at least - ugh.
I gave it an 8, I love it in general. It would be 9 if it was 3 min shorter.
I still love the song, however!
About learning to love one's partner when the relationship moves into old age.
10
I wish I could delete your emoji but I just don't see that option here. So why not just skip instead of subjecting us to your lame stinker of a comment?
Why not?
1) I can’t skip ahead on Tune-in
2) I’m part of “us.”
3) You can always choose NOT to comment or provide a music-related counter criticism
4) it’s called “free speech” and not everyone has the same likes/dislikes..
Any other questions?
And that song crescendo is not nearly long enough...
Man, you must hang out with some spectacular four year olds, I don't know any who know about this stuff:
She was Aphrodite, Helen, Thetis
Eve among the satyrs
she was Venus in a v-neck sweater
she was all that ever mattered
Comment attached to the wrong song? I can't see (hear) the connection...
You can't hear the spitting lisp, a la Sylvester? Thufferin' Thuccotash!
I still like it, it's just funny.
c.
Not really liking this song too much.
now: cheesy cliche packed music
shame on you Mike Scott