I wanted to dedicate a thread to those EC lyrics that leave us baffled. I know there's the 'it's all down to personal interpretation' spiel that The Man gives, an element of which I agree with (North for instance works so much better when related to elements of one's own life), but there's always been a few little sticklers that have been puzzling me, and I wanna get to the bottom of them...
''something about the moody doomed love of the fishfinger king''
from the first verse of This Town. I know I asked about it a while back, but I still don't get it????
''as a bus burst into flames outside some place, the poets rest''
I always thought that one chorus might have been about some kind of demonstration against people not going to war, and they've been tarred and feathered (I think i read this somewhere)...hence ''black crows in the road'' and ''kept my strong opinions to myself'' but the last line is weird!
Twenty five fingers baby
I love your nails I love your touch
I love to touch you baby
It never fails to kill me
Some say gimme five
But I'll give you ten
You could make it twenty
But you're holding out again
Think it over think it over baby
Well think it over think it over baby
I will always love you
That can't be denied
Love you up until the day
That heaven knows I've tried
For the time being I will tell you this
I'd love to love you love to love you
But there's something missing
Baby listen unconditionally
Put your hand in my hand and surrender to me
Think it over think it over baby
Well think it over think it over baby
Twenty five fingers feel so divine
Twenty five fingers wish you were mine
Wish you were mine
Well so our hands met and twenty fingers entwined
I couldn't help I couldn't help but see
She didn't quite believe me
She said listen cause there's one little thing
Where did you get that lovely wedding ring
Think it over think it over baby
Well think it over think it over baby
Some things are forbidden
Never meant to be
Well that might be all right for you
But not for you and me
Twenty five fingers feel so divine
Twenty five fingers wish you were mine
Wish you were mine
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
My English is lousy and I´m not an English-speaking native, but I have always thought the "fishfinger king" had something to do with the liverpoolian expression "fish and finger (pie)" (like the one from Penny Lane). You know what it means.
And the one about the buses MAYBE means that "there is a lot of violence and political conflicts -terrorism?- in the streets and the poets say nothing about it, they say nothing about real society". Maybe, I insist.
Three people, one of them with only one hand???
And why not two people with a mannequin hand as a "help"?
"Sometimes I name and number all the things you gave to me"
KoS...I used to live in Liverpool, but never heard of Fish and finger pies...but I'm not a native...we'll have to ask Plaything or Pet.
I don't know what 25 fingers is about either, but thought it could have been about a woman who sees loads of blokes (a maniser) and maybe is married like you said Pip. 25 fingers kinda being that she's 'holding lots of hands'...or maybe has her fingers in a lot of pies!
I read Paul McCArtney (I am also a BEatles fanatic) explaining that -maybe in his times, maybe never- it was a liverpoolian joke to talk about fingers and "sexual female organ", so that´s why they include that twink in Penny Lane. Beatles loved to include dirty jokes in the songs, you know (tit tit tit in Girl, and so on).
Any liverpoolian to explain us...???
"Sometimes I name and number all the things you gave to me"
"Finger pie was a Liverpudlian sexual reference included in the song to amuse the locals. 'It was just a nice little joke for the Liverpool lads who like a bit of smut,' said Paul. 'For months afterwards, girls serving in local chip shops had to put up with requests for 'fish and finger pie'."
And from William J. Dowlding's Beatlesongs:
"The song deliberately contained at least two slang obscenities. One was 'finger pie,' which was an old Liverpool obscenity about females. The other was the phallic inference of the fireman who 'keeps his fire engine clean.'
McCARTNEY: '...We put in a joke or two: 'Four of fish and finger pie.' The women would never dare say that, except to themselves. Most people wouldn't hear it, but 'finger pie' is just a nice little joke for the Liverpool lads who like a bit of smut.'"
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
The Place Where The Poets Rest....hmmm reminds me of that cemetary in Paris where Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison....and I think Yeats are all bured......
just a bizzare theory.....that's also the place I think of when I hear Cemetary Gates by the Smiths.....
Sleep of the Just is about several things but its main purpose was to gain revenge on a border soldier in Northern Ireland. Elvis took offence at the idea of a British Soldier having the temerity to question people as to where they were going, when that soldier was an occupier in his grandfather's country (" the soldier asked my name and did I come here very often etc". An argument ensued and Elvis went away and wrote a fictional song about that soldier wanting to shag his own sister etc.
The black crows in the road is a reference to the fact that when it's a hot 'powerful' day, crows land on roads to take carrion. They often get struck by vehicles because their dexterity is affected by excessive heat.
I've always thought that the (tour) bus bursting into flames outside The Poets Rest bus is metaphorical, but I could be wrong and it may referto an actual terrorist act.
"But they can't hold a candle to the reciprical war crimes which have plagued our policy of foriegn affairs."
Thankfully, I've never heard fish and finger pie used in conversation today. Must be a sixties thing. The Fishfinger King line reminds me of Captain Birdseye for some reason, with the young children on his big ship. Creepy, really.
I just think of it as a hand in hand thing. His five fingers, her five fingers alone they add up to ten, but when entwined it's 5 times 5 = 25. The power ( multiplication) of love or desire......... maybe. ( insert unsure emoticon here )
PoP...I wish it was about Captain Birdseye and his band of underage seadogs, that sail the seven seas, plundering galleons in search of the perfect fish finger.
Hammersmith is a place in London, and I hear it used to be a pretty lively music scene, so I guess it's just about that.
"It was a song with a topical verse, which I'm afraid he then proceeded to sing -
something about the moody doomed love of the fishfinger king"
We ain't meant to know what it mean - Charlie Sedarka was singing some weird song, of which the author could only work out that it was some vague romantic ballad about a frozen-food magnate.
It just sounds good.
And the bus burst into flames outside some place, The Poet's Rest.
The Poet's Rest has gotto be a pub, outside which the bus burst into flames.
However, one lyric I cannae fathom is "a stripping puppet on a liquid stick gets into it pretty thick".
It's the guy in the tigerskin trunks - but how is he on a liquid stick, getting into it pretty thick??????????
maybe Blue.
....I just don't know what to do with myself!