Mother Whale Eyeless

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVeKIroLwQE

Poll Results

Option	Votes
I'm wasting fingers like I had them to spare,	4
In my town, there is a raincoat under a tree.	3
In the whale, there is a man without his raincoat.	3
Maybe things are different, maybe they're the same.	2
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.	2
In the sea, there is a whale without any eyes.	2
In the sky, there is a cloud containing the sea.	2
Heroes are born, but heroes die.	1
There's a pie shop in the sky.	1
We're all sure you'll make the grade.	1
Punishing Paul for Peter,	1
Right behind the scales.	0
But the news, it does't change.	0
Swinging about through creepers,	0
Parachutes caught on steeples	0
She clutches the tray	0
Just a few days, a little practice and some holiday pay,	0
Reading morning papers, drinking morning tea:	0
Mother of God, if you care,	0
We're on a train to nowhere	0
Please put a cross upon our eyes.	0
Take me - I'm nearly ready, you can take me	0
To the raincoat in the sky.	0
Take me - my little pastry mother take me	0
The seven soldiers read the papers and mail	0
Back on the trail,	0
What do I care?	0
Hidden in the kitchen,	0
Plugging holes in the Zuider Zee.	0
This is for the nails:	0
Don't ever trust those meters	0
What you believe is what you see.	0
This is for the fingers,	0
Don't count upon their company.	0
Even your friends are strangers	0
Living so close to danger,	0
In another country, with another name	0
And then we talk just like a kitchen sink play	0
I can think of nowhere I would rather be	0

― Treeship, Sunday, 4 December 2016 02:52 (nine years ago)

pastry mother

secret of the song is not the words really but there they are

inexpressible blueness

― brex yourself before you wrex yourself (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 4 December 2016 03:09 (nine years ago)

Pie shop in the sky, but I would also like to write-in vote for Phil Collins

― jmm, Sunday, 4 December 2016 03:11 (nine years ago)

I'm wasting fingers like I had them to spare,
Maybe things are different, maybe they're the same.
Heroes are born, but heroes die

all solid contenders

― JoeStork, Sunday, 4 December 2016 04:12 (nine years ago)

I don't think I've ever seen the words before and I have never been able to make many of them out, as usual with most songs. This album has had remarkable staying power for me, since I first heard it in the late 70s or early 80s. (Wouldn't have had much chance of hearing it before then.)

― _Rudipherous_, Sunday, 4 December 2016 04:44 (nine years ago)

I've noticed particular lyrics but never really thought about what the overall song means. Is it about a soldier thinking about home?

― jmm, Sunday, 4 December 2016 05:28 (nine years ago)

Great idea. I can sing most of these lines in my head but don't recall seeing the lyrics written out. Some lines like "nothing ventured, nothing gained" stand out in the song itself but aren't overly remarkable as written words. Not sure how I'll vote.

― that's not my post, Sunday, 4 December 2016 10:06 (nine years ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-3_Skywarrior

this wwii plane was called "the whale." zuider zee was a site of fighting in wwii. i think the song is about a fighter pilot trying to long for home but coming up with ambivalent memories of petty arguments and domestic misery. ("we talk just like a kitchen sink play."

― Treeship, Sunday, 4 December 2016 15:11 (nine years ago)

actually that plane was post-wwii. but other planes have been called "whales."

― Treeship, Sunday, 4 December 2016 15:12 (nine years ago)

Fingers / Zuider Zee = the story of the Dutch boy putting finger in hole of dyke.

― Kim Kimberly, Sunday, 4 December 2016 15:24 (nine years ago)

Interesting.

I feel like the base narrative is less important than the way the images play off one another and resonate with ideas of birth, death, and even gestation.

― Treeship, Sunday, 4 December 2016 19:55 (nine years ago)

like a lot of the album it's riddled with secret agent/behind enemy lines imagery

which also makes for a neat imagery of detachment/alienation

― brex yourself before you wrex yourself (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 4 December 2016 20:05 (nine years ago)

three weeks pass...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

― System, Saturday, 31 December 2016 00:01 (eight years ago)

This song is my favorite off TTM. I love "Punishing Paul for Peter" but I think I have to give it up to "Heroes are born, but heroes die" as the single lyric guaranteed, even in print, to bring the euphoric pop rush of this song coming back to my mind

― U2 (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 31 December 2016 02:42 (eight years ago)

I don't know what my favourite off TTM is. Maybe this, but the whole album has a very special feeling.

― jmm, Saturday, 31 December 2016 03:56 (eight years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

― System, Sunday, 1 January 2017 00:01 (eight years ago)

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