Got bored watching the game, so did more poetry dissection on Morphine, since I find it relaxin' (since I don't write songs anymore). I'm sure most could care less -- but, since Bullet is into songwriting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJH4hXWu ... re=relatedThe Saddest Song
On my first day back, yeah, my first day back in town, yeah, my first day back in town,(So, it's a homecoming. And he doubles it, and emphasizes the "yeah." It's as if he's selling that he's happy to be back, at least on the first day. The "saddest song" starts out happily.)
the clouds up above, they were, hummin' our song, hummin', hummin' our song. (The whole world in this area reminds him of her. Humming is associated with joy. So, he's rushing back to her, obviously elated by love -- up in the clouds, almost dreamlike. He then repeats and harmonizes "hummin' our song," as if he's mimicking the lyrics -- which makes it sound like THIS song is "their song" the clouds were hummin'.)
And my biggest fear, (Ironic turn. Peaceful, sky images and happily hummin' a love tune suddenly turns into his worst fear? Now, those clouds sound less puffy and white, and more signaling a storm.)
if I let you go, (He's leaving? Why, if he is so lofted in love and racing back to her? Or did she leave, and he's "holding onto her?" Wait, did he mean up in the clouds in love or that the clouds personify her, as if she's in heaven? Is she dead? Death is the "biggest fear.")
come and get me in my sleep. (Images of ghosts and nightmares. She only remains in his dreams. Notice he purposefully doesn't say "you'll come" -- which both makes the sentence an imperative, and makes it so the sentence purposefully doesn't bring her back to him.)
Come and get me, get me. (Beckoning her to come back and take him to where she is. If she were alive, he could go to her and he wouldn't let her go. Then, the music waits for her to "come and get him.")
Well, I set my course, yeah, I sailed away from shore. (So, we came into town; begged her to come back; and now we are sailing away. Before we were on land, in motion but stable, and now we are floating away. Is he still sleeping and dreaming this? Is he attempting to sail away from her memory? And another yeah -- reassuring himself of his choice.)
Steady as she goes. (Controlled. He's not fleeing in panic. He's cooly guiding the ship, or attempting to convince himself that he is.)
A crash in the night (So, now we went from hummin' in the daylight; to scared to death; to confidently captaining; to a calamity, lost at sea, in the dark. Re-occurring highs broken by tragedy)
two worlds collide. (Not only are we sailing in the night, now we are steering an entire planet through the darkness of space (another indication she's in the heavens). So, before the planet was hummin' for them, now we have the entire universe involved in their love. "Two worlds collide" implies fate, destiny -- as in, how they met and how she was taken from him. We were confidently sailing away from her memory, but couldn't avoid crashing back into her.)
When two worlds collide no one survives, no one survives, yeah.(Apocalypse. Catastrophic death. When she died, so did he -- and her memory repeatedly kills him. He doubles it to emphasize that both are dead. Another yeah to emphasize the finality of death -- not to mention to highlight the double meaning (as in, YES I mean dead literally). He feels responsible for her death (colliding into her), that's why she'd come back to haunt him.)
The reddest of reds, (Images of blood -- especially since we jump right from crash, to apocalypse, to death, to red. He's completely bled out over her, making the image the "reddest" his body could expend.)
the bluest of blues, (Which evokes New Orleans funeral jazz -- which is the bluest of the blues songs. Also now we know he's writing a love poem, "Rose are red, violets are blue." And, to him, it's the most important poem -- because he uses "est.")
the saddest of songs, I sing for you.(Which is a dirge)
And then he sings it again. This whole process is going to repeat, night after night. And now that we know it's an ongoing dirge, it makes me re-evaluate the start. So, when he said it was his "first day back in town," it really wasn't. At least mentally, he's been back to this "place" (back when they were happy in love -- before she died) many times -- which is why he knows even the skies above it. And those "yeahs" in the first line now sound like him trying to reinforce to himself the lie that it's the "first day back," trying to force himself to remember the good parts of their love, and attempting to forget her death. And that's why there are several "first days" back in town, because he's relived this several times.
So, of course, the "Saddest Song" is about the death of a soul mate. Friggin' great song. And one of many by Sandman.
