Week Two: The Jesus & Mary Chain - "Far Gone and Out" - Honey's Dead

The Jesus and Mary Chain was one of the first bands that taught me that not all lyrics have to make sense; sometimes it is just best to feel the music first and let the lyrics speak to you later.

Up until this point (around '92), I was all about analyzing the lyrics to everything and placing some kind of meaning on what the artist was saying.  Even then, I was a miniature literature teacher in the making.

Unfortunately, I did not have the internet to toss around my ideas about what certain lyrics were saying with other fans, so I was left with the analysis of my other pre-teen companions.

I just covered a poetry unit with my 8th graders, and one of the first selections we read was called "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins.  He invites readers of poetry to "hold [a poem] up to the light" and "to waterski across the surface of a poem".  Of course my students always sit there clueless upon the first reading of the poem.

However, once we discuss the fact that not every single word has to be assigned intrinsic value and that sometimes it is okay to just feel the rhythm or to pay attention to one's own emotions while reading it or the beauty of the words that were chosen, I think it takes some of the pressure of poetry off.  I wish my teacher would have taken the time to share that little secret with me in the 8th grade!!

I can’t explain exactly what I’m doing standing in the rain
Don’t do it for fun
Do it if you feel it
Kiss it on the tongue
I’m taking my thoughts to a railway station
Put ’em on a train just to see what’s coming back
What’s coming back
It’s coming like a heart attack

Ice melts too fast
So nothing stays forever nothing’s gonna last
She’s dressed in black
A black that ends in nowhere and I just got to have her back
And I’m television sick and I’m television crazy
No one works so hard just to make me feel so bad
I’m feeling bad
Oh that’s too sad

Hey. hey. hey. she’s as mean as mean.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as black as black.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as mean as mean.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as black as black.
Hey. hey. hey. I got to get her back.
Hey. hey. hey. I got to get her back.
Hey. hey. hey. I got to get her back.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as mean as mean.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as sick as sick.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as cool as cool.
Hey. hey. hey. she’s as black as black.