So far today, we’ve had threads about Daniel and Levon, so I might as well ask my own pet Elton John lyric question:
Is the narrator of the Love Lies Bleeding half of Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding singing about the funeral of someone he killed?
I don’t have the lyrics handy, but after reading them in my copy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, they sure look that way.
Love Lies Bleeding
*The roses in the window box have tilted to one side,
Everything about this house was born to grow and die.
Oh it doesn’t seem a year ago to this very day
You said, “I’m sorry honey if I don’t change the pace,
I can’t face another day.”
And love lies bleeding in my hands,
Oh it kills me to think of you with another man.
I was playing rock ‘n’ roll and you were just a fan,
But my guitar couldn’t hold you so I split the band.
Love lies bleeding in my hands.
I wonder if those changes have left a scar on you,
Like all the burning hoops of fire that you and I passed through.
You’re a bluebird on a telephone line, I hope you’re happy now.
But if the winds of change come down your way girl,
You’ll make it back somehow.
And love lies bleeding… *
It doesn’t seem that way to me, although I could be wrong. It seems like it’s the love that has died, not the person.
Love Lies Bleeding
*The roses in the window box have tilted to one side,
Everything about this house was born to grow and die.
Oh it doesn’t seem a year ago to this very day
You said, “I’m sorry honey if I don’t change the pace,
I can’t face another day.”
And love lies bleeding in my hands,
Oh it kills me to think of you with another man.
I was playing rock ‘n’ roll and you were just a fan,
But my guitar couldn’t hold you so I split the band.
Love lies bleeding in my hands.
I wonder if those changes have left a scar on you,
Like all the burning hoops of fire that you and I passed through.
You’re a bluebird on a telephone line, I hope you’re happy now.
But if the winds of change come down your way girl,
You’ll make it back somehow.
And love lies bleeding… *
It doesn’t seem that way to me, although I could be wrong. It seems like it’s the love that has died, not the person.
Hey the first ever album I bought. Leads into ‘Grey Seal’, if memory serves…Anyhoo, don’t mean to be pedantic but the lyrics are by Bernie Taupin.
Hey the first ever album I bought. Leads into ‘Grey Seal’, if memory serves.**
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Right you are about Bernie Taupin being the lyricist, but Love Lies Bleeding doesn’t lead into anything. Funeral For a Friend leads into LLB, and the next track is Candle in the Wind.
GBYBR was my first album, too. Purchased with 8th Grade graduation money.
The lyric itself would not seem to support this interpretation:
She wouldn’t “be with another man” if she were dead.
“Scars” would not be a reference to killing her – if the wounds killed her, they would not have healed and scarred over.
“A bluebird on a telephone line” is an odd way to address a dead person.
“I hope you’re happy now” is also not something you would be likely to say to someone you killed out of jealousy.
“Winds of change”? Dead people don’t experience any change, beyond decomposition.
“You’ll make it back somehow.” Again, not something a dead person is likely to do, unless you’re talking about reincarnation, which seems unlikely.
Tune in to Rock ‘n’ Roll Poets next week as we tackle the question: is John Lennon commiting arson at the end of “Norwegian Wood”?