Spotlight: Song: Innocence, it don't come easy - in a sense it never will
Last week, I attended the Ted Leo/Death Cab concert. Although I thought Death Cab was much cooler live than they were on their albums, Ted Leo caught my eye and ear. I’ve heard and read about these guys for a couple of years, but never bothered to actually listen to any of their stuff. At the concert, I found myself wanting to know what Ted was saying (the acoustics were just this side of inaudible) and had a feeling it was a little more deep than your average band. I downloaded their latest album but only listened to it on the street—not the ideal place to listen to unfamiliar lyrics. Anyway, Monday morning I selected the album on the metro and kept rewinding the third song on the Shake the Sheets album. The song boasts a catchy melody, but the words stopped me in my tracks (but not the trains). I got a quick sense of what the song was about and when I got a few minutes at work, I looked up the lyrics and my hunch was confirmed—the song wasn’t just a light hearted punk influenced jaunt, this was some fairly subtle, biting commentary on the Iraqi war. Just looking at the lyrics, I found a play on the phrase “hawk and dove,” a possible reference to Abu Ghirab, another reference to the government misinformation of Middle East Intelligent.
Then there’s the chorus, sung in a fairly light-hearted manner belying the words:
“As I went on
Wondering if I’ve got a soul and
Counting down the hours ‘til it goes”
One of my favorite allusions in the song is:
“And a punter from the Pelhams, and the police in the rain,
Were concerned more with a car than with the fact the lights had changed.”
Here’s the lyrics:
Innocence, it don't come easy - in a sense it never will
Last week, I attended the Ted Leo/Death Cab concert. Although I thought Death Cab was much cooler live than they were on their albums, Ted Leo caught my eye and ear. I’ve heard and read about these guys for a couple of years, but never bothered to actually listen to any of their stuff. At the concert, I found myself wanting to know what Ted was saying (the acoustics were just this side of inaudible) and had a feeling it was a little more deep than your average band. I downloaded their latest album but only listened to it on the street—not the ideal place to listen to unfamiliar lyrics. Anyway, Monday morning I selected the album on the metro and kept rewinding the third song on the Shake the Sheets album. The song boasts a catchy melody, but the words stopped me in my tracks (but not the trains). I got a quick sense of what the song was about and when I got a few minutes at work, I looked up the lyrics and my hunch was confirmed—the song wasn’t just a light hearted punk influenced jaunt, this was some fairly subtle, biting commentary on the Iraqi war. Just looking at the lyrics, I found a play on the phrase “hawk and dove,” a possible reference to Abu Ghirab, another reference to the government misinformation of Middle East Intelligent.
Then there’s the chorus, sung in a fairly light-hearted manner belying the words:
“As I went on
Wondering if I’ve got a soul and
Counting down the hours ‘til it goes”
One of my favorite allusions in the song is:
“And a punter from the Pelhams, and the police in the rain,
Were concerned more with a car than with the fact the lights had changed.”
Here’s the lyrics:
Innocence, it don't come easy - in a sense it never will
Accidents mean no one's guilty, ignorance means someone's killed
So I asked our Mr. Mellor how one gets to where one's going
And he points to his survival, and he points me down the road
As I go onWondering if I've got a soul and
Counting down the hours 'til it goes
On a dark wet night in April,
on a street in Jersey where
I went looking for some writing that I knew would not be there
And a punter from the Pelhams and the police, in the rain,
Were concerned more with a car than with the fact the light had changed
But after listening all morning, as I drove down 95
To a story of detainees who were barely kept aliveI could deal with trying to process pigeons acting like they're doves
But not with interference from the power lines above
As I go onWondering if I've got a soul and
Counting down the hours 'til it goes
And oh, precautions, yes precautions
But if you're playing with a gun, you could kill someone
And in the dark it's hard to know a friend
But I'm not angry, I won't be forever angry
As I'm walking toward tomorrow with a rifle in my hand
And I'm thinking about New England, and I'm missing old Japan
And a mountain in California where a spring runs hot and cold
And if I told you I felt ageless, would you tell me I'm not old?
As I go on
Wondering if I've got a soul andCounting down the hours 'till it goes
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