About a song: Diamond Sleeps Tonight (3)

January 30, 2008

Lyrical excerpt:

Paulina, will you please come and meet Geordine?
The drama of our deaths deserves a cool fanzine

Will you come and sleep with me?
Will you come and sweep with me?
Your imitation diamond
Will you come and sleep with me?

Paulina, your dress hides your ugly rage
Alligator obscene repulsive black tar cage

Will you come and sleep with me?
Will you come and creep with me?
Will you dissolve in your compromise?
Will you come and weep with me?

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I’ve always been a fan of using girl’s names in rock lyrics. I don’t know why.

But it somehow personalizes the song to me, even if it’s not my name. There are many examples of great rock songs with girl’s names in them. I am not saying this song is an addition to that, but I’m very happy with how the lyrics for this song came about.

The first part I had was the first verse. I knew it was a heavy and fast songs and I needed an equally weighty subject matter. From the first two lines, I wondered if this song was going to be about group suicide. It’s common in Japan — people who gather to end their own lives.
Obviously I have a strong opinion about it, and it is a very heavy subject — but nothing really sat well with me once I tried to explore that subject matter. It just seemed too deliberate, heavy-handed.

It took me good 2-3 years to find words that meant something to me. I had to sit and wait patiently for the images to string something together, instead of picking a meaning first and writing to deliver that message.

The end result is rather ambiguous. I still can’t make up my mind whether it’s the voice of god or devil speaking. Or maybe it changes mid-song. The “sleep with me” bit makes me feel rather uncomfortable — this person doesn’t seem like someone you’d want to sleep with. But yet, toward the end of the song it drives an almost uplifting point — mistaken, confused and manufactured identities, and an invitation to end it all.

To me, that ambiguity and contradictions are the charm of this lyrics. It’s a challenging piece, but so open to any interpretations. My own ideas of what these words mean to me keep evolving as I discover new nuances and perspectives. I do have my own idea of what it means, but my idea, even though I created it, isn’t any more valid than anybody else’s.

It’s definitely a puzzle, but there are as many answers as the number of people who want to find a meaning here. Dive in, put together your interpretation — and let me know what you come up with.

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Read the past entries on this topic: 1 2

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