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Forum Name: Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose
Topic ID: 525
#0, sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by Gryphon on Feb-23-18 at 08:21 PM
[OK, so, I'm an atheist, and this is pretty much a straight-up gospel song, and you know what, I don't even care. It's amazing.]

Well the moon is broken and the sky is cracked
Come on up to the house
The only things that you can see is all that you lack
Come on up to the house
All your cryin' don't do no good
Come on up to the house
Well come down off the cross, we can use the wood
You gotta come on up to the house

Come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I'm just a-passin' through
You got to come on up to the house

There's no light in the tunnel, no irons in the fire
Come on up to the house
And you're singin' lead soprano in a junkman's choir
You got to come on up to the house
Doesn't life seem nasty, brutish, and short?
Come on up to the house
The seas are stormy and you can't find no port
You got to come on up to the house, yeah

You gotta come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I'm just a-passin' through
You got to come on up to the house, yeah

You gotta come on up to the house
Come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I'm just a-passin' through
You got to come on up to the house

There's nothin' in the world that you can do
You gotta come on up to the house
And you been whipped by the forces that are inside you
Gotta come on up to the house
Well you're high on top of your mountain of woe
Gotta come on up to the house
Well you know you should surrender but you can't let it go
You gotta come up on to the house, yeah

Gotta come on up to the house
Gotta come on up to the house
The world is not my home
I'm just a-passin' through
You gotta come on up to the house
Gotta come on up to the house
You gotta come on up to the house
Oh yeah

- Tom Waits
"Come On Up to the House"
Mule Variations (1999)

[I'm not entirely sure—the message is maddeningly ambiguous—but I think Mr. Waits would like us to come on up to the house.]

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by StClair on Feb-25-18 at 00:12 AM
In response to message #0
... meh. sorry, perhaps the whole performance is awesome, but just from the lyrics, I can't get with the message/assertion that none of this really matters, or is worth trying to make better, because it's just a temporary stop on the way to eternity.

Heck, even if that's literally so, how is it really any different from the assertion/excuse that there's no point in cleaning something up when it's just going to get dirty again? Didn't I read somewhere, maybe in some book, that that kind of downright laziness is considered a sin in some parts?


#2, RE: sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by Gryphon on Feb-25-18 at 00:49 AM
In response to message #1
>... meh. sorry, perhaps the whole performance is awesome, but just
>from the lyrics, I can't get with the message/assertion that none of
>this really matters, or is worth trying to make better, because it's
>just a temporary stop on the way to eternity.

Hm. That's not the feel I got from it; rather, it appeared to me the message was "this all seems like it's pretty much hopeless and pointless unless you come on up to the house."

(shrug)

I'm hardly an expert, but I've always vaguely thought the 20th-century gospel message was pretty self-improvement-y. The whole "complete dismissal of this life in favor of the next" thing reads more medieval/early-modern to me.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#3, RE: sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by StClair on Feb-25-18 at 01:36 AM
In response to message #2
LAST EDITED ON Feb-25-18 AT 01:37 AM (EST)
 
"the house" being the church, where you can get on the right side of God and find decent people to endure/wait out the next few decades with, like friendly strangers in a bus station; until you can finally shake the dirt of this worthless world off your feet and get on to your real reward, your real existence...

again, meh. but that's my reading. *shrug*


#4, RE: sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by Gryphon on Feb-25-18 at 01:40 AM
In response to message #3
>"the house" being the church, where you can get on the right side of
>God and find decent people to endure/wait out the next few decades
>with, like friendly strangers in a bus station; until you can
>finally shake the dirt of this worthless world off your feet
>and get on to your real reward, your real existence...
>
>again, meh. but that's my reading. *shrug*

Well, yes, it's just that I think that reading is a bit more St. Augustine than 20th-century Southern gospel (which is more along the lines of "find Jesus and get your shit together").

I mean, it's all much of a muchness to me, I prefer to interpret the chorus as a curling metaphor.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#5, RE: sotd, 2018.02.23
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Feb-25-18 at 01:01 PM
In response to message #0
Heh. I am NOT about to poke the 'what does all this mean' in the one sense...

I just can wait to see who comes up to the Lake house to visit either HTT or Corwin and Co.

:p