all the go inbetweens

Stanley Roberts

English 4

Prof. Francis

6/11/2010

All the go inbetweens by: silver sun pickups

Hey man where can i go?
it's too late to find holes in the ocean i know
i said man stay here a while
i'll never find safety in numbers here on the mile

say man is this in the right?
i wanna heal cracks in the sidewalk and keep it alive
sat down on the ground and i laid my head down to see
i closed up my eyes as the numbers went by
and that's when i started this dream

son you're still young but your mind has grown old it
seems
now go tell your sister to show me her new magazines

said man sit for a while
son he said son how you've only begun on the mile

i've been to the moon and the stars and the go
inbetweens
go tell your sis to stop playing with new machines

tell them to keep things quiet

man stay here a while
son he said son how you've only begun on the mile...

All the go inbetweens is one of my favorite songs by the silversun pickups. I wanted to get to the bottom of the meaning of the lyrics. All their other song lyrics are easy to decipher and, I wanted a challenge. After hearing the lyrics I thought that the concept of the song was that the main character was working as a prostitute, and he couldn’t find any safety with the people he was working with. He asked this guy to stay with him and that didn’t happen. He went out on the mile to find somewhere safer, and he found a place. Another person appeared and asked him what he was doing. He made a smart remark “I wanna heal Cracks in the sidewalk and keep it alive.” The guy left him alone, and the main character laid down. He started to watch the people go by, and he started to dream about his father and his sister. His father was telling him while he was still young his mind was growing old. The main character’s father was saying that his son was maturing, so he put him out on the mile to make money for the family. In the lyrics the main character states that he’s been though a lot.
After reading the lyrics, what became clear to me was that the concept or meaning of the song was that the main character was actually a homeless guy, not a prostitute. He was remembering his old life with his family through a dream he had on the pavement where he slept. The lyrics are odd and short, but the song as a whole is long and sounds like a lullaby . I feel that the band made the song sound like a lullaby, because they wanted their fans to get the message complete and clear. From my own experience, when people hear slower tempo songs it takes a shorter time for them to understand the lyrics. I think what the band is trying to tell us in these lyrics, is that we all have been through things on the inside not just the homeless. Most of us keep things quiet. We keep our business to ourselves for a reason.
I chose this song because it is one of my favorites; this song puts me to sleep. What I actually got was a meaning I did not expect, but just like any other song or lyrics the artist puts it out there for you to figure your own meaning, or your own reason for listening to their music.