Someone Saved My Life Tonight Lyrics
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
And it's one more beer and I don't hear you anymore
We've all gone crazy lately
My friends out there rolling round the basement floor
You almost had your hooks in me didn't you dear
You nearly had me roped and tied
Altar-bound, hypnotized
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You're a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams
I'm strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen
It's four o'clock in the morning
Damn it listen to me good
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive
into the deep end of the river
Clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever
They're coming in the morning with a truck
to take me home
Someone saved my life tonight,
someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight,
someone saved my life tonight
Someone saved my life tonight
So save your strength and run the field you play alone
From Wikipedia:
Taupin's lyric refers to the time in 1969, before John was a popular musician, when Elton was considering marriage to his girlfriend, Linda Woodrow. Elton and Linda were sharing a flat with Bernie on Furlong Road in London’s East End, hence the opening line “When I think of those East End lights.” While having serious doubts about the looming marriage, John contemplated suicide. He took refuge in his friends, especially Long John Baldry, who convinced Elton to abandon his plans to marry in order to salvage and maintain his musical career. As a sign of his respect and gratitude for Baldry, Taupin wrote him into the song as the "someone" in the title.
I lvoe the imagery of this song. its very dark, but at the same time very pretty and beautiful.
People always mention Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" as being one of the most hateful outpourings commited to record, but I think this ranks up there with that. This is a really nasty lyric targeted at a woman Elton was due to marry. A close friend, the "Sugar Bear" of the song, convinced him not to. Despite it's cutting harshness, the song maintains optimism and beauty. I am especially taken with the line about the woman being a "slip noose in his darkest dreams." This is some of the darkest imagery I have ever heard, and it conveys his feelings perfectly.
All I know is that when my son was a baby, NOTHING calmed his colic but when I played Elton John songs and danced slowly with him, his colic calmed. Elton John is an amazing artist that can never be compared...
All I know is that when my son was a baby, NOTHING calmed his colic but when I played Elton John songs and danced slowly with him, his colic calmed. Elton John is an amazing artist that can never be compared...
When he went on to marry Renata Blauel on Valentines Day 1984, I was very surprised that the newspapers didn't headline with "No-one Saved His Life Last Night" the morning after the marriage. Fancy The Sun missing that one ! Anyway, great song, love the way it builds, and I think we can all identify with the line "thank God my music's still alive".
hey motorbar:
i have a stupid question: "HP Demands" -- ?? (Taxes?) I just don't know what that refers to. thanks.....
no such thing as a stupid question! HP stands for Hire Purchase. see an explanation of that here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hire_purchase.
basically it's like a layaway plan. in the moldy goldy oldy days in the UK, when people mostly didn't buy things they can afford, this was a crude form of buying stuff on credit before there were credit cards. while these days you own whatever you buy with a credit card and pay the dough back to your back, HP meant you had possession and use of the item without ownership. sorry to be so boring about it, i'm actually feeling quite nostalgic for Olde Englande.
in this gorgeous song i love the juxtaposition of "stocks and bonds" and "HP demands". stocks and bonds in those days were the trappings of wealth and privilege, while HP was a solidly working class option. in the context of the rest of the song this paints a picture of a low class woman with pretensions of upward mobility. poor ol Reg just wanted to make music, and saw his future life with her as driven by a particular kind of material slavery: that desperate and never-ending pursuit of possessions that some underprivileged people are sometimes victim to.
i just love those two lines. they say it all.
...and then he became a complete homosexual! (from comments below)
Elton John is one of my favorites, and this song in particular. I enjoy it more for the melodic range than anything else. The lyrics do account for a fabulous composition all around.
One of the great things about this song is how the chorus continues to reach for musical resolution reflecting the difficulty of the decission he had to make, Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics but Elton John ,as always, gave them life with the clever musical drama.
'Sugar Bear' was actually not his songwriter, but a fellow by the name of John Baldry, who was the one to convince not to marry.
Prophet... no. Don't soil Jesus. Don't make stuff up.
motorbar I think the H.P. means "High Price", just my opinion. I LOVE the this song's lyrics!
H.P. stands for House of Parliament. H.P. demands are equivalent to federal taxes in the U.S. 'Clinging to your stocks and Bonds, paying your H.P. demands forever...' Really, nobody could figure that out?
H.P. stands for House of Parliament. H.P. demands are equivalent to federal taxes in the U.S. 'Clinging to your stocks and Bonds, paying your H.P. demands forever...' Really, nobody could figure that out?
@moongirl57s I'm pretty sure H.P. referred to "Hire-Payment", a scheme popular in England whereby a customer agrees to a contract to acquire an asset by paying an initial installment (e.g. 40% of the total) and repays the balance of the price of the asset plus interest over a period of time.
@moongirl57s I'm pretty sure H.P. referred to "Hire-Payment", a scheme popular in England whereby a customer agrees to a contract to acquire an asset by paying an initial installment (e.g. 40% of the total) and repays the balance of the price of the asset plus interest over a period of time.