And No More Shall We Part

I thoroughly agree with mackka on this one - where they hell are you guys getting murder, much less murder suicide. It seems murder ballads has done it's damage, but lets be fair here - nick's been killing chicks in songs long before murder ballads - 6" Gold Blade comes to mind - Your Funeral, My Trial - hell he even covered Hey Joe. Granted he's written more plain old murder ballads before Murder Ballads, but there's been some ladies in there too.

But i digress....

To me this song seems like a negative take on marriage as a whole - similar to what appars66 is saying. Look at the language he's using. "Locked upon this finger" "contracts are drawn up" "hatchets are buried" - perhaps its him hoping to trap her and never feel lonely again - but someone who's stoked about marriage certainly isn't going to talk about it in such a way.

Even the phrase No more shall we part itself almost seems like a prison sentence. Who wants that? No one in there right mind anyway. To never part from someone is either the wish of a seriously maladjusted individual or someone who's trying to point out a significant flaw in either marriage or simply just monogamy itself.

I think this guy regrets this decision - whether he felt it was ever a good idea or not, i'm not sure, but he's certainly not happy with it now.

Nick's always petitioning god for no good reason - hell this albums full of it, so i don't know that there's anything overly significant about that bit, but maybe i'm wrong - i usually am. Either way, this song is not the love song it would cleverly disguise itself as.

He killed her and himself

I'm not sure about him killing himself... but he definitely knocks her off. It wouldn't be out of place on 'Murder Ballads'.

This song has always reminded me of the Robert Browning poem 'Porphyria's Lover'. It's about a Lady (like Lord) who visits the gardener (or servant or local hand or whatever) for some lurve (Lady Chatterley's Lover kinda thang). Anyway he's pissed right off cos he wants her all to himself and so, when she is in her arms, he strangles her with her own hair ('That moment she was mine, mine, fair,/Perfectly pure and good: I found/A thing to do, and all her hair/In one long yellow string I wound/Three times her little throat around,/And strangled her'). He then sits with her all night, with vague connotations that he's been indulging in some death-sex ('And thus we sit together now,/And all night long we have not stirr'd,/And yet God has not said a word!').

Mind you that's well off the point; just a cool poem. I don't see how he kills himself. The birds are singing 'to your beautiful heart'; not 'our beautiful hearts'.

In this song God does have something to say about it (unlike in Porphyria). However, God's lines are implied as we only hear the (clearly insane) narrator. The conversation probably goes something like this

God: Nick ol' son... what in the name of FUCK have you just done?

Nick: Chill out man. Don't go off on one. I had to do it cos I never was free.

God: You stupid little prick. What the fuck are you talking about. You were always free. I fuckin gave you free will and look what you've done with it. ASSHOLE!!! Listen I know the missus was a bit of a nag, and ok yeah it did look like she was about to leave you, but to silence her 'chain of command'... what are you sick?

Nick: Whoaoa. Dude... this is when I need you most. Don't go down now. I was never free. What are you talking about?

The narrator thinks that by 'lock'ing the 'ring upon the finger' he will be able to stop his wife's independent thought. The only way he can 'lock' it on is by removing her ability to take it off. So he kills her.

I agree with mackka and StickityWicket - there's absolutely nothing about murder or suicide here.

At one of his concerts, Nick introduced this as 'the wedding song'.

Frankly, as a non-native english speaker, I always thought it a bit different. The protagonist of this song had a very troubled relationship with that woman, but now, when they're getting married, it could all be good. At least, he hopes it and hopes that the marriage will save it.

At the very begining it seems like a love song, he found a woman of his life ("the ring is locked upon the finger" - marriage, he will no longer be alone...) But then again... what's with the "And no more shall we part Your chain of command has been silenced now..."? And why is he saying that he's not free? On what kind of freedom is he refering to?

Please! Someone! :)

This isn't Join Me in death, nobody gets whacked, wouldn't you consider other one's death as parting?

I think the chain of command is saying her family has been silenced now. They are their own family. That is just my take.

Whoa, a lot of craaaazy theories going about, here. I think it's a lot simpler than that. It doesn't mention killing or anything like that in the lyrics, but there is definitely a bit of reading between the lines, there.

I think the insistance on him not being alone and them never parting is key: it's about a marriage of convenience. He's had a lot of relationships going awry and there's the sense of desperation: hence "the ring is LOCKED upon the finger". Even though there's no real emotion in the relationship, he thinks if he gets married he'll never have to deal with the pain of heartbreak.

The ending refers to the flipside that becomes apparent: far from freeing himself from heartbreak and risk, he's trapped himself in an unhappy relationship with someone he doesn't really love. The line "I never was free- what are you talking about?" refers to his denial- in his time as a bachelor he saw it as a curse that trapped him as being alone.

That's the literal interpretation, anyway. I think there's another level going on that I won't get into 'coz I can't work it out but there's more to the "lord" bit than just an unhappy marriage?

How on earth do you get a murder-suicide from that? This whole album's about last chances. The bloke's dropped the ball and he's hoping and praying that he doesn't do it again and promising somebody that he won't. There's something that's been dragging him away from the one he loves and in this song he's promising that it'll never do that again. Knowing Nick's history you'd have to think its about getting into drugs or booze again. The 'free' in that case would be freedom from addictions. I think Murder Ballads has done some serious damage to the way people interpret his songs.