Warren wanted a Beach Boys thing for this one, and Carl Wilson and Billy Hinsche came in, with Carl arranging the vocal parts. The other harmony vocalists (credited as the "Gentlemen Boys") were Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, Zevon's longtime backers Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Linda Rondstadt/Stone Poneys guitarist Kenny Edwards.
Kaisarion, A Prophecy Told
We're Building Our Empire
From The Ashes Of An Old
Kaisarion, The Fruit Of The Womb
Our Brotherhood Of Good Faith
Sealed An Apostate Witch's Doom
It's The Sound Of Another Deadline
Whistling Past Your Ears
It's The Sight Of A Million
Regrets Mounting Over Years
It's The Words That Were Never Spoken
That Echoes Through The Times
It's The Smell Of The Burning Temples
Swept Away By Rhymes
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
Kaisarion, A Matter Of Love
When Mother Earth Is Calling
For A Father Up Above
Kaisarion, Put On The Smiles
And Throw Your Holy Rocks Right
At Her For Her Satanic Wiles
It's The Truth Of Candor Shone
Through The Prism Of Deceit
It's The Continence Of Bishops
With Their Choirboys En-Suite
It's The Tongue Selling Adulation
That Licks To No Avail
It's The Noise Of The Righteous Dogma
That Hides The Handmaid's Tail
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
It's The Sound Of Another Deadline
Whistling Past Your Ears
It's The Sight Of A Million Regrets
Mounting Over Years
It's The Words That Were Never Spoken
That Echoes Through The Times
It's The Smell Of The Burning Temples
Swept Away By Rhymes
It's The Truth Of Candor Shone Through
The Prism Of Deceit
It's The Continence Of Bishops
With Their Choirboys En-Suite
It's The Tongue Selling Adulation
That Licks To No Avail
It's The Noise Of The Righteous Dogma
That Hides The Handmaid's Tail
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
We're Building Our Empire
From The Ashes Of An Old
Kaisarion, The Fruit Of The Womb
Our Brotherhood Of Good Faith
Sealed An Apostate Witch's Doom
It's The Sound Of Another Deadline
Whistling Past Your Ears
It's The Sight Of A Million
Regrets Mounting Over Years
It's The Words That Were Never Spoken
That Echoes Through The Times
It's The Smell Of The Burning Temples
Swept Away By Rhymes
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
Kaisarion, A Matter Of Love
When Mother Earth Is Calling
For A Father Up Above
Kaisarion, Put On The Smiles
And Throw Your Holy Rocks Right
At Her For Her Satanic Wiles
It's The Truth Of Candor Shone
Through The Prism Of Deceit
It's The Continence Of Bishops
With Their Choirboys En-Suite
It's The Tongue Selling Adulation
That Licks To No Avail
It's The Noise Of The Righteous Dogma
That Hides The Handmaid's Tail
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
It's The Sound Of Another Deadline
Whistling Past Your Ears
It's The Sight Of A Million Regrets
Mounting Over Years
It's The Words That Were Never Spoken
That Echoes Through The Times
It's The Smell Of The Burning Temples
Swept Away By Rhymes
It's The Truth Of Candor Shone Through
The Prism Of Deceit
It's The Continence Of Bishops
With Their Choirboys En-Suite
It's The Tongue Selling Adulation
That Licks To No Avail
It's The Noise Of The Righteous Dogma
That Hides The Handmaid's Tail
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
(Hypatia)
Far Away From The Stench Of The Heavens
(Hypatia)
Long Ago, Yet Too Close To Forever
(Hypatia)
When A Paradise Is Lost
Go Straight To...
Lyrics submitted by EternalTearsOfSorrow
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Spirit Within
Bertoldi Brothers
Bertoldi Brothers
Show Me a Little Shame
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
He certainly did earn that reputation.
Grand Theft Auto
Insane Ian
Insane Ian
The way this song speaks to me🥺🥺when I sing it I feel like I relate
Step
Ministry
Ministry
Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
The band’s mastermind of many faces Tobias Forge was recently interviewed for a cover story newly published over at Kerrang!. In it, he discussed the inspiration for “Kaisarion“:\n\n“There was a building called Caesareum in ancient Alexandria. Roughly what happened was that the teacher and philosopher, Hypatia, was murdered by Christians. She was molested and murdered inside the building, because of her pagan beliefs, because she was a believer in science and real things. This was in the beginning stages of Christianity, when it was just an insane cult, before it got the mandate of a book put together by Romans in 325 to harness that shit.\n\nThis was like an underground group of terrorists, basically, who couldn’t stand to see some female smartass preaching or telling people that the world wasn’t flat. And it didn’t happen at the same time, but they also burned down the big library in Alexandria, which must have been an enormous, enormous loss for mankind in terms of knowledge and historic accounts. There you go – for the greater good.\n\nI think that’s a nice symbol for what you can see now. You can see likenesses of it in public book burnings and stoning and killing everything that doesn’t match with a sort of a flat Earth reality that some people live in. Or storming the Capitol and wanting to hang people. It’s a symbol for those sorts of movements that are always targeting smartness and enlightenment, and thinking.”