The End of Everything You Know Releases Lyrics Comments

Details

Author
Robyn Hitchcock, Emma Swift
Title Artist Label Type Year
Patreon 2020 Robyn Hitchcock Internet 2020

Comments

Notes from Robyn on Patreon in 2020.
I was asked to contribute a song for the movie JULIET, NAKED, and wound up writing a whole clutch: in the end the music supervisor chose "Sunday Never Comes", which Ethan Hawke sings so fetchingly in the film. This was way back in 2017, when the worst thing most people could imagine was 2016; writing these songs was, for me, a temporary way out of the Trump slump. This demo was recorded at Magnetic Studios by John Little, and feature the harmonies, percussion and keyboard of Mr Ryan Brewer, a key figure in the East Nashville Australian diaspora.

“The End of Everything You Know” is a co-write with Emma Swift: she started the song and I finished it. It seems to be a meditation on the inevitable collapse of everything, relationships especially. Yes, Harold - there is nod to David Bowie in there, which was not sanctioned by Ms Swift. Three years on, I’m happy to say Emma and I are still together - more so than ever since the quarantine began...

Lyrics

Two, three four

Ringing my bell on the edge of the cliff
When you gonna answer my call?
Ringing my bell, it's a single note riff
Baby I want you, baby I want you that's all

Banging my drum at the end of the line
Under a picture of you
Banging my drum, oh the pleasure is mine
Hear my ungodly tattoo, my ungodly tattoooooo

And doesn't it...
Feel like the end
Everything you know
Everything you know
And doesn't it...
Feel like the end
Everything you know
Everything you know

Cracking my shell on the side of your bowl
I'll be your omelet, my love
Cracking my shell for your lily white soul
Stir me till you've stirred me
Stir me till you've stirred me enough

But doesn't it...
Feel like the end
Everything you know
Everything you know
And doesn't it...
Feel like the end
Everything you know
Everything you know

Digging a hole in a piece of waste ground
Where I can bury your mail*
Digging a hole, it's so deep and profound
Why do relationships fail?
Why do they always, uh, fail?

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail oh yeah
Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail

See the sun pretend to shine
See the sun pretend to shine
See the sun pretend to shine

(* this could be "male" instead of "mail" given the subject is about a relationship, but it would be quite macabre if so!)