Very well. Not quite sure where to start about this song. It is a very powerful and 'spot-on' song from the master himself, Roger Waters. The song is track number 8 on his third solo album "Amused to death" from 1992. This album was the first Roger Waters album I 'discovered', and I fell in love. There are so many great songs, and the lyrics are priceless.
"Too much rope" is not as known as songs like "Amused to death", "Perfect sense" and "What God wants". That is a bit sad, because the song has a great lyric and I will recommand you all to listen to this song just one more time! When I was talking with my mom, I realized that I haven't heard this song in at least a year!
I have been thinking about the lyrics in this song for a very long time, but I can't seem to figure it all out! There is just so much! So I think I'll just jump to it, and feel free to comment if you think that I am wrong, cause this is mostly my own thoughts.
"Each man has his price Bob. And yours was pretty low". The first thing I thought about, was 'who is Bob?'. It came to me qute fast. It might just be Bob Ezrin, the music producer. He has been co-producing albums like "The Wall", "The division bell" and "A momentary lapse of reason". What did he do that made Roger put in a line in the song about him, in a negative way? Well, there were some problems between these two men when Roger left the band and didn't want the others to still be using the name Pink Floyd and continuing to produce, what Roger think is, false Floyd. Roger felt that Bob was betraying him, since he was up for still produce the albums after Roger left. Fair enough, he was a angry man at this point, and he didn't want Pink Floyd to continue as a band, so when someone like Bob wanted the band to keep up, and mostly because of the money... It's not good!
Bob Ezrin
Lines like "The poor man sells his kidneys, in some colonial bazar", Is that your new Ferrari car" and "Closer to the gold" has to be about money and that there are so many desperate people who wants all the money in the world, even if they have to sell their own body parts. I think that it also is about showing how much money a person have. It's a silent competition about having most money and the most expencive things. But money is often the root of a problem, and there are people and/or countries who use loads of money to buy the most powerful machines and weapons. You can easily see the link of how negative money abuse can be.
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He is also singing about different religions, and I am not sure, but he put's it in a way that make me think that he see religions as a joke. That religions separate and control us. Roger is almost mocking humans. I am trying to read between the lines and it is clear that we are intelligent, but maybe too intelligent for our own good. The intelligece is not always used in a good way, and there I see the link to wars. He did loose his father in the war, and the album "Amused to death" is dedicatet to a solider who fought in WWI, William "Bill" Hubbard. He was badly hurt in the battlefield, and there were a fellow solider who were trying to help him, but he was forced to abandon him. The voice of this solider, Alfred Razzel, can be heard in some of the songs on the album. So because of that, I am quite sure that the song is about wars and Rogers point of view about war. Who can blame him though?
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"Give any species too much rope, and they'll fuck it up". Here we can again look at the fact that he might be mocking again. I find this line myself very spot-on. "Too much rope" might be a comparing to the intelligence of humans, and that we have too much of it, and are unable to use it in a good way. Maybe he think that humans are developing into a wrong and scary direction where we are unable to show feeling and it is all about money, religions and war.
Well, that was unfortunaly all I could come up with today, but I'll keep trying to figure out a little more about the song, and if I get some eye-opneners, I'll put it in as well.
Just to have it said, this is just my own thoughs and how I think it can be, but it might be all wrong. I had to give it a go!
As usual, I'll put in the lyrics and a video of the song, and I will recommand that you read trough the lyrics, and if you have anything you'll think I could put in, please leave a comment!
When the sleigh is heavy
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at you companions
And test the water of their friendship
With your toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun is just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tender TV
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn in our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And the timber wolves are getting bold
You look at you companions
And test the water of their friendship
With your toe
They significantly edge
Closer to the gold
Each man has his price Bob
And yours was pretty low
History is short the sun is just a minor star
The poor man sells his kidneys
In some colonial bazaar
Que sera sera
Is that your new Ferrari car
Nice but I think I'll wait for the F50
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
And last night on TV
A Vietnam vet
Takes his beard and his pain
And his alienation twenty years
Back to Asia again
Sees the monsters they made
In formaldehyde floating 'round
Meets a gook on a bike
A good little tyke
A nice enough guy
With the same soldier's eyes
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
That it moves me so much
Why all the fuss
It's only two humans being
It's only two humans being
Tears burn my eyes
What does it mean
This tender TV
This tearjerking scene
Beamed into my home
You don't have to be a Jew
To disapprove of murder
Tears burn in our eyes
Moslem or Christian Mullah or Pope
Preacher or poet who was it wrote
Give any one species too much rope
And they'll fuck it up
I know this is over 10 years old, but I stumbled across it and figured I'd add some info for others who stumble across it because this is song is one of my favorites and the lyrics are a masterpiece in my opinion.
SvarSlettSo, first, I had the same thought that first time I heard the line, "Each man has his price, Bob, and yours was pretty low." I wondered, "What Bob is here talking to? It can't be Geldof…" The internet was just in its infancy at the time so it was one of those questions we gen X'ers/older millennials filed away only for it to resurface some day when the answer would literally be at our fingertips. It is indeed Bob Ezrin, however, Roger said in an interview that it wasn't initially. Basically, when Roger records, he usually riffs a lot of the lyrics on the spot. He takes it wherever it goes and sorts out what works. He said that, at the time, he was going through a Bob Dylan phase where he was toying around with some Dylanesque sounds, so Bob Dylan was on his mind while riffing and he just spoke the line, inserting the name Bob but without anything in particular in mind. When going back over it, he realized that it actually applied to Ezrin and so he decided to keep it in.
As for the religion angle, it's a complicated answer. One that actually took me years to really understand. It took my own life experiences as an adult and some revelations about the world we live in to realize that it's not a critique on God. It's not even necessarily about religion itself, technically, but what many people do with religion. That's part of the theme of the whole album. "What God wants God gets, God help us all." People make a wide and often contradictory range of things they claim God wants. That's why the lists of things "God" wants are rather pedestrian and contradictory. They're filled with things that people want. Usually the worst kinds of people. Like, "God wants peace, God wants war." In "What God Wants, Part II," he lists a bunch of currencies for obvious reasons. The point is to illustrate how ridiculous the notion is. To point out what should be obvious: God doesn't want these things, people do. They just use God to get them. And the most salient point, I think, is that, because they claim God wants it, the world gives it to them. Or at least tolerates what they do to get it. Put in a more Biblical sense, he's criticizing people who "take The Lord's name in vain." Which of course is using the name of God to further personal ends.
Lastly, I just want to acknowledge how important (and ahead of its time) the primary overarching theme of the album is. Describing humanity as "amusing itself to death" is a masterful stroke by Roger and evidence of what makes him one of the greatest lyricists alive. He paints masterpieces with the English language as his palette. I also love the use of "too much rope." Usually, the idea is that of giving someone "enough rope to hang themselves." But Roger somehow makes it more insulting to the overall stupidity and ineptness of our species by saying "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up." I'm not sure if it's intentional, but there's almost an implication that we're so inept that we'd even fuck up hanging ourselves. Amusing ourselves to death is about how we've just normalized slaughtering each other to the degree that people literally sit and watch the war on tv. News outlets use death to draw views and push propaganda that rationalizes the slaughter, each side painting themselves as the "good" guys. It's a side note, but it's a good example of this kind of conditioning, but when Donald Trump had a town hall on CNN a couple years ago, Caitlynn (or however she spells it, I don't care,) Collins asked "Do you want Ukraine to win this war?" I was stunned. I even shouted at the television, "No one wins in war, dumbass!"
SvarSlettSo, yeah, I think ATD is such an important album that everyone should listen to. And he's commenting on a few points that are also why I happen to believe ANY AI with superhuman intelligence is a bad idea, no matter how benevolent we program the AI or force it to be. It'll still be bad for us, because WE are the "baddies." Any super intelligent AI will inescapably realize, at some point, that the planet, even the universe, would be better without us in it. At least that's true until we evolve. So, until that time, we should hold off.