Songs
"A Life of Sundays", which was more of a rock music song than the rest of the album's tracks and contained a small part of Yellow Submarine, reached #15 on Billboard's Modern Rock singles chart.
"Islandman" anthropomorhpizes Great Britain and Ireland as the speaker describes locations from these places as parts of the (human) body. The lyrics offer some comments about the places that Scott had recently lived in the placements he chooses. "Scotland", he sings, "is my dreaming head / Ireland is my Heart", but "London sprawls across my rump".
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" is a traditional folk ballad, which, according to Nick Tosches, tells the story of a true 17th-century love affair. The song's appearance on Room to Roam popularized it, and it has since been recorded by other Irish-folk musicians, as well as by Carlos Núñez on Os Amores Libres in 1999 with Scott. The recording was also emblematic of the band's sound for Fisherman's Blues and Room to Roam, in the same fashion that the single The Big Music came to describe the group's sound for the first three albums. The official Waterboys website refers to The Waterboys during this period as the "Raggle Taggle band".
"How Long Will I Love You" was released as a single in Ireland. On the 7-inch and cassette versions of the single, an alternative version of "When Will We Be Married", a traditional song that had appeared on Fisherman's Blues was the B-side. On the 12-inch and compact disc releases of the single were also a Ray Charles song, "Come Live With Me". The song's lyrics are a simple proclamation of undying love from the speaker; "How long will I love you? / As long as stars are above you / and longer if I can".
"Spring Comes to Spiddal" is an oddity compared to other Waterboys songs. The song, which refers to Spiddal, where much of Fisherman's Blues and all of Room to Roam were recorded, is arranged in a style that is a blend of folk music and New Orleans-style marching band music. The lyrics are a straightforward description of the town's inhabitants enjoying the season of spring.
The words "Further up, further in" are spoken by the character Aslan in a book by Christian fantasist C.S. Lewis, one of Scott's sources of inspiration. The lyrics describe a Joseph Campbell-style "hero's journey" to meet a king. One verse of the song describes a classic image of The Fool from the tarot.
The lyrics for "Room to Roam" are found in the books Lilith and Phantastes by the Scottish fantasist George MacDonald.
Read more about this topic: Room To Roam
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.”
—Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960)