nine while nine

Got any interesting thoughts on a set of lyrics? Any that don't involve the word "indeed"? Find yourself struggling to decipher all those obtuse references Von makes? Read "1959 And All That" and still no clearer? Nope, us neither. Postcards found lying in a skip around the back of the Chemists can be found here... Don't say you weren't warned.
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paint it black
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No drugs in nwn. You're obsessed. Lmao
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eastmidswhizzkid
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speaking as someone who has been from time to time drug-obsessed there is a definite tendency by those who haven't been to see drug references where there are none.
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
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lordofthepies
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So as someone who has been from time to time drug-obsessed would you say that he was actually writing about waiting for a train that didn't arrive?
He should have double checked the time-table. Wonder what he did in the end, maybe caught a bus or just hoofed it and saved the fare money for more drugs.
I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me.
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paint it black
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lordofthepies wrote:I always thought "waiting for the train" was a metaphor for waiting for the rush from whatever drug one had built up a tolerance to, hence "waiting in vain"

There's a mention of drug inertia in reference to Nine while Nine in this Interview from '87 http://www.spookhouse.net/tsom/mastersvoice.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAshOzRGrBw
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million voices
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Speaking as someone who has been from time to time train obsessed there is a definite tendency by those who haven't been to see train references where there are none.
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'Cos we're dying of admiration here
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stufarq
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eastmidswhizzkid wrote:read it again..he speaks to von about 9 whiile 9 but only uses the words "drug-inertia" in describing to us the track he is talking to von about... it's not necessarily so that he used the words "drug-inertia" to describe 9 while 9 to von. :wink: hehe ...this is the sort of bollocks that the lyrics section is traditionally full of. indeed... :lol:
The song he's talking about is very specifically Nine While Nine:
that article wrote:What are your writing impulses now? Considering that you've cleaned up and look fit(ter) and happy, can we really expect the traumatised emotional blackmail of "Marian" or the vicious drug inertia of "Nine While Nine"?
Personally I don't see the drug references either and have always assumed it's about the breakup with Claire (especially in light of what Von later said about Driven Like the Snow), but the interviewer does use the drug inertia quote directly about NWN in a question to Von, who doesn't correct him.
Any more of that and we'll be round your front door with the quick-setting whitewash and the shaved monkey.
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My mate lived with Claire. We all liked pie
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It wasn't Claire, it was Josie.
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paint it black
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mh wrote:It wasn't Claire, it was Josie.
Josie liked pie too !
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eastmidswhizzkid
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lordofthepies wrote:So as someone who has been from time to time drug-obsessed would you say that he was actually writing about waiting for a train that didn't arrive?
He should have double checked the time-table. Wonder what he did in the end, maybe caught a bus or just hoofed it and saved the fare money for more drugs.
who says the train doesnt arrive? he says he is waiting for a train, and at another point he says he is waiting in vain...i dont think there is any indication that the two waits are indeed one, although they could well be simultaneous. and since when did trains run to timetables? indeed, since when did train timetables have unforseeable delays foreseen and accounted for?
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
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eastmidswhizzkid
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stufarq wrote:
eastmidswhizzkid wrote:read it again..he speaks to von about 9 whiile 9 but only uses the words "drug-inertia" in describing to us the track he is talking to von about... it's not necessarily so that he used the words "drug-inertia" to describe 9 while 9 to von. :wink: hehe ...this is the sort of bollocks that the lyrics section is traditionally full of. indeed... :lol:
The song he's talking about is very specifically Nine While Nine:
i know...
stufarq wrote:
that article wrote:What are your writing impulses now? Considering that you've cleaned up and look fit(ter) and happy, can we really expect the traumatised emotional blackmail of "Marian" or the vicious drug inertia of "Nine While Nine"?
..... the interviewer does use the drug inertia quote directly about NWN in a question to Von, who doesn't correct him.
point conceeded.
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
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kafka
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I was killing time, reading over this thread. If we take the interview at its word - that Nine While Nine is indeed about drug inertia - well, "train" is slang for heroin. Makes me almost wonder if the entire song isn't about coming down, and its symptoms.

I know, it could be a stretch and it's easy to go down the rabbit hole. But here are some of the drug terms that feature in the lyric:

train - heroin
line - cocaine
snow - Cocaine; heroin; amphetamine - driven snow = pure
cigarettes - cigarettes ;)
window pane - LSD; crack cocaine

And then of course there's Driven like the Snow - have to wonder whether all that "mist" is coming out of the end of a glass pipe ...
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kafka wrote:"train" is slang for heroin.
Not one that I've heard before
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eastmidswhizzkid
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i think you may be mistaken about "train" meaning heroin, certainly i have never ever heard it called that. the term "train-spotting" as in the film of the same name (which is famously about a group of heroin addicts) refers to the "track-marks" or scars/scabs on someones arm who has been taking drugs intravenously, rather than to the drug itself. the sisters song "train" is definitely about speed/amphetamine, and, i suspect, the dubious practice of injecting said drug ("mainline" - more train terminology- is also very old slang for injecting any drug.)

kudos for knowing that window-panes are a type of LSD preparation-aren't they the best? 8)
Well I was handsome and I was strong
And I knew the words to every song.
"Did my singing please you?"
"No! The words you sang were wrong!"
:bat:
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kafka
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Fair enough - I was just going from what I found on http://www.noslang.com/drugs/dictionary/t/ ... (from which, too (I'm afraid), I found the window pane reference!

p.s. FWIW, according to wikipedia "Irvine Welsh himself has explained in a Q&A that the title is also a reference to people thinking that the hobby of trainspotting makes no sense to non-participants. Likewise, the same applies to heroin addiction: to non-addicts the act seems completely pointless whereas, to someone hooked on heroin, it makes absolute sense."
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kafka
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And obviously it's REALLY all a reference to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CdmUC3pQbY
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Hi. Great discussion. NWN is my favourite song of all time! Driven like the snow is in my top 5. That says something about me I guess...

For me NWN is simply about loss. Does not really matter what one is loosing. The beauty of NWN is that it can be (and is) about any type of loss (love, youth, high, hope, self, time, life...).

THAT universality, imo, is what makes NWN such a bloody fantastic song.
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dardling
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Has anyone read Zwischen neun und neun by Leo Perutz? I haven't and I read german so slowly that I will gladly skip it if is of no interest.
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Being645
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dardling wrote: ↑17 Jan 2022, 19:58 Has anyone read Zwischen neun und neun by Leo Perutz? I haven't and I read german so slowly that I will gladly skip it if is of no interest.
There's some info in English on it here ....
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dardling
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Ach was! I ask again, has anyone read it?
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dardling
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I'll give my opinion as soon as I have gotten hold of it and read it. I have other books to finish first, so don't hold your breath!
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dardling
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The state swischen neun und neund/nine while nine is complex. Is it a time of twelve seconds or twelve hours? Is the person experiecing it unsure or convinced about this when he is on a desperate chase to make a trainride possible (that he (in vain) thinks will save a relationship with a woman) or is everything already over?

The book is not the key to Nine while nine, and/since no such key exist for any lyrics by Andrew Eldritch (no s**t Sherlock). But the book ads a facet of understanding of the lyrics. As does the lyrics to Train when it comes to ”waiting for the train”.

The book’s story is fun and absurd. The use of imagery from it ads a nuance of unpleasant uncertainty as we don’t know the limits of what the narrator is ready to do to save the relationship. Is he armed and dangerous or is he tied up and prevented from acting rationally? Is he only looking for what he thinks the woman wants? Is he trying to hold on to a relationship, sanity or life? Even if we don’t know this, all outcomes seem to end with failure or disaster.

All this in only a few lines of the lyrics. Pure Eldritch!
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