#cornerstone ep

Cornerstone EP lyric question! Okay. 

There’s a lot of weird things in here, proving once again that Alex Turner was absolutely not as innocent as people pretended he was in 2009. I think again, it’s an observation of a situation he has found himself in. A strange place, somewhere a little bit new for him - the beginning of the years they spent in exclusive parties and bars and VIP lounges. They spent the night there, observing a girl who dances in their laps and they feast on her. Although Alex declares he needs a breather, or a minute to leave. I think this is his first observation of the beginning of his time spent in exclusive clubs, with heavy drinks and pretty girls and ummm well “ drowned bags of sugar in the night.” Hahaha. Which in itself is a contrast to AM’s No. 1 Party Anthem, which can essentially be the same song, the same theme, just differently phrased. He knows his way around the block by the time he gets to that song, right? He’s not as shocked by the way a woman looks when she’s strutting on a pole, I guess. I digress! Sorry.

I like the last lines of the first verse so fucking much: 

I am the truth’s true truant, I can feign excitementFluently as solid as I can busk shockWith well-presented merriment and I know all too wellI shouldn’t break the key off in the lock

He can pretend/hide he’s not excited as well as he can perform. Busk means to perform, and he’s saying that he’s a good actor - he can look cool, aloof, excited, or bored, in any situation. The truth’s true truant, meaning he can abandon the truth when he has to. Some websites will tell you this line ”I shouldn’t break the key off in the lock.” means he knows he can’t get a girl pregnant - I don’t think Alex is that crass, so I will not agree with that until I can ask him myself, haha. But I think it could mean something similar - he knows not to let things go too far… He knows not to get stuck in a room, trapped, somehow. He knows he needs to escape.

And the tumble splits the frayRevealing silk can fitIn the fright lined dining roomThrow a gaze towards them while they feast

This to me is just his observation of the way the stripper/dancer is like, being feasted on by the guys around them. I feel like in some way this song details their weird time in the desert-era-days (i made that up), where they were kind of bored throughout the week (”The days drag their heels when you’re not there to crack the whip”/”And the weeks wait to burst like a sachet of brats”) but sort of come alive at night in this weird, trippy place they’ve found themselves.

Listen to how the song is a little bit dancey and kind of upbeat in the beginning and then by the end gets a little more dreamy/spacey. I think that’s part of the message. He’s describing an event in his life where he was in one place, and then stuck in another. Sometimes I wonder if the strip club thing was just a dream for him. He can’t sleep, and when he does, he has weird dreams about lap dances. I am reaching, but the song like almost every song on Humbug has the ‘dream’ element to it where it doesn’t feel real. He’s capturing something that seems a little bit out of place. 

The third verse, despite the first line (is it a coke reference?), is again about his insomnia. “I scribbled over dribble, you were snoring/showing off.” His girlfriend (I assume) was asleep, he couldn’t sleep, he was jealous. Also: “rocketing shutter doors despite the shop not opening for hours” indicates the doors being opened (awake?) despite not being opened for hours, which means it was probably the middle of the night. Alex was restless. Again.

There’s just so much in this damn song I can’t even like, comprehend the level of complexity. He’s really attempting to mask whatever it is he’s actually doing. At the time, he had less eyes looking into the meaning of every word he wrote. I think some of this is just lines he strung together that sounded so good he couldn’t get rid of them. I love how arrogant he sounds, the cockiness of the first to verses. He’s so… He was just as much of a rock star back then as he is now. It just takes a minute to really find it. Remember, during the time of Humbug they were hanging out with Josh Homme a lot, and his crew, and obviously that runs a little bit on mystery, and desert, and weirdness. 

Whether or not Alex is actually doing the things in this song is not exactly clear, either. What I find interesting about Alex is that he is an observer of behavior and will write lyrics based on what he sees. So in theory it could be just him taking a person or a place, or an idea, and writing it out on a night he can’t sleep. He wrote Humbug during nights he struggled to close his eyes, and he’s describing a dark thing. Something that would work only at night. Can’t talk about it in the daylight.. Etc.

Benjamin Clementine - Cornerstone (Live on Jools Holland)