The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Ministry Of Social Affairs

That's what they want oh yeah money honey(4)

See them sitting, in the rain
As the sky is darkening
Three lines of traffic, are edging past
The ministry of social affairs

At a junction on the ground
an amputee and a pregnant hound
Sit by the young men with withered arms
As if death had already passed

Through every alleyway, and left
A million beggars sillhouetes
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets

What has happened, let go(?)
The ministry of social affairs
Near where the money changers sit
By their locked glass cabinets

That's what they want, oh yeah
Money, honey(6)

Dollar Dollar

The boy stares through the glass
He's saying dollar dollar
Three lines of traffic past
We're trapped inside our car

His voice says dollar dollar
I turn to you to ask
For aomething we could offer
Three lines of traffic past
We pull away so fast

All my words get swallowed
In the rear view glass
A face pocked marked and hollowed
He's saying dollar dollar

I can't through or past
A face saying dollar dollar
A face pock marked and hollowed
Staring from the glass

Kujjj wrote:What has happened, let go(?)

seems: let go and ask

from

Kuk91 wrote:Oh yes, and I found this:

Spoiler! :

"River Anacostia" (my edit)

Oh my Anacostia
do not sigh, do not weep
Beneath the overpass
your Savior's waiting patiently

Walking on the water
flowing with the poisons
from the naval yards
He's talking to the fallen reeds

Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...

Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water

A small red sun makes way for night
trails away like a tail light
Is that Jesus on the water
talking to the fallen trees?

Saying "What will become of us?"
What will become of us?
Oh...

Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water (×3)

What will become if God's gonna trouble waters? (×3)
Wade in the water, God's gonna trouble the water (×3)

Wade in the water
God's gonna trouble the water

Chain of Keys

Fifteen keys hang on a chain
The chain is joint and forms a ring
The ring is in a woman's hand
She's walking on the dusty ground
The dusty ground's a dead-end track
The neighbours won't be coming back

Fifteen gardens overgrouwn
Fifteen houses falling down

The woman's old and dressed in black
She keeps her hands behind her back
Imagine what her eyes have seen
We ask but she won't let us in

A key so simple and so small
how can it mean no chance at all?
A key - a promise, or a wish
how can it mean such hopelessness
A circle is broken, she says

*********************************

The Orange Monkey

A restlessness took hold my brain
and questions I could not hold back
An orange monkey on a chain
on a bleak uneven track

told me that to understand
you must travel back time
I took a plane to a forein land
and sayd, I'll write down what I find

Beneath a mountain's jagged shelves
cloacked with snow and shadows sheer
plates tipped up upon themselves
the pain of fifty million years

and mules and goats were running wild
A happy chaos carried on
and old men and young boys smiled
and worked until the day was gone

Packs of sandy-coloured dogs
walked streets that looked like building sites
but piles of rocks and dust and smog
could not hold block out a different light

When I returned I ran to meet
the monkey, but his face had changed
He stood beforme on two feet
The track was now a motorway

*********************************


I Love this monkey song

The Wheel

A revolving wheel of metal chairs
Hung on chains, squealing
Four little children flying out
A blind man sings in Arabic

Hey little children don’t disappear
I heard it was 28,000
Lost upon a revolving wheel
I heard it was 28,000

Now you see them, now you don’t
Children vanish hind the vehicle
Now you see them, now you don’t
Faces, limbs, a bouncing skull

Hey little children don’t disappear
I heard it was 28,000
All that’s left after a year
I heard it was 28,000
A faded face, a trace of an ear
I heard it was 28,000

A tableau of the missing
Tied to the government building
A thousand bleached photographs
Fading with the roses

Hey little children don’t disappear
I heard it was 28,000
Lost upon a revolving wheel
I heard it was 28,000
All that’s left after a year
I heard it was 28,000
A faded face, a trace of an ear
I heard it was 28,000

Watch them fade out
And watch them fade out.

Does somebody knows what the expression "The orange monkey" could possibly mean? Kinda misterious I think, or there is some reference that can clearify a little bit the lyrics?

lois wrote:Does somebody knows what the expression "The orange monkey" could possibly mean? Kinda misterious I think, or there is some reference that can clearify a little bit the lyrics?

My Though
I think it's relates to human evolution