Stop All The Clocks by W.H. Auden. Mahler
Lindsay Duncan Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
The poem "Stop All The Clocks" by W.H. Auden was used to create the song of Lindsay Duncan, and it expresses a theme of loss and grief from a personal perspective. The lyrics embody the emotions of a narrator who has experienced a tragic loss, and he requests the world to stop in reverence to his sorrow. The first verse indicates the severity of the grief felt by the singer who asks for everything to be stopped, including the sound and light, to mourn the passing of his loved one. The second verse emphasizes that the singer's love interest was everything to him - his life, his world, his meaning. The singer's love was expected to last forever, but it turned out to be just a mere illusion.
The third stanza in Lindsay Duncan's version is an excellent representation of how the natural world echoes the singer's agony. The sky is proclaimed with proof of the loss through the plane message, birds are clothed, and stars are unneeded. In essence, the world must change, and nature must recognize the singer's loss. The lines, "For nothing can now come to any good," suggest that the singer can't see a way forward, a future without the one who has left, and his only option is to acknowledge his despair.
Line by Line Meaning
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Slow down and stop everything in its tracks, eliminate all distractions, and focus on mourning the loss of this person.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Even the pets will sense the mournful atmosphere and be silenced by it.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Even music must stop, and only the soft thud of a funeral march drum is permitted.
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Make way for the casket and let the mourners pay their respects.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”.
Spread the news far and wide, even in the sky, that this person has passed.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Even the birds must be dressed in mourning attire.
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
Even the police who direct traffic must pay their respects and wear black gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
This person was my everything, my entire world.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
Every moment of every day, this person was on my mind and in my heart.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
This person was my constant companion in every aspect of my life.
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
I believed that the love we shared could never end, but now I know that it has.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Even the stars in the sky are not needed, extinguish them all.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Even the moon and sun, the most powerful celestial bodies, are not necessary now.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
Even the vast oceans and the forests must be removed, as they do not matter anymore.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Everything is now bleak and meaningless, and nothing good can ever come from it.
Contributed by Eva T. Suggest a correction in the comments below.