Morning Glory

Album: Goodbye and Hello (1968)
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  • I lit my purest candle close to my
    Window, hoping it would catch the eye
    Of any vagabond who passed it by,
    And I waited in my fleeting house

    Before he came I felt him drawing near
    As he neared I felt the ancient fear
    That he had come to wound my door and jeer,
    And I waited in my fleeting house

    "Tell me stories," I called to the Hobo
    "Stories of cold," I smiled at the Hobo
    "Stories of old," I knelt to the Hobo
    And he stood before my fleeting house

    "No," said the Hobo, "No more tales of time
    Don't ask me now to wash away the grime
    I can't come in 'cause it's too high a climb,"
    And he walked away from my fleeting house

    "Then you be damned!" I screamed to the Hobo
    "Leave me alone," I wept to the Hobo
    "Turn into stone," I knelt to the Hobo
    And he walked away from my fleeting house Writer/s: Larry Beckett, Tim Buckley
    Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 3

  • Robert W. from ArizonaLinda Ronstadt said she, Tim and others lived in a communal house on Hart Avenue in Santa Monica near the beach. She called it "a darling little cottage." The house is pictured on the back cover of her third Stone Poneys album where she, Tim and others are on the front stairwell. She said Tim would move out and she would move in. Then she would move out and Tim would move back in, etc. Fleeting means "lasting for a very short time" and that is the house Tim is referring to in his song Morning Glory. Linda included that song on that album but changed the name to "Hobo." Yes, it is a very haunting song and an old favorite of mine.
  • Claude from BerkeleyLyrics by Mr. Beckett, right?
    So why would a hobo camp inspire Tim's words? You may have a point in that Tim & Larry shared a lot of youth experience.
    Tim stated in a live concert, "This is about a hobo beatin' up on a college kid..."
    College could be a key here. A literary guy like Larry takes an incident and turns it into a dramatic narrative both revelatory & intensely insightful of a young man's coming of age in relation to a shadow figure of greater age, a reverse mentor!
    Who knows if LSD-25 may have supplied a touch of sensitivity and catharsis to this "rejection"... (or manipulation, as the case may have been.)
    Other hobo(es)...
    Dylan: "The hobo got you high..." (censored in the Dylan songbook to read, "The hobo jumped up...)
    "Only a hobo, but one more is gone..."
    (Rod Stewart?)
  • Mitchell Klein from 21228I find the song Morning Glory haunting, sad / depressing and highly curious. I want to know the meaning to it and
    the explaination of terms like " fleeting house " and ancients' fear. This song, performed by Blood, Sweat & Tears
    has always lingered for nearly 50 years !
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