MiS | Moving in Stereo

I mentioned wanting to post some older songs occasionally.  I posted a Sly Stone classic on Martin Luther King Day.  With Valentine’s Day it only seems right to post The Jam’s “Carnation” from The Gift, one of the band’s admittedly less appreciated albums, released in 1982.

It’s most appropriate, at least this year:

If you gave me a fresh carnation
I would only crush its tender petals
With me you’ll have no escape
And at the same time there’ll be nowhere to settle -
I trample down all life in my wake
I eat it up and take the cake
I just avert my eyes to the pain
Of someone’s loss helping my gain
If you gave me a dream for my pocket
You’d be plugging in the wrong socket
With me there’s no room for the future
With me there’s no room with a view at all -
I am out of season all year ’round
Hear machinery roar to my empty sound
Touch my heart and feel winter
Hold my hand and be doomed forever -

If you gave me a fresh carnation
I would only crush its tender petals
With me you’ll have no escape
And at the same time there’ll be nowhere to settle.
And if you’re wondering by now who I am
Look no further than the mirror -
Because I am the Greed and Fear
And every ounce of Hate in you.

The Jam, “Carnation”