Cocteau Twins - Fifty-Fifty Clown Lyrics

Is this anyone else's favorite Cocteau song?

I felt rewarded on being so ugly, eh
Oh, and you're a long shadow

I felt rewarded on being so ugly, eh

I felt rewarded on being so ugly, eh

Oh, and you're a long shadow

I felt rewarded on being so ugly, eh




Smile and face your wife angry

His life don't despise what's in eyes

He skips so as the seasons

To come as a breeze has

Again, ahead




We'll rust, our nose dust

Ephemeral with peace and, oh its true

He can't comfort the brain

He was calm as he was

Again, ahead




And is this safe flowing, love, soul and light

Motions all in motion emotions all

Good morning love with someone I call in light

Motions all in motion emotions all

And is this safe flowing, love, soul and light

Motions all in motion emotions all

This is it. This is the peak of music

Dit nummer is zo Brits als maar zijn kan.......Klopt het dat een Schotse band is?

Unbelievably cool

On my list of 'Songs against Depression' currently at No. 5. Her voice is just celestial...

My first experience with this song was in 1991. I had just bought the album at Sound of Music downtown San Antonio and on the way to my girlfriends I managed a couple hits of acid off some chauf at a bus stop. She didn’t take any after dinner I ate both and we listened to this record continuously until 6 am ...I heard this song almost 40 times and each time my torso filled with everything good in the world. Everything around me became so beautiful it haunts me to this day. I will always look forward to this song playing again, I wouldn’t dare skip the first two... it’s my favorite part of their story. It only makes sense to begin at Cherry Coloured Funk.

I recently asked Simon Raymonde what type of synth is used for the electric piano chords and he was unsure stating it was probably a Roland JD800, I told him I had a wager going it was a Roland Juno60... he had said that wasn’t it. I wouldn’t have dared called him out, but the JD800 was introduced in 1992. I’m content not knowing the synth used. I’m good with that now.

Enjoyed the ads.

This is PERFECTION -- NEXT TO (EMPHASIS ON "NEXT TO")! -- PUR, songs which take my very essence to a state of ecstasy!

One of those amazing songs I wish would never end. I'm actually sad when it ends.

such an incredible song

I really love this song❤️♥️ Beautiful! ♥️❤️ One of my Favorite song from the CD! ♥️

just beautiful.. that chord change! jaw dropping

That CODA though...

this is one of my heart album of the 90s - it speaks to me - I know that sounds a bit wanky but it is true

Listen Cocteau Twins logus exist

Not my favorite by them, but for some reason it's the first song I think of when Cocteau Twins is brought up.

I feel rewarded on being so ugly, eh
Oh, and you're a lone shadow
I feel rewarded on being so ugly, eh
Smile and face your wife angry
His life don't despise what's in eyes
He skips so as the seasons
To come as a breeze has
Again, ahead
We'll rust, our nose dust
A fine gard with pleased and, oh its true
Hill can't comfort the brain
He must come as he was
Again, ahead
And this is safe, flowing, love, soul and light
Motions aren't in the shape that emotions are
Good morning myth to somebody I call in light
Motions aren't in the shape that emotions are
And this is safe, flowing, love, soul and light
Motions aren't in the shape that emotions are

@Andrew Wells its never meant to be that way

these muppets who want the lyrics the first time they hear it

(snowflakes etc!
sigh!)

Jesus!

spare us please

I cannot stand this putting the lyrics on the internet

especially since even if its quite close they still get bits of it so wrong and its usually a howler it is so funny

nb the muppets who wrote she sings 'niccolo donati' in 'alice' is a good example

(snowflake) muppets!

despite the 'live' version where she changed it to that 'tongue in cheek' after being shown an attempt at deciphering those lyrics

@ab cdef Nothing wrong with correcting people, but geez..

amo esta canción

Its beyond music. Especially this track on HOLV is benevolant witch crafty light

Cocteau Twins é uma banda extremamente enigmática, perfeita e arcaica. Admiro muito quem procura interpretar essas músicas maravilhosas.

1:57 - 2:15 is the most beautiful singing ever

Perry Ball It’s played backwards, if I’m not mistaken.

My favorite song of all time. Every time I hear it, it sounds like the first time I heard it. It's heavenly and magical

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

YouTube music recommendations never miss

Los amo 😍😍😍😍

I don’t think God created humans with the intention that they could ever be capable of experiencing as much pleasure as I just did listening to this.

Listen to ice pulse then :)

Damn right

Almost sounds like what you get when you play music backwards.

Going to heaven

Are sure it's not Las Vegas?

My all time favorite song. Must have heard three million times. The voice of god!!

IMO, one of the best tracks off HOLV, nothing quite like it in their entire catalog. Almost sounds like Liz Fraser’s “sexiest” moment.

My relationship with Cocteau Twins is weird. I fear their music. I’ve seen it affect me in ways that I don’t really understand.

I completely understand this statement. It will return, just stay cautious of people that won’t understand this relationship because hear everywhere

sounds like the best song Prince song he never made

Prince actually sampled the first few seconds of this track when creating "Love Thy Will Be Done" which was recorded by Martika. Prince's demo appears on "Originals" which was released in June 2019

there is no tryst you can ever have that breaks this music

It's funny, every now and again I'll read a reference to Cocteau Twins and suddenly I'll find I've spent the entire day listening to their back catalogue on YouTube. Never feels like a waste. I'll never understand why I didn't go see them live when I could have back in the day.

Only a day? It's weeks for me! :-)

Very true! Must be a syndrome with hardcore CT fans.

Obviously prince big fan and why not as I just hear love they will be done now by martika.

Are you lifting skinny? Are you lifting books? Are you denying religions? Are you attempting drug-free? Are you pushing positivity? Are you low on cash? Then buckle your f'ing seatbelt for an all out world assault on yourself and don't expect any social support, just enemies. Merk'd, not Punk'd.

Does anyone else find Simon's use of keyboard here to be evocative of some chamber piece with organ, circa 1690?

This is one of the sexiest friggin CC songs ever! My body, mind and spirit glow with sexual energy! Liz has my soul.

Only this song can make me feel the way this song makes me feel. If that makes ANY sense at all lol ❤️

it makes every kind of sense, in this ocean of love that we are

David Vasquez I feel the same way,it makes my aura vibrate and expand

Yep. Ditto

Totally agree

Time to trip

Blake J I know right??!!

It's funny to listen to this song using the internet, which seems so impersonal, and then reading comments about something that's so deep and hard to even explain.

My absolute favorite by the Cocteau Twins💕 So many years later, and I'm still in love with it.

DRC R lol I just found this song, funny how time works.

This will be a hit on 2039, hope so...or int 2073, to start talking about Consciousness and the Real Thing. They were too advanced for the times...The best for all of you, hope to reach you someday!

Lol, thats so weird, you basically took the words out of my mouth.

My Interpretation
Yeah, in their earlier work Elizabeth Fraser even sings lyrics in her own made-up language(s), so one can hardly be forgiven for not getting most Cocteau Twins lyrics (and yet the vocals are often the best part of the songs, an amusing dichotomy). Not sure if Fraser's earlier lyrical abstruseness came more from a place of extreme creativity and throwing off the yoke of predetermined language, or more from a place of insecurity, but the results sure were pleasing.

I loved that with the incredible "Heaven or Las Vegas" album (go buy it -- it is currently available as a download from multiple vendors, and CD), though, that getting some of the lyrics could be a part of the Cocteau Twins listening experience.

As much as this song was one of my favorites on the album (well, cassette for me, originally -- oy), though, its meaning remained a perfect mystery to me until today when I was feeling lousy and had a sudden urge to listen to it as I thought it might make me feel a little better (it did). Cocteau Twins song names are so obscure as to be equivalent to New-Order-style arbitrary nonsense names, so I had to try a couple of possibilities, but I quickly found the one I was looking for.

And on this listen I understood the "Motions aren't in the shape that emotions are" line for the first time, which prompted me to look up the rest of the lyrics (none printed in my CD insert), and I think I get most of it:

FIFTY-FIFTY CLOWN
The title refers to the guy who's the subject of the song. "Fifty-fifty" refers to him splitting his time between his wife and his mistress, the singer. He might also have bipolar disorder -- not sure about that part. "Clown" is being used in a pejorative way here, I think, though it could additionally refer to the performances that the guy puts on in managing his situation of secret infidelity. "Fifty-fifty clown" might have an additional shade of meaning in self-referring to the singer, who might see herself as a clown for only getting to have companionship half of the time because she's gotten involved with this married dude.

I FEEL REWARDED ON BEING SO UGLY, EH
The singer and the guy just had good sex, yet the singer still feels unattractive and insecure (is the wife beautiful but frigid?). There may be an additional shade of ironic meaning in implying that because the singer is perceived as less attractive, she is unmarried and thus easily available as the second half of this tryst.

OH, AND YOU'RE A LONE SHADOW
The guy is emotionally unavailable. Even when he's physically present with his mistress (or his wife), his mind is elsewhere.

SMILE AND FACE YOUR WIFE ANGRY
HIS LIFE DON'T DESPISE WHAT'S IN EYES
HE SKIPS SO AS THE SEASONS
TO COME AS A BREEZE HAS
AGAIN, AHEAD
Some difficult stuff in there -- best to take it as one chunk. So there's a reference to a "fifty-fifty" dichotomy again with "Smile and face your wife angry". This could be referring to the guy being smiling and happy with the singer yet sliding immediately into anger as he sees his wife afterwards. Does this and "He skips so as the seasons" refer to him being bipolar? I dunno, that one's kind of an out-there interpretation, but I thought I'd include it.

The dichotomy instead could be between a disingenuous smile plastered on the guy's mug as he faces his wife, and the anger he feels toward her in his heart. "His life don't despise what's in eyes" is a really tough line to interpret, but it could refer to the fact that the singer feels that she can easily read the guy's constant covering up and resulting stress in his eyes, but that the other people in his life aren't sensitive enough to detect this in his eyes and so find him out. (Maybe.)

"To come as a breeze has / Again, ahead" goes along with the "seasons" line that preceded, but also would seem to compare the cheating guy's visiting habits to a breeze, whose comings and goings are unpredictable.

WE'LL RUST, OUR NOSE DUST
A FINE GARD WITH PLEASED AND, OH ITS TRUE
HILL CAN'T COMFORT THE BRAIN
HE MUST COME AS HE WAS
AGAIN, AHEAD
Another one hard to interpret except as a chunk (and even then). But I think we're in third-person perspective (as narrated by the singer) at this point, in the guy's head. "We'll rust, our nose dust" seems to be the guy despairing at what he sees as quickly looming death (with a little biological detail, that while the bones "rust", remaining but discoloring over time, the cartilage and flesh of the nose crumbles to dust).

"A fine gard with pleased and, oh its true" -- huh?!? What kind of grammatical crack is Liz on here? Okay, looking up "gard", I'm thinking in this sense it's an archaic word for "garden". This is a very weird line, but my best interpretation is that the guy is taking some comfort ("oh it's true") despite his despair that he has a wife who keeps a fine garden, and he also has great sexual pleasure in his life ("with pleased"...?) thanks to his mistress. But the little hike he took up the hill he likes has failed to ease his irritated mind, so he resigns himself ("Again, ahead") to facing his wife in this mental state.

AND THIS IS SAFE, FLOWING, LOVE, SOUL AND LIGHT
MOTIONS AREN'T IN THE SHAPE THAT EMOTIONS ARE
This was my key to maybe kind of sort of understanding this song. I think we're back in the head of the singer at this point, and she and the guy are having beautiful sex. For this time, all is well. These motions (could be things like kisses and hugs in addition to the loving sex) are soft and flowing, not spiky like the difficult emotions lying under the surface. Bipolar swings would make for particularly spiky emotional shapes, but again, I might be reaching on that part.

GOOD MORNING MYTH TO SOMEBODY I CALL IN LIGHT
Another of the trickier lines, but perhaps the singer only gets to see the guy during daytime hours, when he can get away with it because he should be at work? (Potentially another element of the "fifty-fifty" theme.) "Good morning myth" could be a reference to another dichotomy, that between the cheerful good morning that the lovers greet each other with, which belies the difficulty and perhaps inevitability of doom in their situation.

I dunno, those are my thoughts. Again, amazing song off an amazing album by an amazing band -- go buy it (don't steal it).

- Dan Harkless

esse cara é um gênio

Harkless? I disagree- that was completely Hark-full! (Sorry- couldn’t resist- )

oh my gosh!

Good Morning myth to somebody I call in light

is about a hymn a prayer

it is taken from old scittish in fact celtic 'folk' songs although 'folk' isnt really right morelike 'traditional"

I first listened tp bluebell knoll then holv when I was a very young girl

my parents in particular loved scotland we visited a lot then and spent hours listening to old fokelore and 'faerie' tales even myths sometimes

I was given writings which had snippets of old song lyrics based on very old scottish or celtic tunes and read loads of stuff too because it was so interesting and the first time I heard these lyrics I could pick out bits which either resembled these or parts that were written in a similar manner

not because elizabeth copies them but because she probably grew up hearing or even sing those songs and nobody is more scotish than elizabeth

nb please dont lump this in with that new order stuff it is extremely wrong!

I am very aware our Miss Fraser hates in an intense fashion that kind of 'trying to intalectualise' what she sang when despite its complexity it is often very simple in meaning

again

oh my gosh

(said with my best 'Chandler style' dismay)

OH MY GOSH!

Arghhhh! (banging my head against the wall)

What are you smoking!

That is NOT it at all

(new order my ass)

I can only imagine this was one of Sade's influences; the note progression is supreme!

Never thought about that

Sade was around before this...

@pokejh sade never wrote one of her songs. there's nothing like this.

this track could be 8 hours long and id love every second of it

i need an instrumental. a clear one too.

^^ THIS (tibbztrillz comment)! ^^ :-D

@Briana Linen not without her voice it isnt the same

ab cdef but they ask? no. an instrumental would be nice and that’s all they were simply saying. nothing wrong with elizabeth’s voice.

I bought the BBC sessions albumn way back when. I wonder what happened to it, because this was the ONLY song where I thought that version was better on that album.

StinkLizard the BBC version is closer to what they performed live. It's the version I remember from their Milk and Kisses tour. I agree it's better than this version.

Is this the slightly different version of the song I keep reading about, or is it simply the remastered version?

+Francisco A nope, this is just the regular remastered version from 'Heaven or Las Vegas'

Aww nuts!