Torch said:
"Script For A Jester's Tear is a
spontaneous feeling lyric; it seems to be set quite soon after a
break-up, whereas 'The Web' gives the feel of months wallowing in
depression. It is for me quite the most beautiful expression of the pain
of rejection.
He pities himself by claiming he is again in the
'playground of the broken hearts' that all
pretend to sing and be merry. It is one more to put down to experience,
another entry in his 'diary self-penned'...
(aren't all diaries?)
Perhaps this is just to tell us that these lyrics are
autobiographical, as Fish broke up with Kayleigh, his first serious
heartbreak, at around this time.
Yet another emotional suicide, as she hasn't murdered him with
hurt, but he has done it himself by his self-pity, the fatal overdose
being 'sentiment' mixed with 'pride'; caring about the happy times he
has lost and having pride in himself that has now been shattered.
It is too late to try again. He is losing at everything; has
nowhere to run. Such a poignant little tune played at this bit, like the
sad echo of a love song they used to both listen to.
It was 'too much too soon' and now
it's 'too far to go' to get back and
'too late to play' as a child is told to
his despair at bedtime. 'This game is over..!' It seems it was all a
game to her.
The second half I think is the really amazing bit, so emotional,
as if he is sitting at dawn watching the morning light gloomily wake up
'other side of morning' as all is so
hushed. He does as is traditionally expected, plays the martyr,
painfully bearing his thoughts, bleeding the lyric. It is an exercise
'to write the rites to right my wrongs'...
like a ritual rite to purge himself of is heartache.
'Abandoning the relics in my playground of
yesterday... ' Fish kept notebooks where any experience of note
he had would be recorded in detail.
'If I want to get into something or someone I push myself to the
absolute extremes, never to short-change my emotions. Then I write it
all down, warts and all, afterwards. '
'I collect bits of my life that still mean something to me, the bits of
others I have found lying around.'
The two quotes from interviews in 1985 do suggest this song is
extremely autobiographical.
This poem is an epitaph, the final tribute, to a dream that has
been broken... maybe it was only ever a dream, a fantasy, not a real
romance. The writing down is to exorcise like an evil spirit the silent
scream of sorrow that has been borne in him that is like a silent
undertow festering and hissing like a snake pit.
He remembers now how as he comes out with such beautiful lines
that he never used his gifts on her as he always wanted to; he never did
write that love song and it is too late now.
'Kayleigh, I'm still trying to write that
love song, Kayleigh, it's more important to me now you're gone.'
Now sad as he reflects on what he has lost, he recalls gazing through
perfection (her and their dream romance) and examine the shadows on the
other side of morning/mourning... rather than waking up in her arms each
morning, he now wakes to just his shadow next to him... but it doesn't
quite fit... the other side of morning is mourning... he examines its
shadows, i.e. the shadows or memories that play before him as he is
seeing the other side of everything now he is alone.
The promised wedding is now a 'wake' or funeral party, 'awake 'on
the other side of morning.
The Fool that he feels himself to be will look over HER shoulder
and cry... at the sight of the past she has walked away from? Once he
looked over her shoulder as he cuddled and comforted her. He has escaped
from paradise as only a fool would volunteer to leave... maybe it was
his decision he now suffers for... alternatively “escaped' could just
mean once it was over he had to abandon paradise and its relics as they
were too painful.
He will not be able to answer WHY this had to happen, it all seems
so unfair. She will grow up and leave him, the reverse of the fairy
tale, as she kissed the prince , a handsome hero, who was turned to a
frog of ugliness and inertia after her kiss. Alternatively, if they
never actually had a relationship and it was just a dream now
unattainable, she kissed her husband to be and so reduce the singer to a
frog by rejecting him...
He begs her to remember the Jester side of him that
'showed you tears, the script for tears'.
Maybe he made her cry and so they separated, or maybe just his tears
shown to her are a new thing to her she has no experience or
understanding of.
So at the wedding he will hold his peace rather than speak of a
reason why the couple may not 'lawfully be joined together'... maybe a
pun on holding his 'piece', i.e. alone sexually forever???
His shame will have to be silent, 'the mute that sang the siren's
song' this could be two things. She is the mute, i.e. she sings the
fatal ensnaring song just by looking, not speaking, as she won't speak
to him, or he is the mute as he holds his peace forever but will sing
her song to himself forever as he cannot escape her and will go on
reliving the memories he has of her.
The mute has gone 'solo' as one would in a card game and he can no
longer be a party to her thoughts. But 'can you
still say you love me?' he sobs at the end, so it seems they were
once in love, and after such an incredible baring of his soul can she be
unmoved by it?"
