Mercy Street

MERCY STREET Lyrics and Music by Peter Gabriel (for Anne Sexton)

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams all made solitaire, the dreams all made real
All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream in somebody's head
She pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
She pictures a soul
With no leak at the seam

Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness
Let's take the boat out
Wait until darkness, comes

Nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
Nowhere in the suburbs in the cold light of day
There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone

Dreaming of Mercy Street
Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your Daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
I swear they moved that sign
Dreaming of mercy
In your Daddy's arms

Pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
Tugging at the darkness, word upon word
Confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
To the priest; he's the doctor
He can handle the shocks
Dreaming of the tenderness, the tremble in the hips
Of kissing Mary's lips

Dreaming of Mercy Street
Wear your insides out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms again
Dreaming of Mercy Street
I swear they moved that sign
Looking for mercy
In your Daddy's arms

Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Mercy, mercy, looking for mercy

Anne, with her father
Is out in the boat
Riding the water
Riding the waves
On the sea

This song is based on the book of poems of the same name by Anne Sexton. An American psychiatric patient, she wrote as a form of therapy. Gabriel was impressed that she wrote entirely for herself rather than an audience.
Sexton made 5 suicide attempts, the fifth being successful. She died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 1974.
The end is very intense during live shows. Gabriel uses a high-pitched wail to simulate Sexton's death.
The title came from Sexton's 1969 play 45 Mercy Street. She was also working on a poem with the same title at the time of her death.
Gabriel could relate to Sexton as a deep thinker with a troubling depression who searches for meaning through her art.
Gabriel used the image of darkness on Mercy Street to signal Sexton's depression.

The song is hauntingly sad and yet intrinsically beautiful.