When I close my eyes and listen to this song I think of a emaciated man prostrated in his bathroom doing heroin in slow motion. The early minutes of the song begin slow he's wrapping surgical hose around his arm, on the counter is some cooked up junk and a yellow-faded hypo, he eyes it and then throws a glance out into the bedroom where he sees the tatts that cover the back of his woman lying in a messed up bed With the first refrain the background instrumental kicks in closeup of a track-riddled pale, hairless inner elbow and the vein bulging, upper arm wrapping around the black hose The next verse and the scaling back into the drawn out organ still view of the needle and a hand that moves slowly to lift it off the counter Until right when the refrain begins again the needle pierces his skin, his head falls back against the white tile walls and eyes wander to the rear of the head The solo explodes tears fall down his face and his whole body relaxes to slump on the throne, the needle falls to the ground slowly and bounces on the floor As the viewer pulls away the final verse progresses and he sees the scene of the tattooed woman on the bed passed out and beyond the man on the toilet still, needle on the ground and a pale light flickering above mixing with the nearly exhausted candles all over the room.
I don't know what your personal perceptions of this song are but Tindersticks always provide a cinematic depth to their songs, draw your own conclusions and your own hell or heaven from them. They are a constant well to draw water from for your imaginative soul.
