Coffee & TV -
by Blur
| Explanation by: danie... -- |
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Coffee & TV is a 1999 Britpop style Blur song. The lackadaisical emotions depicted by the lyrics' imagery are frequently understood to be the result of, or even a reference to, songwriter Graham Coxon's battle with alcoholism.
Although the song is well known for its puppetry-based love story music video, which shows Milky the milk carton's search for Coxon (and finding love on the way), the music video's plot may not be closely related to Coxon's original intentions when writing the song.
| Do you feel like a chain store? |
This play-on-words asks the listener to commiserate with feelings of being "floored," which are compared to a chain store's advertised pricing. This reference to retail outlet advertising sets an early tone of being sickened by a society brainwashed by large corporations and the possession of purchasable goods.
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| Practically floored | |
| One of many zeros |
The feelings here of emptiness and boredom help establish a theme.
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| Kicked around, bored | |
| Your ears are full but you're empty |
The narrator's "ears are full" of the advice and world view forced on him by society, which only makes him emotionally emptier.
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| Holding out your heart |
The narrator feels alone and uncared-for.
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| To people who never really | |
| Care how you are | |
| So give me Coffee and TV |
Coffee and TV are the everyman's opiate. The narrator chooses to accept the chemicals and passive entertainment that are the mainstays of modern life. In doing so, he finds peace in his passivity, but not happiness. <br/><br/>Songwriter Coxon may be using the societally acceptable escape from society, "Coffee & TV," to explain the thinking of an alcoholic who feels he needs to turn to drink to get by.
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| Peacefully | |
| I've seen so much I'm going blind | |
| And I'm brain-dead, virtually | |
| Sociability | |
| It's hard enough for me | |
| Take me away form this big bad world |
Three possible interpretations of this reference to marriage:<br/>1) The narrator is committing himself to his escape strategy of "Coffee & TV," which may be a metaphor for alcohol.<br/>2) The narrator is resigning himself to the societal norms imposed on him, including marriage to another of society's drones.<br/>3) This is a turning point in the song. Although society has drained the narrator of his will to live, and he has turned to modern distractions to escape, he sees salvation in love, where one can "start over again."<br/><br/>I hope you will join me in the foolishly optimistic third interpretation.
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| And agree to marry me | |
| So we can start over again | |
| Do you go to the country? | |
| It isn't very far | |
| There's people there who will hurt you | |
| 'Cause of who you are | |
| Your ears are full of their language | |
| There's wisdom there, you're sure | |
| Till the words start slurring |
This is the most literal reference to alcohol abuse in the song.
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| And you can't find the door |
Conveys feelings of being trapped.
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| So give me Coffee and TV | |
| Peacefully | |
| I've seen so much I'm going blind | |
| And I'm brain-dead virtually | |
| Sociability | |
| It's hard enough for me | |
| Take me away form this big bad world | |
| And agree to marry me | |
| So we can start over again | |
| So give me Coffee and TV | |
| Peacefully | |
| I've seen so much I'm going blind | |
| And I'm brain-dead virtually | |
| Sociability | |
| It's hard enough for me | |
| Take me away from this big bad world | |
| And agree to marry me | |
| So we can start over again | |
| Oh... | |
| We could start over again | |
| Oh... | |
| We could start over again | |
| Oh... | |
| We could start over again | |
| Oh... | |
| We could start over again |
The concluding organ solo (included in the original album version but not the radio-friendly single edit) can be interpreted as the fantasy of happiness created by the modern opiate coffee and TV, or by the haze of alcohol. Alternately, it can be interpreted as a change in tone, and a symbol of new beginnings, the "start[ing] over again" possible with love.
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