Modest Mouse: Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes Meaning

Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes Lyrics

We're going down the road to tiny cities made of ashes
I'm going to hit you on the face
I'm going to punch you in your glasses, oh no
I just got a message that said
"yeah, hell has frozen over."
I got a phone call from the lord saying,
"hey...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anglophilia

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   Jan 28th 2006 !⃝

   The song is about disgust with mortality. Tiny cities made of ashes are the microscopic cells and tissues that ultimately deteriorate into dust. "Going down the road, towards tiny cities made of ashes." is a pessimistic description of living, i.e. life is only the process of dying. "I'm gonna get dressed up in plastic gonna shake hands with the masses, oh no!" and "I'm gonna lay down at the spa, where they coat you in molasses." are desperate reactions to knowing how frail we are. Brock takes it to the extreme of putting on a radiation suit to go interact with the public.
   
   The chorus can be taken quite literally. "Does anybody know a way that a body could get away? Does anybody know a way?"
   He's crying out for immortality. He thinks, 'surely there must be something that doesn't crumble into ash'
   
   Some of my favorite lines from any modest mouse song are "I just got a message that said yeah, hell has frozen over. I got a phone call from the lord saying, hey boy, get a sweater, right now." Brock always seems so sure of his damnation. He often spews blasphemy and condemns himself for being blasphemous simultaneously. I believe this to be a combination of two concepts. First, the epiphany of mortality seems to turn the world upside down, 'I'll die when hell freezes over!' and second, the irony of God still caring about a damned soul while refusing save him. He wants this man to prepare for a frozen hell since he's in too deep to ever be saved.
2. anonymous

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   Jun 28th 2021 !⃝

   Pretty sure it is about smoking crack. At least that is the interpretation we came to many years ago, while saving our cigarette ashes for the crack can. And obsessing over the lyrics.
3. thegnu

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   Mar 24th 2007 !⃝

   While I like the previous interpretation, I had imagined that it was about being a politician in Babylon. My interpretation is as follows:
   
   Isaac Brock uses diminutives to denote insignificance often rather than to denote size, so We're going down the road/towards tiny cities made of ashes means we're headed towards nuclear war.
   I just got a message that said/"yeah, hell has frozen over." I got a phone call from the lord saying,/"hey boy, get a sweater, right now." is another reference to the nuclear war and being connected to "the lord," a powerful figure who knows what's up next.
   So we're drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' drinkin' coca coca cola/I can feel it rolling right on down/Oh right on down my throat now shows the visceral, almost sexual aspect of greed in marketing.
   I'm gonna get dressed up in plastic/Gonna shake hands with the masses, oh no! means wearing a polyester suit, he goes out to act his role.
   Does anybody know a way that a body could get away?/Does anybody know a way? expresses despair/panic at the system and the inability to escape it.
   I'm wearing myself a t-shirt that says/"the world is my ashtray"/Our hearts pump dust and our hair's all grey the t-shirt is a belief you hold and express openly (like wearing your heart on your sleeve), and "our hearts...grey" implies that the death of love and compassion causes their hair to go grey.
   I'm going to lay down in the spa where they coat you in molasses. I think this is just another reference to decadence, but I really don't know.
4. anonymous

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   Aug 6th 2006 !⃝

   Honestly I like this song better performed by sun kil moon. But good interpretation above.

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