The White Stripes: Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground Meaning

Song Released: 2002

Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground Lyrics

dead leaves and the dirty ground
when I know you're not around
shiny tops and soda pops
when I hear your lips make a sound
when I hear your lips make a sound

thirty notes in the mailbox
will tell ya that I'm coming home
and I think I'm...

1. anonymous

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   May 9th 2021 !⃝

   I guess at the age of 51, I just think, simply, that its about lost youth and just desperately wanting to go back to your innocence. the video shows the ghosts of teenagers partying in this house that the singer remembers and romanticizes. then the singer's ghost appears, within the "love" and "wish" for the past. (also, the video shows Jack looking all adult and dapper in his suit, tie, nice pants and a suitcase (briefcase?) as a metaphor for becoming an adult. He is totally frightened to go back to the house because his youth is finally dead. a friend once told me "you must stop looking back in the past. it is dust. it is dead. just dust...and Jack had this in the title "dead leaves and the dirty ground"....we have to accept that the beauty of youth IS dead in some way. we have to take the leaves, bury them in the earth and be at peace. maybe? opinions?
2. anonymous

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   Nov 17th 2016 !⃝

   World is not good when I know your not around. Sky is dead and ground is meaningless.
   
   But when I hear you make a sound life is given some light.
   I am not going to travel because the traveling is one of the causes of this.
   
   Once I am with you I need nothing else.
   
   You are a gift to me. You are life and beauty.
   
   I come home to wrap my arms around you.
   Only the man who feels immense pain from you not being home can tell you what he loves the most.
   
   God is bigger than you and me.
3. anonymous

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   Jul 19th 2015 !⃝

   On another site someone related "dead leaves" to fall, and "shiny tops n soda pops" to spring and summer, but it could be him relating to the former relationship as like Happy Days, The 50s in Detroit area(Motor City)with the big shiny cars with fins, and drive-ins, and soda pops, a bygone era of American culture. So could both be when times are good in the relationship, but could he also be lamenting about the decline of the Detroit area, the urban decay, and boarded up dilapidated houses and businesses etc. Etc. Yes I think there's relational/sexual tones running through,but consider even "soft hair n velvet tongue" seems descriptive of a girl obviously(I know as was brushing strands of soft shiny Latina hair from her faces last night while she's performing on/tonguing my manhood)but what about before pollution inundated every city?(hair soft and healthy)and velvet tongue? all the smooth talking DJs of the radio era, even Wolfman Jack! So Jack wants to reciprocate just as a woman performs fellatio, he reciprocates with cunnilingus, but he also wants to give back to those golden years that shaped him, influenced him musically. Alot of soul music came out of Detroit, Motown etc.(I wanna give ya what ya gave to me) The "hear a piano fall"yes sounds like he was simply returning from tour and is bounding down the hall to the bedroom, but could he be lamenting on the musical era of piano based love songs, and the greats such as Fats Domino, Blueberry Hill, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls of Fire. Down the hallway from that time. Now for The Holy Ghost, some would think is a swipe at televangelists, but consider in 1962 God outa schools, the generation that followed, the shootings in schools, public areas etc. The Holy Ghost/Spirit still in place to keep evil in check, and believers unable to prevent evil, but preserve a little longer as "the salt of the earth", also we're riding the residual wave of grace from the founders of America, and the Judeo Christian Biblical structure including freedom this country was fashioned on. Microphone/"outa the heart flows the issues of life." What one loves the most above an Eros(Gr.)(sexual/relations etc.) to Agape(Gr.)highest form of love with The Creator, God."The Spirit moved upon the waters" Interesting how this song "Dead Leaves" ties in with Don McClean's"bye bye miss American pie"The Three Men I admire the most, The Father, Son, n' The Holy Ghost""caught the last train to the coast the day the music died" Buddy Holly story, But also God takes no pleasure in the perdition/destruction of anyone, even the wicked(spiritually blind)Ezekiel 33:11 In the Great Apostasy (the falling away)we see prevalent in the world, and in America. 7/19/2015 Duncan R.M. Decapolis.
4. anonymous

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   Sep 20th 2012 !⃝

   FOR ME...
   
   i find that this song relates to the something that could be consider biblical, just because of the last lyric... "if youre thinking of the holy ghost" which also relates to some kind of love that turns sour for the individual and they feel betrayal.
   
   and then basically murder is involved...
   
   if you think about the story of Jesus Christ in the christian Bible as a fable it tells the story of a omnipotent entitiy that created a son and found that he was no longer to to be trusted and had to die. why would the Jews crucify jesus? if you think about it in a puppet stage way, this father entitity manipulated his powers to have his son murdered.
   
   it can also be considered mythological.... its been referred to in various different forms in literature and art...
   
   sjh
5. anonymous

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   Jan 7th 2011 !⃝

   I think this song means, according to the video, that he (jack) was gone away for so long and while he was gone his girlfriend (i don't think it's referring actually to Meg) was all alone at home, and she didn't think he was coming back because she didn't get his letters, "thirty notes in the mailbox will tell you when im coming home" so she just packed and left, and when he came back he expected to see her but she had left.
6. anonymous

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   Mar 15th 2007 !⃝

   According to their divorce paper Meg and Jack stopped living in the same house from very early on in 1999, so the song could be about that
7. anonymous

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   Jun 21st 2006 !⃝

   It's about feeling like your always a day late and a dollar short. On the Live DVD "Under Blackpool Lights" He says that everyday he feels like he's in the right place at the wrong time. I'm not saying that that's how he truthfully feels, but it makes since with this song. He's at the right place (home) but at the wrong time (his lover's not there).
8. anonymous

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   Apr 23rd 2006 !⃝

   Um, to the guy above, that couldn't have been true, because Jack wrote that in 1999 (It was intended to be on their self-titled album), and that was before Meg and Jack split (they divorced in 2000). That wasn't really an interpritaion, but, yeah....

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
9. anonymous

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   Dec 4th 2005 !⃝

   I think the song may have to do with Meg leaving him. Maybe he thought everything was fine and one day he came home and she was gone. "Then I come home. No one to wrap my arms around, wrap my arms around." Similar thing happened to me actually. I love the White Stripes! They should run for office. lol.

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