Reformed Tunes Tuesday: Thrice – “At The Last”
Posted on 01. Jun, 2010 by Josh Mullen in Music
This jam comes from Thrice’s latest album Beggars
It’s about a man who is nearing/at the end of his life, and is looking back on all that he has done. He sees that he’s never really done anything too bad (murder/steal), and that he seems to have always looked out for his own best interests. He’s a pretty good guy. But then realizes that when he’s gone, none of it really mattered, that it was all in vain. Dustin Kensrue wrote this song in response to a sermon from Charles Haddon Spurgeon, titled “Last Things”. Here’s an excerpt:
Let me take you upstairs to your own death chamber, for there perhaps the lamp will burn best for you. Look at actions which you have thought to be great, and upon which you have prided yourself – how will they look at the last? You made money, you made money fast, you did things very cleverly, you praised yourself for it, just as others have praised themselves for conquering nations or forcing their way to fame, or lifting themselves into eminence. Now you are dying, and what do you think of all that? Is it so great as it seemed to be? Oh, how you leaped up to it, how you strained yourself to reach it, and you have got it, and you are dying, what do you think of it now? The greatest of human actions will appear to be of insignificance when we come to die, and especially those upon which men most pride themselves – these will yield them the bitterest humiliation. We shall then say what madmen we must have been to have wasted so much time and energy upon such paltry things. When we shall discover that they were not real, that they were but mere bubbles, mere pretenses, we shall then look upon ourselves as demented to have spent the whole of our life and our energy upon them.”
It’s a shame that some must go without
But I was no fool to think it might be my problem
Needy hands were reaching out
I kept my spare change and my pride in a tight fist
And now at the last, everything is changed in this pale light
That death has cast on all I’ve done – on all I’ve done
I’m a good man on the whole
Who could blame me for looking out for number one?
I never killed, I never stole
A small indulgence now and then, so what of it?
I’m a good man
I’m a good man
Am I a good man?
I thought I was,
But the rewards of this life now count for naught
My body soon buried and left to rot
The time’s gone, how quickly it all has passed
My God, now I see how I’ve squandered each and every breath
Now at the last, everything is changed in this pale light
That death has cast on all I’ve done
Now at the last, everything is changed in this pale light
And looking back I am undone – I am undone
