Dark Entries by Bauhaus Lyrics Meaning – Navigating the Shadows of Post-Punk

Lyrics

Caressing bent up to the jug again
With sheathes and pills
Invading all those stills
In a hovel of a bed

I will scream in vain
“Oh, please Miss Lane
Leave me with some pain “

Went walking through this city’s neon lights
In fear of disguising my warping, seething
Pressure lines, among confidant heirs
Intangible of price
Trying so hard to find what? What was right

I came upon your room it stuck into my head (dark entries)
We leapt into the bed degrading even lice
You took delight in taking down
My shielded pride

Until exposed became my darker side
Puckering up and down those avenues of sin
Too cheap to ride, they’re worth a try
If only for the old times, cold times
Don’t go waving your pretentious love

He’s soliciting on his tan brown brogues (dark entries, dark entries)
Gyrating through some lonesome devils row (dark entries, dark entries)
Pinpointing well meaning upper class prey (dark entries, dark entries)
Of walking money checks possessing holes (dark entries, dark entries)
He sleekly offers his services (dark entries, dark entries)
Exploitation of his finer years (dark entries, dark entries)
Work with loosely woven fabrics (dark entries, dark entries)
Of lonely office clerks (dark entries, dark entries)
Any lay suffices his eye (dark entries, dark entries)

I came upon your room it stuck into my head
We leapt into the bed degrading even lice
You took delight in taking down
My shielded pride
Until exposed became my darker side

Puckering up and down some avenue of sin
Too cheap to ride they’re worth a try
If only for the old times
Don’t go waving your pretentious love

Dark entries
Dark entries
Dark entries
Dark entries
Dark entries
Dark entries

As the needles drop on the vinyl, echoing the haunting beginnings of Bauhaus’s ‘Dark Entries,’ listeners are plunged into the twilight of post-punk angst. The track, a staple of its genre, offers a labyrinthine journey into the psyche, culture, and morality of an era that teeters between the breakdown of tradition and the allure of nihilistic hedonism.

The cryptic lyrics, cloaked in the seductive yet foreboding instrumentation, challenge us to decipher an enigma. This song isn’t just a canvas of sounds; it’s a mirror held up to the underbelly of society, an exposé of personal demons, and a dance with the decadence of the time.

The Pill-Popping Prelude: An Ode to Self-Destruction

Opening with a visceral scene of a person returning to their vices, ‘Caressing bent up to the jug again’ conveys a sense of habitual surrender. Bauhaus paints the picture of an individual whose daily battles are drowned in a cocktail of ‘sheathes and pills,’ perhaps a nod to both the sexual liberation and the rampant drug culture of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

‘Invading all those stills’ may hint at violating the stillness, the peace, that one seeks in the mundanity of life, suggesting an unrelenting disturbance of the soul.

Neon Nights and Urban Woe: The Settling Dusk of Discontent

The ‘warped’ and ‘seething’ journey through the neon lights can be seen as a metaphor for moving through a society – full of promise yet pernicious. The fear of ‘disguising’ oneself implies a struggle between one’s identity and the expectations or pretenses of urban life.

The pressure to conform is suffocating, represented by the ‘pressure lines,’ where the ‘confidant heirs’ who ‘intangible of price’ may reflect the inaccessibility of true connection in a world commodified by social status and wealth.

Unveiling the Dark Seduction: When Bedrooms Become Battlegrounds

In the throes of Dark Entries’ narrative, the bedroom transforms into a tableau for a loss of innocence or pride. The line ‘degrading even lice’ suggests a debasement so profound it transcends even the lowest of the low, bringing into question the nature of the protagonist’s ‘delight’ in this degradation.

Bauhaus captures the masochistic pleasure of baring one’s ‘darker side,’ challenging the listener to consider if it’s self-imposed vulnerability or imposed exploitation.

Walking the Avenue of Sin: The Economic Hierarchy of Intimacy

The song’s narrative suggests a servile dance with sin, where experiences ‘too cheap to ride’ still ‘worth a try’ metaphor that hints at a defeated complacency to indulge despite knowing better. It’s also a biting critique of commodified love and intimacy as well as the ever-lingering sense of nostalgia that tempts one back to ‘the old times’.

The line ‘Don’t go waving your pretentious love’ is a raw dismissal of false affections, an indictment of superficial relationships in a disenchanted world.

The Reckoning Chorus: Echoes of the Dual Self in ‘Dark Entries’

In its compulsive repetition, ‘Dark entries’ serves as an incantation or a summoning of the protagonist’s shadow self, highlighting a recurring confrontation with the darker aspects of their identity.

The cyclic structure of the lyrics mirrors an inescapable pattern of behavior or fate, binding the listener in the hypnotic rhythm of revelation and decay.