All Across The Sands

Bones of an impressive romance
Scattered all across the sand
A secret safe with all the world
Too vain to seem so capable

Can you hear it calling ?
Do you feel warmer ?
As the hired hand is bought

How can a pretty painted shell
Send them all packing off to hell
A freight train laughs and rattles by
You kissed the girls and made them die

Can you hear it calling ?
Do you feel warmer ?
As the hired hand is bought

And I'll never come here again
And we will never come here again
And we will never play here again, again

Can you hear it calling ?
Do you feel warmer ?
As the hired hand is bought ?

Of her call
Of her call
Of her call
Dead and cold

Can you hear it calling ?
Do you feel warmer ?
As the hired hand is bought ?

Of the call
Of the call
Of her call
As she calls

Lyrics by:
Brown

Music by:
Squire / Brown

Written:
1985

Personnel:
John Squire (guitar)
Ian Brown (vocals)
Pete Garner (bass)
Alan Wren (drums, backing vocals)

Produced by:
The Stone Roses & Simon

Available on:
Sally Cinnamon single (as b-side)
The Complete Stone Roses (2.40)

First live performance:
In late 1985.

Details:
The dark lyrics of All Across The Sands were influenced by a book Ian Brown read about a German murderer, who killed and buried his female victims under sand. It also appears to draw upon a passage of the Bible, 'The Shepherd and His Flock' (John 10: 1 - 21), with the wolf and the sheep being symbolic of the murderer and murdered women respectively:

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep."
(John: 10: 11 - 13)

Here, Jesus is describing the Jewish rabbinic leadership as the 'hired hands'. Jesus' mission was to reveal Himself as the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, but the Jewish leadership were jealous and frightened of Jesus - His popularity and His message of salvation - that they chose to reject their Messiah. Instead of saving the sheep, they were actually causing them to scatter, and become more vulnerable and confused. Years later, Ian would use 'The Shepherd and His Flock' on Can't See Me.

 

Left: Christ Jesus, the Good Shepherd, 3rd century.
Right: Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, mosaic with an imperial Christ, 440 AD. The image of the Good Shepherd, adopting the form of the classical Kriophoros, is the most common of the symbolic representations of Christ found in Early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome, before Christian imagery could be made explicit. The Emperors Constantine the Great and Licinus issued the Edict of Milan in the year 313 AD, which ended the period of persecution of Christians that took place under Emperor Diocletian, and proclaimed religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire.

Biblical influence is also tangible in the lines, "I'll never come here again" (Jesus) and "And we will never come here again" (Jesus speaking, inclusive of His Disciples). When sending out His twelve Disciples, Jesus gave the following instruction:

"If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town."
(Matthew 10: 14 - 15)

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