Story Behind The Song

The song is a poetic epic. The drums are like in Dylan's ISIS studio recording - which gives the song a power necessary for a long song.

Song Description

The song speaks for itself. It uses images of dwarfs and hunchbacks, just like Lord of the Rings, with its dwarfs, etc. Doug Sharp, in fact, the main lyric writer, was a big fan of Lord of the Rings

Lyrics

THE MONSTER SIDE OF LOVE
(Clifford Fry, Douglas Sharp)

You painted a picture that captured my fancy though the scene was shabby and grim
The monster side of love was displayed and I've painted it again
It was partly the visions glimpsed through the years and partly the nightmares I've fought
There's a bit of you and a bit of me in the flesh of the beast and its thought

A dwarf with the limp of a cripple and the hunchback that he leads
Have found the monster side of love, the place to quench their needs
The Beast that hid within us is now so well revealed
When gentled it was managed, but it grew too large to kill

There's another side of lonesome on the monster side of love
That barren place is as near the edge as a nightmare ever was
It spun around in a swirl of time and was only just released
As the fear of isolation when the beast was in retreat

Rage tore through emotions' cloak and found the key for the Beast
The monster side of love shown through and fought to be released
To wander through the day of hope to a nighttime of despair
It's a vacant place, that bed of dreams, when the Beast is standing near

Hungry is more than a habit on the monster side of love
Emotions lie shattered and shredded where each is offered up
Best guesses about motives have left us more confused
But the dwarf's found a playmate look-alike to tell his troubles to.



There's a secret service spoken as the lightbulb blinks above
There's a place of certain sanctity where the hand has filled the glove
His genius is his cunning but it will not be enough
To shield him from the hunger on the monster side of love

Musical Break

There's lipstick on the hunchback's hump on the monster side of love
His smile seems too elusive for the things he's thinking of
It's mostly down and dirty in the place where secrets hide
The monster side of love, he lisps is a 15 minute ride

You painted a picture that captured my fancy though the scene was shabby and grim
The monster side of love was displayed and I've painted it again
It was partly the visions glimpsed through the years and partly the nightmares I've fought
There's a bit of you and a bit of me in the flesh of the beast and its thought

Copyright: Fry. Sharp 1983
Diamond Highway Publishing, ASCAP