Always loved this song from his So album.
My solo acoustic attempt at playing it. I read someone's
interpretation of the song on the Song Meanings website
and it's the best interpretation of the song I have seen.
Here it is (this assumes you know the song already, if not
won't make a lick of sense):
"Mercy Street" is the name of a play written by Anne Sexton,
a poet who committed suicide in 1974 after a life marred by
mental illness. The first couple of stanzas play on the difficulty
she had differentiating between her successful creative life as
a poet and her failings in her "real" life as a daughter/mother/wife.
As a poet, she, in effect, had a "leak at the seam," her inward
thoughts and feelings that got expressed through her poetry.
Many poets have commented on the pain that comes through
revealing one's inner self. (Pink Floyd's whole "The Wall" album
examines this theme.)
The boat references allude to her final book of poetry,
"The Awful Rowing Toward God," about our inevitable journey
toward death and the afterlife. "Tak[ing] the boat out" refers
to her intention to accelerate her own demise. (She killed herself
just after finishing the book.)
"Corridors of pale green [aka "hospital green"] and gray could
refer to her stays in mental institutions during her manic
episodes (which alternated with her stints of "ordinary life" in
the suburbs of Boston).
"Wear your inside out" again refers to the way a poet exposes
his soul to the world. That which, for most people, remains
private and unknown is shown to all. The "daddy" allusions again
seem to refer to God, in whose arms she might find that elusive
mercy (so difficult to attain in this life, hence the reference to
the moved street sign).
All of the confession allusions have double meaning, as much
of Anne's life was spent "confessing" her innermost feelings
to psychiatrists as well as revealing them to the public through
her poetry. The shocks can doubly refer to shock therapy
administered by psychiatrists as well as the shocking things a
priest might hear in confession. Per Wikipedia, Sexton was the
epitome of a "confessional poet."
Here's my solo acoustic attempt at the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yza-lLDf824
