Interpreting 'Cornerstone' by the Arctic Monkeys

My brother first introduced me to the song 'Cornerstone' by the Arctic Monkeys. The initial listen was preceded by this encapsulating explanation: a man, perhaps young, is going around at night finding different girls who all resemble his ex-girlfriend. In each encounter, he asks these female look-a-likes if he can call them her name. By the end of the song, alone, desolate, the narrator wanders into the 'Cornerstone' to find his lost love's sister, on 'the phone to the middle man' and in a moment of grace, the sister allows him to call her 'anything [he] wants'.

Since that rudimentary listen, I've tuned into the song umpteen times, fascinated with the hero's journey involved as much as the pop sensibilities of the band's music. One would think the song was mulled over and built like a story but according to Alex Turner, the band's lead singer/guitarist and main songwriter, the song was written quickly and in the morning. 

But as with many brilliant pieces of music or poetry, there is something intuitive that arrives when artists are most vulnerable. And being a writer, poet and songwriter myself, I find the morning the most natural time to compose because one is fresh from sleep and only emerging from the flurry of dreams. There are no inhibitions, no dominating thought beyond the feeling of being half-way between night and day.

The song 'Cornerstone' gives one a sense of that borderland, the liminal state. Like the hero's journey I mentioned above, the narrator is on search. What I find the most fascinating is that every locale, from the 'Battleship' to the 'Rusty Hook' and 'Parrot's Beak' each have a certain pirate if not sea-faring theme. We get the impression the narrator is 'at sea', at a loss, cast off. And in the first place or what we assume to be a club he sees a girl that looks like his lost love under 'the warning light' (perhaps an allusion to lights used in vessels under attack). She is a 'vision trick', a play in the eyes and the narrator is foolish enough to approach and ask her if he can her 'your name'. 

From this first verse, the listener realizes the narrator is addressing the eternal you and we are immediately taken in. It is a love song but far from typical in presentation. The genius of this song lies in the descriptions, the places he goes and the three different girls before he meets the sister at the song's end.

Take for instance the second verse in the 'Rusty Hook' where he approaches a girl 'huddled up in a wicker chair.'

I wandered over for a closer look

Kissed whoever was sitting there

She was close, and she held me very tightly,

Til I asked her awfully politely

'Please can I you her name.'

Building on his story, the first verse illustrates the narrator in a comical situation. By the second, we realize his obsession and subsequently begin to feel more compassion. What makes the second verse all-the-more poignant is that for a brief, fleeting moment, the past is recaptured. The girl opens her arms to him, he once again experiences an instance in which his loss disappears. Here it is, he can almost be happy again yet he opens his mouth, making his polite request to give this new girl the name of the one loved and lost. 

The chorus, repeated twice opens with two brilliant lines: I elongated my lift home/I let him go the long way round. Here, we get the impression he is in a taxi, on his way to who knows where but he doesn't want to get there fast enough. He wants to slow down. He smells her scent on the seat belt and the aroma alone, tantalizing and bittersweet, keeps him from instructing the cab drive on the best short cuts. Again, he is recapturing the ghost of his lost love, albeit in a fragrance. The past, a mere impression, haunts the narrator but he is determined.

In the third verse, there is a claustrophobic if not destructive element. He is in the 'Parrot's Beak' and the third template of his lost love is playing with the smoke alarm. The club is loud, the girl has a broken arm and the walls are wet, giving the impression the girl has successfully triggered the building's sprinkler system.

Despite having the use of one arm, the young woman spells out using a Letraset that 'no, you can't call me her name'.


Letraset is a UK-based company that produces markers and other artistic publishing products. It could be she is using the traditional manufacturing sheet of transferable lettering or one of the writing tools produced by the company. Considering the girl in the third verse is using a Letraset writing tool, we can safely assume she is a creative person, whether in graphic design or marketing or maybe even a graffiti artist considering the prank she is pulling off.

The narrator is unsettled by this third encounter, disconsolate, even questioning his own reality. In the bridge portion of the song, he wants to know where his lost love is hiding, worried he will forget her face. To me, this might even suggest he is falling for girls that may resemble aspects of her personality as opposed to appearance. If his memory of her looks is dissolving, then we know he is only looking for the comfort of the past, its name. Her name. In other words, the narrator only desires the feeling of being in his previous relationship for how could he forget the face if he has spent the entire evening mistaking all these girls for his lost love?

By this point, we return to the chorus, the long cab ride, haunted by the scent. The listener must now wonder: is it the same cab or is he following her, hoping to get a final scent in this sacred backseat? If the former, is he asking the driver to wait outside each locale? And in the case of the latter, is his lost love just one step ahead?


Whenever I hear 'Cornerstone', I am reminded of Rainer Maria Rilke poem that begins with 'Du, im voraus/verlorne Geliebte, Nimmergekommene' which roughly translates into, "You, just ahead/lost beloved, the Never-to-come-one' or as Stephen Mitchell brilliants interprets as "You who never arrived". In the said poem, the narrator feels he is following the wake of his 'verlorne Geliebte', that everywhere he goes, he is reminded he is always one step behind and will never catch up to her.

...An open window

In the country house – and you nearly

Stepped out pensively to meet me. Streets I found

You had just passed,

And sometimes the mirrors in the merchant shops,

Still spinning from your reflection became startled

By my unexpected presence (my translation)

The 'Cornerstone' narrator experiences the same wistful hopelessness as Rilke's and we get a sense of the bittersweet in the poignant piano solo that acts as a kind of prelude to the final verse. The music feels like raindrops on a car rooftop, the flicker of lights through a windshield, maybe even the melodic tears of the narrator in his hapless silence.

Thankfully, hope springs eternal and things are always closer to resolve following the bleak and bitter. The narrator wanders into a 'Cornerstone'. The name, ironically, is derived from a counseling centre in the Arctic Monkey's hometown of Sheffield, South Yorkshire in Northern England. In the song, we may assume it is another club or perhaps a play on the words corner store. Either way, the sister is by herself and the narrator feels she will understand his predicament. 

She was close - you couldn't get much closer

She said I'm not really supposed to but yes,

Call me anything you want. 

The song closes, the journey ends but an attentive listener will always have questions. If he dated this lost love and then finds himself in the company of her sister, does that mean he was always looking for her? If throughout the song he found templates of his ex, does this resolve indicate he is finding peace or is he again lost in the rapture of repeating the past? 

The sister, especially, intrigues me. I assume she is as compassionate as the listener. We already identify with him by the first verse as we see things through his perspective. We want him to be happy because we want to be happy in our relationships. In a sense the sister is a surrogate but also sanctuary and with her acquiescence the song closes only with more questions but the listener is released from his anxiety concerning the narrator. The sister (like a sister of mercy) will take care of him; we are relieved. Judging by her reaction to his plea, perhaps she is acquainted with his sensibilities and attitudes. Like a nurse in a psyche ward, she is familiar with his psychosis. Perhaps she is even used to him and has long expected this - for how else would the narrator have predicted she would comprehend his situation and open his arms to him?

Ultimately, the sister goes beyond the previous girls in that she knows what she is getting into. The first girl was simply a trick of the eyes; the second may have been amorous, kissing this new stranger but unwilling to play his game while the third was a trickster, up to no good. The sister is the climax of the tale, the deus ex machina for how else could such a wonderful song end? 

The sister is also 'your sister', the ex's sister and because the song is addressed to the eternal and elusive 'you', 'the she' behind all his solemn and scattered behavior, the sister is like another pawn.

The listener has enjoyed the journey but the sister (again 'your sister') must put up with the narrator, in a sense - when we think of the title - become his counselor. 

The ending can only allude to the suddenness and illusion of happy endings. The narrator hasn't found what he is looking for (or maybe he has if we consider he was always looking for the sister, his ex being a simple prelude) nor has he recaptured time. There is a significant element of failure here. What he will attain from his relationship with the sister is unknown. But judging by his behavior, he will go on unsatisfied, unsettled, his desire tormenting him. 

He is lost, the you he was looking for is no where to be seen, stilling hiding but the evening's journey is thankfully over. 

The song ends and rests with his rest.