"Ain't No Rest for the Wicked"

Cage the Elephant's song, "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" is a bonus track from their album, Cage the Elephant. This song is broken up into three stories each dealing with a different theme: lust, temptation, and greed. This song is about what lengths people would go to for money. It plays on the idea that people are forced to do this because of the flaws in society. It also mentions how once they get started in this life they have no where else to go but forward. "I know I can't slow down,/ I can't hold back though you know I wish I could". The first story, the narrator runs into a prostitute. After offering her services, the narrator asks why she does this. In the second story, the narrator is held up at gunpoint. The narrator then says that he will comply if he first tells him why he does this. In the third story, the narrator turns on the TV and sees a preacher robbing from his church on the news. The prostitute and the mugger both reply to his question with:

"There ain't no rest for the wicked,

Money don't grow on trees,  

I've got bills to pay,

I've got mouths to feed, 

Ain't nothing in this world for free. 

I know I can't slow down, 

I can't hold back though you know I wish I could, 

No there ain't no rest for the wicked, 

Until we close our eyes for good." 

I think this song looks deeper into the problems humans face when they are put in a difficult situation. When faced with lust, greed, and temptation, most will give in and the ones that do have a difficult time stopping once they start. This song reminded me of the quote, "The love of money is the root of all evil", because the song is saying how money corrupted these peoples lives in different ways.


According to Perrine's Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry, "Poetry takes all life as its province...poetry as a whole is concerned with all kinds of experience--beautiful or ugly, strange or common, noble or ignoble, actual or imaginary." Since a poem has to do with experience and the response made by the reader, "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" could be a poem because it tells a story of three separate encounters he had with greed and it created a response from the reader that there is a flaw in our system, that people are being forced to do whatever it takes for money because they don't have any other choice, and that once they start they don't have any option except to keep going.


The writer of "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" uses imagery, irony, paradoxes, and repetition to enhance the meaning. Imagery is used when the writer describes the prostitute. When he says that she is such a "sweet young thing" he seems to be taken by surprise that someone so young and innocent looking is prostituting herself for money. The writer uses irony to show how it is ironic that the person you would think to be the most holy, the preacher, is actually stealing from his own church just for money. The line, "I know I can't slow down,/ I can't hold back though you know I wish I could,/ No there ain't no rest for the wicked,/Until we close our eyes for good" is an example of a paradox because it almost contradicts itself when it says that they want to stop but they can't and they won't be able to until they are dead. This helps enhance the meaning that people are forced into these situations with no way out. Repetition also plays a role in enhancing the meaning because when the prostitute and the robber are asked why they would do such a thing they both reply with the same answer that they did it for money. It shows that money plays such a large role in peoples lives and their actions.