What is “Rattlesnake Kiss” about?
"Rattlesnake Kiss" is a desert romance told as a snakebite. The narrator meets a dangerous stranger at a bar, trades lines about poison, and ends up driving ninety in the dark to somewhere nobody goes, treating the attraction as venom she has no wish to cure: "I don't need the antidote." Released first as a single, it also opens Gasoline Hymn and sets the album's tone of reckless, road-bound desire.
Rattlesnake Kiss lyrics
Saw you standing at the bar like something venomous
Leather jacket, crooked smile, looking dangerous
You said hey what's your poison, I said what's yours
You said darling I'm the kind they don't sell in stores
We danced like the devil was paying the tab
Two strangers in the desert doing something bad
One taste and I'm gone
One taste and I'm gone gone gone
Rattlesnake kiss, it's a rattlesnake kiss
Sinking your fangs in and it goes like this
A little bit of venom and a little bit of bliss
Rattlesnake kiss, yeah a rattlesnake kiss
Once you get bit you don't wanna quit
Give me that rattlesnake kiss
We drove out past the city where the desert starts to hum
Where the coyotes sing and the stars come undone
Your hand on the dashboard, mine on the wheel
Going ninety in the dark just to feel what we feel
You said pull over here where nobody goes
And we kissed like two snakes in the sand when the wind blows
One taste and I'm gone
One taste and I'm gone gone gone
Rattlesnake kiss, it's a rattlesnake kiss
Sinking your fangs in and it goes like this
A little bit of venom and a little bit of bliss
Rattlesnake kiss, yeah a rattlesnake kiss
Once you get bit you don't wanna quit
Give me that rattlesnake kiss
Coil around me
Strike me down
I don't need the antidote
I like the way the poison sounds
Ssssss
Rattlesnake kiss, it's a rattlesnake kiss
Sinking your fangs in and it goes like this
All venom all honey all heat and all hiss
Rattlesnake kiss, give me that rattlesnake kiss
Once you get bit you're addicted to this
Give me that rattlesnake kiss
Rattlesnake kiss
Yeah give me that kiss