Quoth Andy unknown email:

The song's title is ambiguous, The World's Address/The World's a Dress. If we assume it is intentional,

The world's a dress/a place that's worn

people "wear" the world. Like wearing a costume that defines who you are.

A sad pun that reflects a sadder mess

it is a sad (bad) pun(address/a dress), but that people live like that is sadder.

Everyone seems naked when you know the world's address(a dress)

the emperor has no clothes!

Quoth Eric Liga <edl9798@tamaix.tamu.edu>:

Although "Andy" catches some of the pun in "The World's Address," he loses a crucial bit of it. Very obviously the wordplay is based on the fact the the World's Address sounds very much like "The world's a dress." However, the line that clinches the pun is "a place that's worn"... a dress is worn, but our world is "worn" in the sense of "worn down," degraded and used up over time. Certainly a "sad pun that reflects a sadder mess."

The World's Address is also "right here." Wherever we are, that's the world's location, its address. We are an integral and essentially inseperable part of that world, worn as it may be. The metaphor is continued in the line

"Life's parade of fashion just leaves me depressed
Under every garment I can see the world's a dress."

All of the fashions and cultures that we "wear" just like the garments that we use to cover our bodies, hide the fact that we are, in fact, animals and as such are integral parts of the planet. We try to deny this by hiding it, but behind this facade, just like under our clothes, is the proof. It is depressing to see us deny our part in the planet and continue to harm ourselves by harming it, adding to the wear and tear.

Call the men of science
and let them hear this song...
Tell them Albert Einstein and Copernicus were wrong.

This is just continuing the pun that the world is "a dress" and that Copernicus had foolishly thought it was a planet! Also, it may be pointing to the fact that we sometimes, as scientists, see ourselves and our planet as two entirely separate entities. This is, from one perspective, wrong.

I don't know how much of this was useful or even relevent. And, of course, it is all simply one person's interpretation. But I just couldn't bear to see the dual meaning of the word "wear" be overlooked, as it's what gives the song coherency.

Quoth Jason <nadbeel@execpc.com>:

A lot of the meanings of this song have been covered already, but it seems like this song might have a more narrow focus, a more personal theme. I think this because of the first line: "I know YOU deceived ME/Now my tear stains on the wall reflect an ugly sight." It sounds like sadness and misery due to rejection (note: due to personal experience, I get this impression from a LOT of songs). It might be that John's bad experience has left him with a new view of humanity. Their cruely has been exposed ("everyone looks naked").So what is the world's address? Where is the world? I think John sees the world as being in a sorry state. The world is in a place where a talented musician can have his heart broken by an evil deceiver.

Quoth Andrew P Street <pcbac@flinders.edu.au>:

I've always thought that it refers to the Voyager spacecraft:

The two Voyagers were sent into space in the late 70s to roam the stellar void, as you do, as kind of unmanned ambassadors of Earth. On the side of each craft was a gold LP record with recordings of various sounds of Earth on it, which of course is terrifically useful for other civilisations, who presumably are way keen to hear a chaffinch. But I digress. Etched into the disk are instructions for how it can be played (the Voyager had a record player installed, I assume), a star map with the sun relative to the Galactic Centre and the Earth relative to the sun (The World's Address) and a naked man and woman ("Everyone looks naked whn you know the world's address"). The references to Einstein and Copernicus fit nicely into this interp.

Mind you, most of the first verse in still not covered by my NASA-esque reading. I like the "The World's A Dress" pun interp best, but this is my two cents worth.

Quoth Mike Laughead <laughead@mut1.muscanet.com>:

This whole song is about how the world, and everyone and thing in it is judged by it's appearance, instead of it's content.

The beginning of the song is about John being deceived by the appearance of someone (possibly a woman.) When John finds this out, he finally realizes how the world really is. No one is a good as they seem on the surface "Everyone looks naked when you know the worlds address." John can see how people really are and is sick of the way everyone appears to be different than they really are "Life's parade of fashion just leaves me depressed."

The end of the song "Call the men of science....." is saying to show the people who "know how everything is" to see that is all a lie.

This song is very depressing, but very true.

Giantisms:

• "The World's Address" vs. "The World's a Dress."