I’ll wait in this place where the sun never shines/
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.

Cream’s “White Room” is some convoluted story about an apartment and a hookup at this apartment. The narrator then walks the girl to the train station and wishes she wouldn’t go but we don’t get the feeling he is devastated. We really just don’t know. The song ends with a party (perhaps back at the apartment) and the girl has come back. What happens next?

“White Room” is obviously a very experimental song. The lyrics are a bit out there and the introductory time signature is non-standard. Combine that with Bruce jumping in and out of falsetto, Clapton liberally using his whammy bar and fuzz box and you have a very trippy experience. More interestingly, is that despite all the bizarre individual pieces, it works really well as a rock song.

White Room Lyrics

In the white room with black curtains near the station
Black roof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings
Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes
Dawnlight smiles on you leaving, my contentment

I’ll wait in this place where the sun never shines
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves

You said no strings could secure you at the station
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows
I walked into such a sad time at the station
As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning

I’ll wait in the queue when the trains come back
Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves

At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd
Consolation for the old wound now forgotten
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes
She’s just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings

I’ll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd
Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves

written by Jack bruce/ Pete Brown