It's interesting how differently folks react to lyrics.
That lyric evokes specific images for me. While no explanation is needed, here's how I break it down in my own head:
Black roof country - a metaphor for coal or industrial soot on the roofs, perhaps a dingy industrial or mining town, or just an old one. No gold pavements, ie, streets not paved with gold, working class. Even the birds are tired. Her eyes sparkle and remind him of silver horses running down light in the darkness. In the morning, she looks beautiful in the light. But the woman wants no strings attached, waits on the platform for a diesel train, and splits, making him sad.
He'll wait in line for her to come back, and lie with her for obvious reasons. She's kind in a tough crowd; her presence is consolation for a lost love that wounded him. Yellow tigers are perhaps anger in her eyes, She leaves, he goes back to sleep in the dark.
The beauty of a lyric like this is that it probably means something different to everyone, and no doubt meant something different to the person who wrote it. I think it's a very good metaphor of a love affair.
But that's my interpretation.
I've got to circle back to these Cream lyrics. When Pete Brown collaborated with Ginger Baker and then Jack Bruce, pure poetry was introduced, and yes (as 11 Top suggests) infused with the psychedelic intoxicants of the time. Those lyrics to White Room so vividly and imaginatively paint a picture while telling a story. Absolutely right, Les, the protagonist starts out in an industrial town where as you say, "Even the birds are tired." He speaks directly to her with the line "Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes." Later we'll see a change in how he perceives her. Then, instead of simply stating she's leaving with a ticket in her hand while the train is idling, the image becomes "Platform ticket (yup, she's outta there), restless diesels (the idling train engines), goodbye windows (the large windows of the train itself) all more elegantly portrayed.
So, although he says he waits for her, he "feels his own need just beginning" as probably all of us have felt after being dumped. They meet again at a party, and although kind to him, this woman has changed. Now, he speaks not to her but about her: "Yellow tigers, crouched in jungles, in her dark eyes." A far cry from what was previously in those eyes.
Then, open to interpretation we hear "She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings" and the image of him back with the lonely crowd sleeping in the dark. I first thought that she's dressing from the tryst they enjoyed at the party. Could be, but after later listenings, I think it's that she is now just window dressing, and he is over her, waiting for the next one to come his way (as they always did).
Disraeli Gears was a seminal album for me, just as Jeff Beck's "Truth" and Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" were at the time. For you Cream fans out there, if you've never watched the Classic Albums DVD on the story behind the album, give yourself a treat and pick that up. Fascinating stories, video clips and interviews with the band and the two lyricists Pete Brown and Martin Sharp.
Humorous aside about the title of that album, don't know if I picked this up from the DVD or Philip Norman's biography "Slowhand". At any rate, Clapton was into biking (the pedal kind) at the time and was telling a friend in a car about his new bike, which had multiple gears. The driver asked Clapton if the bike was equipped with those new "Disraeli gears" mixing up the name of the UK prime minister Benjamin Disraeli with the system of switching bicycle gears, the derailleur system. Clapton chuckled and the rest, as they say, is history.
