submissions
| The Dandy Warhols – Mohammed Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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Early on Mohammed was wracked with doubt and wondered if he was being influenced by demons. He was trying to make the world better but feared it was demons trying to trick him into making things worse. The author (Courtney) wants to do the right thing, is trying to do the right thing, but wonders whether he's making things worse. Perhaps his own demons are tricking him. |
submissions
| Rainer Maria – Breakfast Of Champions Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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Ok, they\'re not letting me update the lyrics. Real shame. Here\'s the lyrics with both voices included.\n\nWake me up, it\'s morning.\nAnd take me down to the corner\nPlace before the shade\n(Where we eat and that\'s where we talk)\nRetreats behind the wall and\nThat\'s when i decide to stay here.\nWake me up, it\'s morning.\n(Wake me up)\nAnd take me down to the corner\nPlace before the shade\n(Where we eat and that\'s where we talk)\nRetreats behind the wall and\nThat\'s when i decide to stay here.\nGolden gate bridge\n(Cup of tea, blackberry)\nEverything\'s alright now.\nDon\'t let me sleep.\nIt was warm and pleasant\nAnd over in an instant.\nI feel like i dreamt it,\nBut i\'m not there now.\n(But i\'m not there now)\nEasier to drive,\nLeave the oven on,\nBurn the house down.\nGolden gate bridge\n(Cup of tea, blackberry)\nEverything\'s alright now.\nDon\'t let me sleep.\nGolden gate bridge\n(Cup of tea, blackberry)\nEverything\'s alright now.\nDon\'t let me sleep.\nIt was warm and pleasant\nAnd over in an instant.\nI feel like i dreamt it,\nBut i\'m not there now.\nAnd then you left me\nAnd drove into a snowstorm. |
submissions
| Rainer Maria – Breakfast Of Champions Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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I submitted a request to change the lyrics to include both singers, where they attempt to sing over one another. That the current lyrics don't include that is a great disservice to the song. What is more appropriate with a song about a rocky relationship than having both singers trying to drown out each other. Though, I think it more indicates their lives going off in different directions.
My favourite Rainer Maria song, and one of my favourite 90s songs. |
submissions
| Sleater-Kinney – Get Up Lyrics
| 5 years ago
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Regardless of the meaning behind the song, when they sing the actual lyric "Get Up", makes me feel so uplifted. For me, emotes a confident call to action in the face of adversity. |
submissions
| Yo La Tengo – Deeper Into Movies Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Something special about this song. Can't help feeling there's something deeper than the lyrics imply. Something I'm missing between the lines. Can't quite figure it out. |
submissions
| Port O'Brien – High Without the Hope 3 Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I don't know why I keep listening to this band. It's always like they're talking to me. But I guess that's why I listen, the universality of what they have to say. The sadness of everyday life. |
submissions
| Port O'Brien – Tree Bones Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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The line "pine by the sea my namesake". Cambria is from Cambria California, a seaside village, so she's probably talking about there. On the other hand, could be the Port O'Brien in Alaska, another namesake. Great play on words: the pine is a tree but also a term for mourning.
Song seems to be about mourning, with her sister, the death of a mother.
I really like the last line "Tree bones will die alone and our bones will find a home" but I'm uncertain how to interpret it. I think about dead trees without bark standing for years after their death for all to see. But our bones are buried at our death. I guess maybe she sees a dead tree, maybe that was alive when her mother was alive. Her mother, like the tree, is now dead. The tree bones are still visible, but her mother's are buried. I guess she sees those tree bones as alone, feels those of her mother have found a home -- I'm quite uncertain on this one. |
submissions
| Tool – Forty Six & 2 Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I highly doubt the Jungian angle. I read a great deal of Jung, though not all his works. He had some cool ideas, and some crazy ideas (for example at one point speculating that the reason the number 4 appears so often in dreams is related to the valence of carbon). However, the idea of evolving extra chromosomes sounds unlike Jung. From other internet forums I've seen that apparently Jung thought Australian aborigines and Africans had only 42+2 chromosomes whereas the rest of the population has 44+2. That's totally untrue, and clearly has rascist overtones. And presumably Jung, a learned person, would have known better.
I suspect this association of 46+2 with Jung is an urban legend, forgery, or fabrication. Whether MJK bought into this or was just using the idea artistically, is difficult to know. |
submissions
| Wilco – Can't Stand It Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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"Speakers are speaking in code" I think is an early reference to spoken coded short-wave messages he heard that would later grace Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Words being spoken clearly, but the words having no meaning themselves. Just stand-ins for a totally different coded message. I think it's his way of expressing the hopelessness of ever figuring out what "really" is going on, no matter how much you "listen". |
submissions
| Grizzly Bear – Central and Remote Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I think the song speaks to how he copes with trials of life. He knows that his life ("his ride") faces many obstacles ("in the wind, in the yoke"). But he remains cognizant that he does have a way out if the trials become too much ("any further and I'll know"). He always has plans for escape ("I keep my feet right in line for flight"), though he keeps the plans to himself. |
submissions
| Low – Sandinista Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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They ask the honest question: If the government kills your father, and comes for the rest of your family, would you join a militant organization taking up arms against the government? There will be different answers from different people, but everyone can understand why some in that situation would join the most militant of organizations.
Background: the Sandinistas were a militant organization that in 1979 overthrew the corrupt, oppressive, dictatorial Somoza dynasty that had ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist for 40 years. What happened afterwards, I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. Learn Nicaraguan history and you'll truly understand world history. |
submissions
| Low – July Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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It probably says more about me than it says about the song, but to me it's about a nuclear exchange during the Cold War. I always feared there'd be a nuclear war at night, and there'd be no way for the government to warn anyone, 'cause everyone woulda been asleep. You are lucky you didn't grow up back then. |
submissions
| GZA/Genius – Swordsman Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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One of my all-time favourites. I think what the GZA is saying is not one thing, but many things. But the over-arching concept behind the track is about what happens when a person decides to seriously examine issues of spirituality, when a person looks beyond the simple superstitions. Society reacts to your search with either indifference or outright hostility. Even friends and family react that way.
When the GZA tries to base GOD he gets hostility (slapped in the face) from those in authority. And authority's followers (the "whole clique") unquestionably react the same way. But the followers only oppose the GZA because their leader opposes the GZA. They think that unquestioning obedience to authority is enough to "qualify" them for whatever spiritual rewards.
The first verse is a short history of the GZA's spiritual development. He started out as superstitious as everyone else. Maybe even more so, 'cause he talks about black cats, salt, etc, which are things only the real superstitious worry about. I often wonder whether it's the most superstitious that become the most questioning, because in order to be THAT superstitious, you have to take your beliefs seriously. Anyways, the GZA investigates his beliefs and finds them to be nothing more than a hoax.
Second verse seems to be about African American heritage. Who can know himself without knowing where he's from? And he sees the development of his beliefs in the context of his African American history. By seeing this he can look beyond those beliefs and see a deeper truth. And yet he sees so-called authority figures "feed they own seeds" with the same old superstitions.
The track is a call for questioning, for searching beyond what you've been taught. The GZA does not tell you what he found to be the truth. If he did that, he'd be no better than those so-called authority figures. You have to find your own truth. |
submissions
| Low – Murderer Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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If you've never met a Christian that has some ambivalence towards God, then you should get out more. Like Sufjan Stevens in Seven Swans or Abraham there's no doubt about the distaste being hinted and/or expressed for some of the things God's supposedly done. Destroying whole civilizations? Telling a man to sacrifice his son?
Great artists are just like you and me, with the exception that they don't let their own beliefs get in the way of artistic expression. And that's what this Christian is doing, not letting his belief in God get in the way of his artistic need to take God to task. |
submissions
| Fleetwood Mac – Sara Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I remember as a child -- only source of music was the car radio, over which I had no control. And a song would start playing, and if it grabbed me I'd concentrate so intently, trying to drink in every note above the racket of the engine knowing that it might be days, months or ever til I'd hear it again. This was one of those songs... |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Even The Losers Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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"It was nearly summer, we sat on your roof,
Yeah, we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon" Great writing. Just a few words but we can see ourselves there. "Two cars park on the overpass, rocks hit the water like broken glass." Minimal words but in our mind we see an entire scene. That's the height of poetry. |
submissions
| Eels – Selective Memory Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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One of the saddest songs ever written. Right up there with Cat Power's Names. I think of Goldie's song Mother when I hear this. ("Mother" is a long droning, plaintive yearning for a mother, more desperate than sad) Goldie never knew his mother. |
submissions
| Patti Smith – Land: Horses/Land of a Thousand Dances/La Mer(de) Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Remember that photography artist Robert Mapplethorpe is on the album cover, that Patti had a sexual relationship with him, even though he was apparently exclusively homosexual the rest of his life, that the song was written in the 70s when the male homosexual culture was flowering in NY, as was BDSM activity. I think the song is about a revelatory homosexual encounter. It starts with Johnny being on the receiving end, so to speak: "he drove it deep in Johnny", "Johnny fell on his knees started crashing his head against the locker", "twist the twister", "do the sweet pee pee", "Then you're rolled down on your back and you like it like that". But then Johnny decides to take control, with the other guy receiving, so to speak. References to Johnny's knives are obviously phallic. And the "I fill my nose with snow" is an obvious drug ref (although it may not have been as obvious back in the 70s). I'll stop there, but I could continue with obvious references to sexually explicit acts. Why would Patti sing such a long and complex song about sex between two men? The time of the song was the 70s when homosexual men in NY finally were able to feel free to express their true selves. Patti had a front row seat to the scene and undoubtably was inspired by it. |
submissions
| Modest Mouse – Cowboy Dan Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I admire the way Brock's lyric seamlessly change perspective. It starts out describing Dan from the perspective of how Dan wants others to know him, as an authentic hard-drinking, mean, cowboy. Then it shifts to the perspective of how Dan sees himself, as a frustrated, loser "Can't do it, not even if sober
Can't get that engine turned over". Finally, the perspective switches to that of a sympathetic observer, who sees the hopelessness of Dan's situation "Everytime you're looking you're just looking down". The perspective switches give us a complete picture of a frustrated individual who wants to be something more than he is capable. Something of a universal portrait. |
submissions
| Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I keep expecting him to continue "...a swimming, six geese a-layin". But seriously, IMO, the best artists create art that transcends the artists' usually pretty conventional world view. Despite what he says about the "aggressive joy" of God, there's definitely an ambivalence towards God in these lyrics. God "chases" and "takes" and his reason? "Cause he is Lord" One definitely gets the feeling the lyrics describe first and foremost an uncompromising God. |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Rocket Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The lyrics miss the first word of the song, which I think is: "Love!". I've always been intrigued by that intro. Why's he say that? Love what? May be what makes this my favourite pumpkins song. |
submissions
| Wilco – I Can't Stand It Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Definitely one of the greatest pop songs. Really upbeat, even danceable. "Speakers are speaking in code" I think is an early reference to spoken coded short-wave messages he heard that would later grace Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Words being spoken clearly, but the words having no meaning themselves. Just stand-ins for a totally different coded message. I think it's his way of expressing the hopelessness of ever figuring out what "really" is going on, no matter how much you "listen". |
submissions
| DMX – Ready To Meet Him Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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My favourite from DMX. I can do without the 2 minute prayer intro, however. Anyways, reminds me of the story of Job which climaxes in a heated verbal exchange between god and Job. Just like Job, DMX eventually agrees to submit to god, but not before getting off some zingers that god chooses not to answer (can't answer). |
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| Modest Mouse – Ohio Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Well, I doubt there's a tie, but when he says Ohio, it sounds a lot like Neil Young, and Young had a song, I think, called Ohio. ("Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own...") |
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| Modest Mouse – 3rd Planet Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Like some of the other posters, I think MM is talking about conception of a new human, while using the opportunity to philosophize (a word?) about the universe, and our relative place in the universe. |
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| Modest Mouse – 3rd Planet Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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About that thing about the universe being exactly like the earth, if you go straight eventually you'll be back where you started. Noone knows the topology (the shape) of the universe, but the simplest theory is that the universe is actually the surface of an expanding sphere. That explains why the universe is expanding. Just like spots on a balloon move apart as you inflate the balloon, so too do the galaxies move apart from one another as the universe expands. So, if you were to head off in a straight line in the universe you'd eventually hand-up where you started (assuming you can somehow go faster than light, but that's another story). |
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| Modest Mouse – Lives Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Great song. Their most straight-forward lyrics. I love the way the song starts out slow and sad as MM complain about how people are never satisfied. But then the song transitions to a more upbeat, hopeful sound as MM tries to get listeners to realize they should try to enjoy life, 'cause its short and non-reentrant. It ends on the downbeat note, though. Reminds me a bit of the Beatles' Day In the Life Of in its transitions between upbeat and downbeat. In general, I think its great the way MM avoids the standard ABACAB song format. |
submissions
| Modest Mouse – Wild Packs of Family Dogs Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think it's about the pressures of outside forces on the security of family. At first the parents can keep these forces away, but, over time, these forces chip away at the family finally leaving no security. But there's also something about apathy. The narrator never lifts a finger to fight the dogs himself. He just gives in to the inevitability of the dogs, under the illusion that the dogs will be brought to justice in the afterlife. |
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