submissions
| Dead Kennedys – Funland At The Beach Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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I thought the details of the song were so specific that it had to be based on a true news story, but I've never found confirmation of that theory anywhere. Regardless, it definitely seems to be satirizing how society reacts to a massive tragedy - especially with how the parents are depicted as being primarily concerned with getting a big lawsuit payout ("Oh police! / Call your lawyer first") and the local news showing graphic depictions of their deaths for ratings. |
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| Lard – Ballad of Marshall Ledbetter Lyrics
| 7 years ago
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I just recently learned through Wikipedia that this song is based on a true story - Marshall Ledbetter was a college student who broke into the Florida State Capitol Building in 1991, made that strange list of demands (including wanting to talk to Jello Biafra), and was eventually arrested peaceably after a police standoff. |
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| fun. – Why Am I the One Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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They make enough references to their own songs (and Format songs) that I think they had to have done that on purpose. |
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| Blondie – I'm Gonna Love You Too Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I'm pretty sure "after all I'm not too particular" is "after all, another fella took ya". At very least, that was the line in the original version by Buddy Holly, and it doesn't sound like Debbie Harry changed it to me. |
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| Primus – Year Of The Parrot Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I don't think they were saying anything about "the lord of 1994" at all - "the year of our lord 1994" is just another way of saying "1994 A.D.", since "Anno Domini" is Latin for "in the year of our Lord".
I think the meaning of the song has otherwise been covered, but I always thought the part about "Kate Bush and Van Morrison teaching the parrots to sing" was a veiled reference to specific popular bands ripping those particular artists off. Given that this was released in 1995, I'd guess Les would be talking about Tori Amos and... The Counting Crows, maybe? |
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| Primus – Glass Sandwich Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Yeah, I think everyone else pretty much has this covered. However, in case anyone didn't get the reason for the song title: The guy and his ex are separated by a pane of glass, so it's a "glass sandwich" so to speak. |
submissions
| Melvins – Laughing With Lucifer At Satan's Sideshow Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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This is off Honky, the first album they released after Atlantic dropped them. I'm not sure if these are from actual recorded phone calls with Atlantic executives or not, but obviously The Melvins didn't think the label was treating them very well. |
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| The Dead Milkmen – Tiny Town Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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The meaning is pretty straightforward, although I did read somewhere they got banned from one college radio station because someone thought the song was racist, when it's obviously making fun of racists.
If you're wondering about "We hate punks, but we love the F.U.'s", it's kind of a piss take on another band. The F.U.'s were this Boston hardcore band who had lost a lot of fans by putting out an album full of right-wing conservative songs. |
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| Cracker – Yalla Yalla (Let's Go) Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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It's from the point of view of a young soldier. Most of the strange phrases and words ("chu", "battle rattle", "yalla yalla" itself) are military slang. David Lowery said he found a soldier's blog entry about military slang online and he just thought it sounded cool. |
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| Frank Black – Superabound Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I heard the "See the egress" story a little differently: Once you left the freak show at PT Barnum's circus, you'd have to pay to get in again, but once you entered there was really nothing stopping you from just hanging around all day, which many people did. So rather than have to force people out, he just started having a barker come by the tent every few hours and entice people to step outside and see the egress. |
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| Wilco – Walken Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think the title is in fact a reference to Christopher Walken, just done for the sake of a pun. |
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| MGMT – Brian Eno Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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There's a few things wrong with this I think, but the main one I can say with certainty is that it would actually be "the wisdom of oblique stratagems" - look up "Oblique Strategies" on wikipedia and it'll make more sense - they are basically a series of cards with instructions meant to help you along if you get writers block while trying to compose a song. |
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| Pearl Jam – Goat Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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It's a Ten outtake, it's now on the reissue of it (listed as "Evil Little Goat"). They probably were just goofing around in the studio between songs and making this up as they went along, so there probably isn't anything deeper to it than an evil goat. |
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| Pink Floyd – Candy and a Currant Bun Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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The funny thing is that, if I remember right, the "Let's Roll Another One" version had "please just walk with me" instead of "please just fuck with me". So they got rid of some drug references, but added in an even more blatant sex reference. And apparently successfully slipped it by. |
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| Eels – What Is This Note? Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It took a while, but I've kind of come around to this one. In Things The Grandchildren Should Know, E said the whole point was to offset these "grade school love poetry" lyrics with really noisy, aggressive music. |
submissions
| The Zombies – Friends Of Mine Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Of Montreal did a cover of this song, the Zombies version is the original. Anyone who likes early Of Montreal or other Elephant 6 stuff should check out the album Odessey And Oracle.
This song actually comes off as just a little bit bittersweet to me, despite how cheery it sounds. The guy sounds genuinely happy for his friends, but it's implied he doesn't have that kind of close relationship with anyone himself. And as a bit of irony, I've read that all the people named in the chorus were actual couples the band knew, but almost all of them broke up by the time the album was out. |
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| Tom Waits – Two Sisters Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I was just looking this up on Wikipedia, and as it is with lots of murder ballads, there were a lot of variations on the lyrics other than the version Tom Waits used. In one of them the miller doesn't enter into it at all, and the jealous sister actually does get punished: Someone makes a harp or fiddle out of the drowned sister's bones and hair, brings it to the family's house as a wedding present for the oldest sister and Willie, and at the wedding the instrument starts playing itself while singing about the murder. |
submissions
| Sparks – White Women Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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This came out long before Adam Green was around, I think they're referring to the biblical Adam. The fact that the narrator assumes Adam and Eve were white is part of the satirical nature of it all. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Weep Day Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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This all came about because they happened upon an old Bob Dylan compilation record where the song title "Mr. Tambourine Man" wouldn't fit on one line of the back cover, so it kind of looked like "Mr. Tambo- urine Man". |
submissions
| Sonic Youth – Bull In The Heather Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Bull In The Heather was in fact the name of a race horse; Bob Nastovich from Pavement is a big horse racing fan, and apparently he gave Kim and Thurston a bumper sticker with the horse's name on it. I don't think the song is actually about the horse though; it seems more like they're either using betting on horses as an obtuse sex/prostitution metaphor or they just thought it'd make a cool song title and decided to work it into an otherwise unrelated set of lyrics. |
submissions
| Shudder to Think – Red House Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Beautiful song. As for what it's about, I get the idea from lines like "she's a person see, between you and me, someone I want bad but can't have" and "I dream, dream, dream, but don't look" that it's either about being tempted to cheat on someone or just about unrequited love. "Between you and me" could be someone coming between two people, or just asking someone else to keep his feelings a secret (i.e. "this is just between you and me, but..."). Come to think of it, that last verse seems like the it's most straightforward part of the lyrics, but is still pretty damn cryptic. I kind of like that.
Also, it's "chicken coop", not "chicken coup". The latter actually sort of seems like the kind of obtuse wordplay Craig Wedren *would* throw into a song though (see "fools gold rush in"). |
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| Slowdive – Alison Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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scentofsummer - there's always "Alison's Starting To Happen" by The Lemonheads (so long as you don't mind the lines "Alison's getting her tits pierced/ Alison's getting a mohawk"). |
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| Happy Mondays – God's Cop Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I only know about this because there's a Fall song that also references him, but there was a Chief Constable of Greater Manchester who claimed to talk directly to god, and I'm reasonably sure he's who this song is about. See this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Anderton |
submissions
| The Stone Roses – Don't Stop Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Yeah, I played it backwards and it seems like they basically reversed the guitar, bass, and vocal parts of "Waterfall", did a different percussion track, and then came up with new lyrics based on the words the backwards syllables kind of sounded like. It's pretty trippy both backwards and forwards. |
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| The dB's – Living a Lie Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I'm not sure, but I think hear "non-stop no love action" . There definitely is another syllable before "love action" though. |
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| of Montreal – Labyrinthian Pomp Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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According to wikipedia, Georgie Fruit is the glam-rock alter-ego Kevin Barnes turns into for the last 5 songs of the album. Thus things getting funkier and "sassier" after "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal", I guess. Also, in regards to destroyer spheres, norweigan, and the female anatomy, I think it's maybe not to be taken literally and could just mean "you are not the destroyer, you pussy!". |
submissions
| The Wrens – Everyone Choose Sides Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I only *just* figured out the significance of the line "Greener grasses fade from where you wind up"; I listened to The Meadowlands today and when that line came up I suddenly made the connection with Grass records changing hands and becoming Wind Up records and whatnot. |
submissions
| Clem Snide – The Ballad of David Ick Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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That's Icke with an e, He's a real person - a new age/conspiracy theory author who believes that the world is being controlled by a secret society of reptilian humanoids who drink human blood. |
submissions
| The Knife – Forest Families Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Some corrections:
"some kids left on their own"
"we had to make us room"
"football players, Volvo workers, policemen"
"I saw her by the organ"
"you should not show you can read"
"nature lovers' safe oasis" |
submissions
| Beastie Boys – Egg Man Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I like that they even throw in an obscure self-reference to their early hardcore days (the whole "we were dressed in black/we snuck up around the back..." part is almost word-for-word from a song from the first EP called "Egg Raid On Mojo"). |
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| Beastie Boys – 5-Piece Chicken Dinner Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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The backing music is apparently just a little snippet of a song from the Deliverance soundtrack. I've never actually seen that movie, but a couple of years ago I heard someone busking with a banjo in the subway play the original song and was kind of taken aback when I realized why it sounded so familiar. |
submissions
| KMFDM – Don't Blow Your Top Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Every line of this song is taken from various Frank Zappa songs (mainly "I'm The Slime" and "Dirty Love", but there's a few others in there too). |
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| Veruca Salt – Volcano Girl Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Maybe it's too obvious or maybe kids today don't know their semi-obscure Beatles songs, but the whole "told you 'bout the seether before..." bridge is a definite nod to "Glass Onion" ("I told you 'bout the Walrus and me, man,/you know that we're as close as be, man/well here's another clue for you all, the Walrus is Paul"). Also, until I read this transcription I could have sworn this song featured the line "I'm stealin' thunder from a chowder bowl", haha. |
submissions
| The Spinto Band – So Kind Stacey Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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This, "Direct To Helmet", and "Brown Boxes" were all originally written for songfight, an online battle of the bands type competition where all the groups have to write a song based around the same title. If you go to songfight.org, you can still find versions of those three songs done solo by Thomas Hughes under the name Carol Cleveland Sings (along with lots of other stuff he's done for the site). I think I might even like the early version of this song better, because it kind of sounds like it was all done on an old casio or something. |
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| Love – The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Despite all the (probably intentionally) cliche hippie imagery of children, flowers and merry-go-rounds, there's something pretty creepy about this song I can't put my finger on, especially with the sudden tape-manipulated ending. |
submissions
| Love – Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I agree on the lyrical structure, I haven't really seen anything like that before.
I at least have a vague idea that this is about the music scene in L.A. in the 60's, and Arthur Lee being a little bit ambivalent about it (he does call it a "laugh affair" and wonders if it's "right or wrong", and the fact that he keeps saying "they" instead of "we" kind of makes it seem like he considers himself to be a little bit outside of it). But at the same time I guess he's also saying that when he dies, he'll still be part of the scene in spirit. |
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| The Spinto Band – Trust Vs. Mistrust Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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At first glance this kind of reads like a love song, but trust versus mistrust is a stage of child development where if a baby's needs aren't consistently met in a caring way they begin to distrust the world around them. So I'm pretty sure it's actually from the point of view of an infant, hence the part about "golden books" (a company that publishes books for small children) and "time for a feeding/ take your blouse off slowly". |
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| Tomahawk – Harlem Clown Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I don't know about "I don't know how to read notes", but the rest of it is a list of groups whose albums were being burned at a conservative christian protest circa the 1980's. Negativland sampled the same thing, and in fact this was probably just taken directly from their album. |
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| Devo – Girl U Want Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I've read that musically this was their attempt to write a "My Sharona". Which is kind of interesting because the lyrics basically have the exact opposite message. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Four Of Two Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Originally the ending was considerably more grim (basically in the end the narrator is driven insane by all the waiting and strangles himself). But when they decided it should be on No! they naturally had to rewrite the lyrics but a bit. |
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| Beck – Cell Phone's Dead Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I think Daniel Johnston had a song called "Sorry Entertainer". It kind of would make sense as a reference because Beck's covered a few of his songs in acoustic sets. |
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| Weird Al Yankovic – Virus Alert Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Sparks were kind of a quirkier precursor to Queen (in that both mixed glam rock and classical influences with often tongue in cheek lyrics) and actually they're still around and just put an album out this year. Go seek out one of their 70's tunes such as "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Two Of Us" and you'll see how it was exactly what he was going for here. |
submissions
| Roxy Music – Do The Strand Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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The only thing better than an undanceable song about dancing (see Frank Zappa's "Dancin' Fool") is an undanceable song about a specific dance that never gets around to describing what said dance would entail. |
submissions
| Soul Coughing – Moon Sammy Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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The part that starts with "babylon, mystery, mother of harlots" to the very end of the song are all quotes from the book of revelations mixed together. I think Doughty had a thing with the language used in the book of revelations for a while or something, because years later parts of his rant on BT's "Never Gonna Come Back Down" were taken from there too. |
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| Sonic Youth – My Friend Goo Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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It's definitely "peeyeww!.", in the video that's on the Corporate Ghost dvd, Kim even puts her hand over her nose every single time that line comes up. |
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