submissions
| She & Him – You Really Got a Hold on Me (Smokey Robinson cover) Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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I love most of what She & Him do, but I'm not real crazy about this cover. It's way too slow and forcibly melodramatic. All of the swing of the Miracles original is gone (and of the Beatles' cover of it, for that matter), and it ends up being more of a funeral dirge, and a bit of a creepy one, too. |
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| The Association – Windy Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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@[deadsaltysnail:5580] I know I'm answering this post a DECADE later(!), but...
What's lame about harmony? More groups these days need to learn what harmony is. |
submissions
| Beck – Diamond Bollocks Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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Great sound to this song, but I frequently don't care for Beck's lyrics, and this is one of those examples. I don't like the imagery that his word salad evokes -- dead world, rejoice their doom, nauseous heart, derelict boulevards, lonesome whistle, senile revery, tearful gaze, cold and grey, wretchedness, terrorist confections.
I don't know what he's talking about (probably nothing in particuar, just a lot of word combinations that sounded good to him), but it gives me a bad vibe. |
submissions
| Beck – Satan Gave Me A Taco Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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Huh? This didn't come after Mutations -- it came after Mellow Gold, and was released pretty much alongside One Foot In The Grave. All released in 1994.
Edit: aaaand I just realized that I'm replying to someone 9 YEARS LATER. lol, oh well... |
submissions
| Beck – Girl Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I can dig the melody, but I don't like the lyrics -- at all. They put out a really negative, creepy vibe that just doesn't sit well with me. A lot of Beck's lyrics -- even the goofy word-salad ones -- have some pretty disturbing downer lines liberally sprinkled in them. I like a lot of Beck's stuff -- including this song, if I ignore the lyrics -- but I wish he'd get a little happier sometimes. Not just sound happy, but write lyrics that are more positive. I know that's not hipster and edgy, but it's what the world needs. |
submissions
| The Kinks – Big Sky Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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The original "Dear God" before XTC expressed similar thoughts. This is more hopeful, though. |
submissions
| The Trashmen – Surfin' Bird Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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This song is one of the very first "mash-ups"!
The lyrics are from two songs by the same doo-wop group, The Rivingtons. Those songs are "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" and "The Bird's The Word." The Trashmen took a couple of nonsense lines from each song, stuck only the choruses of the songs together, sped up the tempo, and this glorious mess is the result. :-) |
submissions
| The Pretenders – Thin Line Between Love And Hate Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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This is an old song by the Persuaders -- and the Persuaders' version is THE version of this song. I am a Pretenders fan and I love the album "Learning To Crawl," but this song was never done better than by the original group. Look up the Soul Train video of it on YouTube.
The lead singer sang it in first person -- HE was the abusive, unfaithful jerk, who eventually gets his ass kicked by his woman who has been hurt one too many times.
The surreal thing about the Soul Train vid is the couples slow-dancing to it in the foreground. This just isn't one of those songs. It's dark, it's deep, and it has a message. |
submissions
| The Smashing Pumpkins – A Girl Named Sandoz Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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These guys kind of ruined this song. It's in too high a register, it's played too fast, it's got too much of that 90's alt-rock wall-o'-noise problem. Much prefer the original by Eric Burdon & The Animals. |
submissions
| My Bloody Valentine – Soon Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I read somewhere that they spent a ton of time and effort on the lyrics on Loveless, and that Blinda Butcher remarked, "There is nothing worse than bad lyrics."
Which is kind of comical when you actually read the lyrics that resulted. Tons of hours put in, writing...this?
Oh well. From an aural perspective, the song is great. |
submissions
| Fountains of Wayne – Laser Show Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This song makes me feel happy and cracks me up at same time. Again FOW shows their skill for clever, economical lyrics with a healthy dose of humor.
James and Jason, Kirk and Lars is Metallica, of course. And everyone knows what the "dark side of the moon" reference is.
The L.I.E. is the Long Island Expressway, Route 495. Bridgeport, Westport and Darien are all Connecticut East Coast communities, about an hour's drive from the Hayden Planetarium in Manhattan. |
submissions
| Fountains of Wayne – The Girl I Can't Forget Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Oh, yeah. Some folks might look at this as just a fun little pop song -- which it definitely is that -- but I see a lot more. A great lyrical structure with a perfect little story that is really cleverly and humorously done, an awesome arrangement punctuated by horns, a super-catchy melody with cool chord changes, and just an overall feeling of pure joy. Pretty much everything a great pop song should have, in spades. |
submissions
| Fountains of Wayne – Peace And Love Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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This song is essentially "Go Hippie 2". FOW made fun of hippies in "Go Hippie" off their previous album. "Peace and Love" carries on that theme, this time shifting the narrative to first-person.
It captures the ignorant smugness ("Got crazy karma, never harmed a single soul"), the stuck-in-the-past aesthetic ("trying to learn the chords to 'Just the Way You Are'), the obliviousness of living in a self-made little so-called utopian bubble ("Plane crash flashing on my TV" -- but he doesn't care because everything is all rainbows and sunshine in HIS world), and the pseudo-deep-but-actually-shallow New Age ponderings ("We are one with the Universe" becomes just a meaningless catch-phrase with this type of person).
FOW sure knows how to skewer a target. |
submissions
| Love – andmoreagain Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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There was a song on their first album called And More. So I don't know if this was intended to be a sequel of sorts or what. All I know is that the chord changes in this song are just so cool. |
submissions
| Todd Rundgren – Hello It's Me Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Great song with real lyrics and genuine emotion.
I think I prefer the Nazz's version over Todd's solo remake, but both are good. |
submissions
| Peter And Gordon – A World Without Love Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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A rather nice little throwaway ditty by Paul McCartney. I always liked John Lennon's reaction to it, though:
"Please, lock me away"
"Yes, OK. End of song."
LMAO -- Ya gotta love John.
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submissions
| The Monkees – Shades Of Gray Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Yes, the lyric should be "easy then" rather than "easier than." This seems to me to be a statement on the experience of the Sixties, a time of massive upheaval and change, a time when people questioned authority, and "the old road rapidly faded." Ideas and mores that seemed so simple and so cut-and-dry about right and wrong and black and white in the Fifties quickly and stunningly were thrown to the wind in the Sixties. Only shades of gray remained.
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submissions
| The Wailin' Jennys – Begin Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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One of my favorites from Nicky, who is blessed with one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. And songwriting and instrument-playing chops to match. |
submissions
| The Wailin' Jennys – Glory Bound Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Probably my favorite Jennys song. The meaning is fairly obvious but are simple and eloquent. Written from the perspective of a person who, one gathers, has had a bit of a hard and lonely life, and is now on his/her deathbed, anxiously awaiting a new beginning. Sort of a gospel song in a way, but with a definite underlying "goodbye cruel world, I am shedding these mortal shackles and going on to a better place" theme to it.
Absolutely amazing live in concert with the entire audience singing Hallelujah, I might add. |
submissions
| The Jesus and Mary Chain – Head On Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I've always interpreted this as about heroin (not "heroine," by the way -- that's a female hero). The experience seems more in line with heroin than, say, cocaine. All cares disappear, and the user could die and would not mind. Heroin users feel hot and cold swings, and their bodies go limp during a trip -- "can't get my head off the ground." And you don't care about the world -- it could die in pain, so what? It's also found in low-life dirty parts of town.
Taking the J&MC's debt to the Velvet Underground into account, this song seems an extension of songs like Heroin and White Light/White Heat.
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submissions
| The Wailin' Jennys – Heaven When We're Home Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Love this song. Indeed it is a long and rugged road with an uncertain path, but it will get us where we're going. There is a non-specific sense of spirituality that runs through many of Moody's and The Jennys' songs. Such great lyrics, melody, harmony, and heart. |
submissions
| The Byrds – Goin' Back Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I really love this song, another Carole King classic. The lyrics are so poignant: recapturing the innocence and simple but true values of youth, and applying these to adulthood. The Byrds' ethereal treatment of this song makes the effect even more meaningful to me, and I start thinking back, trying to remember how I thought, how I felt, who I was in those long-ago times. There is another old song, sung by Patsy Cline, that goes, "If I could see through the eyes of a child, what a wonderful world this would be." Exactly. |
submissions
| Peter, Paul and Mary – If I Had a Hammer Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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So why does so much of the music of today say the opposite? I don't know, I just don't see a song like "If I Had a Hammer" ever flying with today's youth. It would most likely be laughed at and mocked, by and large. Yes, I know that there are youths that have the right values. I just wish that the popular so-called "artists" of today would produce something that reflects those values, instead of the cheap Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, Bow Wow, Pink, etc. trash that passes for "musical expression" these days. I find it sad. |
submissions
| Peter, Paul and Mary – Day Is Done Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I'm a guy and this song almost always has the effect of making me cry. Coming out as it did in 1969, the tail end of an era of tumultuous change and uncertainty, this song is a gentle reassuring anthem for those times. "We'll get through this together and all will work out well in end." Alas, it can also serve as an anthem for these current times. The world seems to be so messed up and spinning out of control -- but there will be better days. Just take my hand and we'll see it through. The song has a timeless quality. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Positively 4th Street Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I just want to say that I love the poetic structure of the lyrics, where nothing rhymes in a single verse, but the second and fourth lines of a pair of two verses rhyme. (I'm not sure if "verses" is the accurate term to describe each group of four lines, but hopefully you know what I mean.) |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Positively 4th Street Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Must EVERYTHING end up being politicized? Let's keep political figures out of this. And even if the two people involved in that story were not political figures, I see no real parallel in that story to Bob's lyrics. |
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