| John Prine – Lake Marie Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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There isn't much to figure out... it's another contrast song from John Prine who mingles love and beauty with the darker realities of life. However, for those interested... There is indeed a town in Wisconsin called Twin Lakes... It's right along the Illinois border... There are two lakes there... the larger of the two is named Lake Elizabeth... while the smaller is names Lake Mary. |
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| Natalie Merchant – Ophelia Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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well it's long since the comments were posted but let me have a go here... Words have a tendency to provoke feelings and mental images. In this case the word is a name associated with Shakespeare's Hamlet. Any three syllable name works for the rhyme and rhythm, but Ophelia provokes a feeling that Jennifer, Ann-Marie, or (to use another of Shakespeare's women) Juliet cannot. On a comparative note, Ophelia and Juliet faced the same dilemma: they loved a man they shouldn't. Juliet disobeyed her duty to her father and followed her heart, Ophelia set aside her heart to follow the advice and direction of her brother and father. They both chose different paths, but their choice cost them their life. The reason Juliet does not provoke the same sense of sadness the Ophelia can is that Juliet takes her own life, Ophelia is driven to madness and abandoned. However, the song really has nothing to do with Shakespeare's Ophelia other than the sadness the name evokes. The ophelia the song names in each verse are all different women. Each a different person and different personality. Good, bad, kind, cutting, virtuous, a whore. But they are all women. From a feminist perspective, they cannot be judged simply as women, because they are first and foremost, people. The person they are is not determined by their gender, but rather by the person they are. That the music begins in sadness and is very pastoral... but changes during the break to give the Ophelia's she describes more depth than the Virginal Madonna figure we begin with which tends to be the romantic ideal. That's my nickel This sets the tone for the people the song describes... different people |
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| The Beach Boys – Kokomo Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I never saw Cocktail... and missed the song on the radio... my introduction to it was a parody written for the Bob Rivers Show and retitled Kosovo... The Norwegian Norbattalion KFPR used it for a video that has has been circulating the net and is actually very well done... I finally tracked down the Beach Boys original and have to admit that while i love the music, the Beach Boys lyrics are pretty tawdry... If you get a chance have a look at the other version... it's pretty funny... Somewhere far overseas There’s a place called Kosovo That’s where you don’t want to go If you’re Albanian at all Protecting Human Rights Air strikes and firefights And we'll be dropping our bombs Wherever Serbian bad guys hide Just up from Kosovo that's my nickel |
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| Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The song was released in 1963, the picture that is familiar to everyone was taken in 1971.. long after the song was written. In 1963 a Buddhist monk doused himself in gasoline and burned himself to death in a Saigon intersection. Those two images (along with the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner in 1968) are probably the most famous of the photographs published during the war, but record events after the song. I think he is speaking of general horrors rather than specific events and are used to point to the dichotomy of what we are told and what is the realityl. George Bush continues to claim that progress is being made in Iraq, but the news reports (not to mention photgraphs and rising body count) suggest otherwise. I don't believe George to be a pathological liar, but he certainly is seeing the world from a very different perspective. another nickel |
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| Cat Stevens – Lady D'Arbanville Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The best lyrics are written by poets and they survive because more than lyrics, they are poetry and can be appreciated fully only when the listener (or reader's) engages their brain. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Cat Stevens are among the best in the business. But poetry is often like an ink blot test. Different people see different things and there is often no right or wrong answer because our interpretations are influenced by the way the words affect us emotionally. A board like this affords the opportunity to share those experiences and through a process of discussion, encourage a better understanding of, not only the poetry, but each other. In this case, considering rock_chik's use of internet english, I am guessing this person is younger than the song. There is no reason she would know that the lady in the song was a real person with whom the poet had a real relationship. This is why she asked and that is not a sign of stupidity or being lazy, but simply asking about something because she was curious. When I first saw the title of the song, I thought Thomas Hardy... and I am old enough to have been there... The only stupid questions are the ones we don't ask... So... the song is about the poet's breakup with a real person. This is her: http://www.pattidarbanville.com/home.html She didn't die, only her relationship with Stevens. She left him so it was her love that died and not his. It's her love that he hopes to reawaken. It never happened of course, but we have a really nice song because of his heartbreak. that's my nickel |
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| Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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When I think of the phrase "blue eyed son" i read it as a metaphor for the perfetion of the priveleged class. The ideal... perfection... which was the aryan ideal as well.. At least when I see it written I see young earnest and incredibly obtuse and patronizing conservative idealist. when i read the lyrics the first two lines strike me as being rhetorical... We use the phrase "where have you been?" as a response to a really stupid question or statement. So what I read is that he is asking where the blue eyed son has been... because the things he says and does seem to be based on a view that denies the facts... because he (and not the blue eyed son) has experienced something very very different. To give it a contemporary context... George Bush and Condoleeza Rice say an immediate cease fire in Lebanon is NOT a solution... But I've seen the pictures of mangled children and it strikes me that these people are either blind, stupid or just missing the compassion gene... Cause there's a real hard rain a fallin there... and it takes some really twisted view to say that a cease fire isn't a solutin but more offensive... that it is justified? I can add the Canadian Government (Bush lite) to that assessment too unfortunately and as a Canadian I feel shame and want to ask... how is it possible to see children mangled and then say that a cease fire isn't a solution... unless you don't see what I see... which are someone's children who had nothing to do with the conflict in pieces... They aren't seen as children... the blue eyed sons see them as "collateral damage" Regardless of your political view of the conflict there... right or wrong doesn't make mangling kids OK... The recent history of america is full of example (viet nam) after example (Watts, Detroit) of governments that seems to be out of touch with reality both domestically and internationally... they don't seem to see what we see and experience The lyrics seem to keep pointing to a government view that all is well, when the newspapapers make it clear that all is not well. So it's really depressing... and yet... the tone of the lyrics change for the final verse... because he asks what the blue eyed son is going to do now... again rhetorical because it doesn't matter... he knows what he is going to do... he's going out to lend a hand and try to do some good... my nickel on it |
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