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R.E.M. – So. Central Rain Lyrics 11 years ago
Per a mention on the songfacts website:

R.E.M. was opening for the Human League at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles on June 11, 1983 when they got word of downpours in the South Central region of Georgia. The band is from Athens, Georgia, which is located in this area, so they tried to call their families and friends to make sure they were OK, but the phones were out because of the torrential rain. The band wrote "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" in response to this incident.

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Colbie Caillat – All Of You Lyrics 12 years ago
Much of the lyrical content of Colbie Caillat's third studio album, All Of You, concerns the ups and downs of relationships. The theme was inspired by the Californian singer-songwriter falling in love with her guitarist and musical director Justin Young. This song finds her singing about getting frustrated and demanding more honesty and more openness from her boyfriend. She told PopEater: "I write about that, and because it's all real situations I was going through, people are gonna be able to relate to it. It's just what happens to everyone."

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The Cars – Sad Song Lyrics 12 years ago
Frontman Ric Ocasek explained the inspiration for the song in an interview with Spinner UK: "That song's a little bit topical, I guess. The lyrics in the song, it's all about 'heartache's waiting to strike' and 'too many screamers wearing a mask,' which is all kind of a sad scenario. But it's got happy music and a happy melody. It's almost like 'Just What I Needed,' where you're looking for someone to bleep and you don't realize the song is not really that positive. Sometimes it's just subconsciously things pull you in. It can be a sad song that pulls you in subconsciously. The lyrics to 'Sad Song' are a sad state of affairs and you just get pulled along with them all. Maybe it's media, maybe it's the general ambiance of life."

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The Cars – Hello Again Lyrics 12 years ago
Although it's a light, synthesizer-driven Pop track, the lyrics to this song are quite profound, examining a person who never seems happy, and despite his efforts to find something better, always returns to where he came from. Ric Ocasek wrote the song.

The video was directed by Don Monroe and Andy Warhol, who also appeared in the clip as a bartender. It was some of Warhol's last work, as he died in 1987.

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The Cars – Blue Tip Lyrics 12 years ago
An overall theme that runs through The Cars seventh album, Move Like This, is that of lead vocalist and songwriter Ric Ocasek coming to terms with his lot in life and looking into the future. He explained to Spinner UK: "It was a lot of 'What's going on in the world today?' Maybe even a little sarcastic, weird look at it. It was just what I was feeling these days, this year. Just a bit about the times."

This song reflects the theme. Said Ocasek to Spinner: "The world's full of quackers. There's a lot of quackers out there. 'Stroking all the gunheads,' 'Stupefying the thinkers.' It's like a big ball of junk mail."

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The Boxer Rebellion – Step Out of the Car Lyrics 12 years ago
The band explained the song's meaning to Clash Magazine: "We came up with this idea of a rogue cop being chased by his own department. I'm quite positive no one would ever get that story from the lyrics, but the whole idea spawned off the title. The guy is hearing voices in his head and I suppose feels victimized in life - 'Rumors of corruption. Acts of desperation leave you in mess. Voices winning me instead, undercover in my head.' We never try to write singles, but this song jumped out as one as soon as we'd finished it. It also gives the record some balance."

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The Boxer Rebellion – Both Sides Are Even Lyrics 12 years ago
The band explained the song's meaning to Clash Magazine: "The song is about a relationship tug-of-war - about two people at loggerheads and unable to move forward. It's the age old idea that in a relationship there always needs to be a bit of give and take or each person will end up waving their flag alone. 'Both sides are even, they are even and alone. It's the same thing right or wrong.'"

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50 Cent – Piggy Bank Lyrics 12 years ago
This was the first song completed for The Massacre. 50 Cent's previous album he made over $87 million, which was the inspiration for this song.

In this video, 50 disses The Game, Fat Joe and Ja rule. He shows The Game as Mr. Potato Head, Fat Joe as a boxer receiving a knockout and Ja Rule as a kid in a Superman costume chasing an ice-cream van.

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The Fray – Enough For Now Lyrics 12 years ago
This song is about how frontman Isaac Slade dealt with the death of his beloved grandfather. He explained to The Sun February 6, 2009: "I felt lost, all these emotions and those songs came out. But then, 12 months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine who gave me some perspective on it and some books to read. I realized I was seeing only the pure realism side of it all and there is good in life still, even though people die or have miscarriages, whatever. And I began to have hope again."

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The Fray – All At Once Lyrics 12 years ago
To me, this song is about making decisions, and that sometimes the hardest thing you could do is also what is right.

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30 Seconds to Mars – Escape Lyrics 12 years ago
Singer/guitarist Jared Leto told Musicradar.com about the song: "This was very interesting for me as a writer in that I sat down with a very pointed and decisive intention. Usually songwriting can be very obtuse and roundabout way of getting in touch with your feelings. With this one, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I knew it was going to be the album opener. The song is about freedom. It's about beginning a battle and deciding that you've had enough and you're willing to go to war to fight for what you believe in."

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30 Seconds to Mars – Closer To The Edge Lyrics 12 years ago
Singer/guitarist Jared Leto explained to Musicradar.com that this song very nearly didn't make the album. He said: "Actually, we were going to throw this song out, but we decided to keep it. It was hard to mix, a total pain in ass, but I'm glad it made the record because I think it fits in with the overall framework of the album.
The song is a mission, an adventure that takes you on a journey. Maybe that's why it gave us so much trouble: We had go on an adventure as a band to get it right. Some songs come very easily and other ones fight you. Oftentimes, the ones that give you trouble turn out to be the best ones - this is an example of the latter."

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Flo Rida – Never Lyrics 12 years ago
In an interview with the Associated Press, Flo Rida said this is his favorite track on R.O.O.T.S.. He explained: "I was obedient to my mom. It definitely talks about the way I looked at life, growing up in the projects when my homeboys would do crazy things but I didn't. I was my own leader. It shows that you should have faith, never hold your head down, never fear man."

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30 Seconds to Mars – 100 Suns Lyrics 12 years ago
Singer/guitarist Jared Leto (From Musicradar.com): "It's really a refrain, a segue from 'This Is War,' if you will. I guess you'd call it a mantra or a prayer. My intention is that it be uplifting, but it's probably a bit dark and nihilistic."

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The Fray – Heartless (Kanye West cover) Lyrics 12 years ago
Frontman Isaac Slade penned the song with guitarist Joe King. It was inspired by the singer's experiences whilst traveling in Africa. He explained: "That song came out of a period of my life when I was trying hard to be open to whatever came my way. I traveled through South Africa and Rwanda with a buddy, and at first it was really hard to stay open in the face of so much pain and heartache. But then I ended up meeting so many cool and inspiring people, and all these ideas for lyrics and melodies just started rushing in."

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Fort Minor – Remember The Name Lyrics 12 years ago
I just look at this being about what an artist has to go through to make it big in the music business.

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Flo Rida – Who Dat Girl? Lyrics 12 years ago
The track features Senegalese-American R&B singer Akon and finds the rapper overtaken by the charms of a beautiful woman.

In the song's music video, Flo Rida watches a woman come to life from his computer screen. "The story line basically, I'm on the computer, me and my colleague, and we actually spill some alcohol on the computer," he explained to MTV News. "And the young lady pops out, you know, just to make it interesting and clever. She's around the house and we just throw a big, huge party and at the end of the video she disappears."

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Flo Rida – Birthday Lyrics 12 years ago
Flo Rida told Down-South.com about his debut single: "On my first single, it was called 'Birthday,' it was like, 'I don't want no cake on my birthday/I want my cake everyday.' And I was just sayin, you're not promised tomorrow. Just take advantage of every day, but kids, they love sayin' it, as well as grown people, when they feel like it's more a real approach."

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Flo Rida – Available Lyrics 12 years ago
Flo Rida explained to Billboard magazine: "That's about letting the ladies know I'm single."

This samples "Boom Boom Pow" by Will.i.am's group, The Black Eyed Peas.

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Flo Rida – Come With Me Lyrics 12 years ago
This tune about pursuing a lady is a promotional single from American rapper Flo Rida's third studio album, Only One Flo (Part 1). The chorus samples 2Pac's 1997 single "Hail Mary" from The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, which goes, "Come with me, Hail Mary/ Run quick see, what do we have here/ Now, do you wanna ride or die/ La dadada, la la la la."

Flo Rida told MTV News: "That's a record that's on the romantic side, for the ladies. It's crazy to look at the credits and everything and have Tupac as one of the writers [on the album]. I'm a big fan of his and I was trying to take it up to the next level with this album."

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Flo Rida – Club Can't Handle Me Lyrics 12 years ago
Flo Rida told Billboard magazine the song was inspired by "just traveling around the world," which included some shows with Guetta. "Every time we did a show together it was like we were the life of the party," he recalled, "so we were talking about definitely hooking up and doing a record together. [Guetta] sent me the production and I created my own lyrics, and that's how we made the track."

This was Flo Rida's second UK #1 following his debut trip to the summit, "Right Round."

The song's music video is set in an opulent, extravagant club party. "This video right here is just, if you've ever dreamed about having the biggest party of your life, 'Club Can't Handle Me' definitely represents that," Flo Rida told MTV News. "Lotta energy. Lot of diamonds, ice sculptures. Just showing that boss vibe. So I mean really, the club can't handle me."

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Parachute – She Is Love Lyrics 12 years ago
Anderson explained this song to StarShine Magazine: "I was interested in someone at that point so of course I was trying to figure it out… but you know, it was most just a general song. I was trying to write a very simple love song and not really trying to be clever or find a cool angle. I think it definitely reflects what I was thinking at the time, which was that I needed something that I could sing in front of a room full of girls."
He added that the band makes it a point to sing about love, a subject that they feel everyone understands. "There's a bad side and a good side [to love] and I think that everyone experiences that. We're just trying to write songs that people can relate to and connect to in some way or another."

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Parachute – She (For Liz) Lyrics 12 years ago
PopEntertainment.com asked Parachute singer/songwriter Will Anderson if this song is about anyone in particular. He replied: "She does not know. She does not know it's about her. So 'For Liz' was for a specific person. I think they're doing well. I haven't talked with them recently. But they do not know the song is for them."

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Parachute – Kiss Me Slowly Lyrics 12 years ago
Parachute's lead singer and guitarist Will Anderson co-wrote this track with the Country trio Lady Antebellum. He explained to AOL Music how the collaboration came about: "I went on a tour with them for a few days just to write. We weren't looking for any Parachute songs in it at the time. But we had a chance to write and ended up writing a song for somebody else that [Parachute] loved so much that I called [Lady Antebellum] and said, 'Don't give this to anybody.' And I claimed it for our band. So when the band came back in December to finish up the record, we realized that song really filled what we needed. So we decided to record, and I revamped the lyrics to fit our band."

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Neon Trees – Wish List Lyrics 12 years ago
The song's lyrics, about longing to be with loved ones during Christmas, were inspired by US troops serving overseas. "When you're in a band, you go out on tour and think, 'Oh, I've been gone for three weeks, boo-hoo,'" Campbell explained, "and then there's people like that who are gone for so long. I could just imagine that if they could have anything, especially at that time of the year, it would be those people they love."

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Neon Trees – Sins of My Youth Lyrics 12 years ago
After forming, the Neon Trees band members upped sticks to a house in the Californian desert and embarked on an intensive nine-month stint of writing, rehearsing and recording. The period brought about a series of tough challenges and at one point each band member had some sort of breakdown. Lead vocalist Tyler Glenn explained to English newspaper The Sun: "We were all doing things that we shouldn't - things that we had long given up, whether it would be drugs or other things. I wrote 'Sins Of My Youth' about that year."

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Neon Trees – Our War Lyrics 12 years ago
Lead singer Tyler Glenn claims that "Our War" is his favorite track on Habits. The song is a heartbreaking plea to a girl he dated for two years. He even prepared for marriage by asking his aunt for a family heirloom ring. The song traces the day things started to fall apart, when the couple were supposed to take a trip to Salt Lake City. "I was at a bus stop waiting in the rain all day," he says. "I walked all day in the rain. Looking back on it, it felt cinematic. But since then it's bottled up and made me not trust. Maybe the whole next Neon Trees album will be more angry."

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Neon Trees – Girls and Boys in School Lyrics 12 years ago
Singer Tyler Glenn explained the story behind this song to Artist Direct: "It's basically about my younger siblings and seeing my little sister go through high school. Once you're past high school age and you're on the other side, you see how petty and small the drama in high school is. I based the lyrics on those funny experience of noticing how small and narrow that age thinks. They think their lives are over if something happens or someone is talking about them or there's a rumor. They don't realize that there's so much more ahead of them, and it's such a small part of life. Basically, the song is about that. It's a commentary on youth in general."

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Neon Trees – 1983 Lyrics 12 years ago
The song was titled after the year in which singer-keyboardist Tyler Glenn was born, but bassist Branden Campbell explained to Billboard magazine, it's "not about the '80s or pop culture or anything like that. It's about going back to an age of innocence in our lives where relationships were so much easier with younger siblings and family and how much everyone cares about each other and how easy it is, most of the time, for everyone to get along. It's about going back to that place in your life."

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Daughtry – Feels Like Tonight Lyrics 12 years ago
This power ballad was slated to be Chris Daughtry's coronation song on American Idol in expectation of him winning. Daughtry had the support of the judges and appeared to be the front-runner, but he came in fourth and this song was included it on the debut album for his band instead.

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Daughtry – All These Lives Lyrics 12 years ago
Chris Daughtry wrote this with Mitch Allan, who is lead singer of the band SR-71. Daughtry said of the song: "We didn't want to write about the same old thing. He brought up the theme of child abduction and it became a really deep and emotional song. A song shedding light on the people out there that do that sort of thing. As a parent, this hit close to home because no parent would want to go through that."

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Bon Iver – Beth/Rest Lyrics 12 years ago
The closing track from Bon Iver's eponymous second album is a surprising departure for the indie folk rock band as it finds them stepping into '80s AOR territory. Frontman Justin Vernon told Mojo: "Well it's easy to take yourself too seriously and I didn't want to dismiss sounds just because some people might not think they were cool. That's like disliking somebody because they're 40 - it doesn't make any sense. I love Bruce Hornsby's music and the way his records sound without thinking about whether they are very '80s or not, and I suppose that was on my mind a little bit when I was writing that song. It was like, I know this stuff is in me, so how can I explore this sonic space in an emotional way."

Vernon explained the song's meaning in an interview with The Stool Pigeon: "It's about letting that love into your life and letting the part of you that's selfish die. It's like a joyful sleep if you will, but it's a wakening, too. I love that the song is last on there because it's the most pure song on the record; the most joyous sort of message."

Vernon told Qmagazine that Beth is a place he made up while Rest, is, "insinuating that death is not the end, it's the start of a new cycle."

If there is a theme to Bon Iver, it's about people reconnecting with seasons and lifecycles. Vernon sees the album as one coherent piece, with "Perth" representing the beginning or birth and "Beth/Rest" the ending or death.

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Band of Horses – Dilly Lyrics 12 years ago
Singer Ben Bridwell (from The Skinny) said of this mid-tempo rocker: "I'm always wrong about what's going to be the first single and I thought that this would be a good one to at least leak to blogs and s--t like that because it's just so upbeat and a bit different for us. It has a doo-wop feel which is a new horizon for Band of Horses."

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Bon Iver – Blood Bank Lyrics 12 years ago
This remembrance of winter warmth was recorded during the For Emma sessions, but Justin Vernon, better known as Bon Iver, told Guy Raz on NPR Music that it didn't quite fit in the record. He explained: "It just didn't seem to fit the story and lineage, I guess. So I just sort of surrounded 'Blood Bank' with three other songs that were very different from one other, and they all kind of came together as a palette cleanser for the last record."

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Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) Lyrics 12 years ago
Much of the lyrical content of The Suburbs is inspired by band members Win and William Butler's upbringing in the suburbs of Houston. However, this song is about multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne's hometown of Montreal. Win Butler told The Sun: "It's interesting that there are similarities between Houston and the south shore of Montreal, where Regine grew up. A song like Sprawl 2 is about Montreal. Over the bridge it's the same as the Houston in 'City With No Children.'"

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Band of Horses – Evening Kitchen Lyrics 12 years ago
For Infinite Arms, the Band of Horses bandmates sent each other recordings and raw ideas via email. Vocalist Ben Bridwell told The Skinny: "This is completely written by Tyler Ramsay (guitarist). He sent me a demo of the music, I recorded vocals on top of it and it was embarrassingly bad but luckily he had the foresight to record his own vocals and lyrics."

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Arcade Fire – Month of May Lyrics 12 years ago
Vocalist Win Butler said of the song's meaning to NPR Music: "Living in Montreal, the winters are so insane that in May, when the winter starts to break, there's a crazy feel in the air."

A blast of Canadian winter can be heard on this punky track. Co-vocalist and multi instrumentalist Regine Chassagne explained to Q magazine: "It's the sound of the wind outside our home in Montreal."

The song popped into Win Butler's head as he was driving in Montreal in Spring. He explained to Q magazine: "The winters are so crazy and long there that when spring comes there's almost this violent energy. The song tries to capture that pent up feeling and excitement about wanting to go outside again. It was a simple song so it needed a simple tune to go with it."

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Band of Horses – Blue Beard Lyrics 12 years ago
Frontman Ben Bridwell told The Skinny: "Bill Reynolds (bassist) played me a demo of Blue Beard that he recorded at home and I threw some vocals on it and played with the structure. I ended up playing drums on that one which is really strange because I'm a terrible drummer."

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Arcade Fire – Sprawl I (Flatland) Lyrics 12 years ago
On this minor key piano lamenting change and modernization, frontman Win Butler revisits the town where he grow up. "I took a drive into the sprawl to find the house where we used to stay in," he recalls. However, Butler fails to locate various childhood haunts that are imprinted on his memory.

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Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics 12 years ago
Arcade Fire and director Spike Jonze collaborated on a short film inspired by this song. Filmed in Austin, Texas, according to Rolling Stone, the video is centered around a cast of teenagers in a story of "friends growing apart," which echoes the theme and lyrics of the track.

The whereabouts of the suburban house on the album cover is a closely guarded group secret. "All I can say," said Will Butler to Q magazine, "is that the car in the driveway belongs to a friend of ours, Tyler, who's now our guitar tech."

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Arcade Fire – We Used to Wait Lyrics 12 years ago
Frontman Win Butler told the NME that this garage punk number was inspired by romantic postal liaisons he used to undertake. "In high school I had a letter-writing romance with a girl," he said. "I was trying to remember that time… waiting an entire summer, pretty much half a year, the anxiousness of waiting for letters to arrive."
He added: "All day every day there's almost this cloud of feeling hanging over everything. We'd [his family] be in Maine, I'd walk down to the post office and come back… the whole day was consumed by that feeling."


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Arcade Fire – Deep Blue Lyrics 12 years ago
The title of this song refers to the chess-playing super computer developed by IBM that defeated grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1986. The song treats the triumph of technology over human as a generational loss of innocence.

Frontman Win Butler told the NME: "'Deep Blue' to me sounds like Neil Young with Depeche Mode at the end - which shouldn't work, but I think it does."

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Arcade Fire – City with No Children Lyrics 12 years ago
This song finds frontman Win Butler singing, "Never trust a millionaire quoting the sermon on the mount." The line is a quote from Butler's favorite author, 1984 novelist George Orwell, and is meant as a statement about conformity and hipster-political posturing in parts of London and New York. He explained to The NME July 31, 2010: "I don't know if you've ever been in Williamsburg or those parts of London where everyone is 30 years old, everyone has the same haircut and there's no kids, no older adults, almost an oppressiveness at not having real human life on display in society. On the one side you have a lot of pressure to be part of a commercial society, and everyone's trying to sell you something all the time. And then on the other side there's this kind of hipness, and trying to find what's cool, which has also a certain amount of emptiness associated with it. I think it's really difficult to try and navigate those two extremes."
Butler added that while some may think the line is about U2 frontman Bono, it's not in a negative way. He said, "As much as people slag Bono, I will forever give him credit for engaging with George W. Bush when he was president. Even though it was a deeply unpopular move, even in his own band. The HIV medications in Africa, every aspect of the US foreign policy - it was a hell of a lot more than any president before had done."

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Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) Lyrics 12 years ago
In an interview with the New Musical Express December 8, 2007, the interviewer asked who are the nameless authorities in the lyric who fill us full of lies. Lead vocalist Win Butler replied: "I guess who 'they' are depends on when and where we're playing. I kind of feel like the Pied Piper when I sing that song. Playing the song and trying to get all these kids to follow me down the street and into a river!"

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Arcade Fire – Modern Man Lyrics 12 years ago
Win Butler sings over a bumbling rhythm that echoes the jumping lyrics: "Like a record keeps sticking I'm a modern man." The singer told Q magazine: "The idea behind it is that it's a happy song with a f---ed - up time signature. Which is kind of like the modern experience."

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Arcade Fire – No Cars Go Lyrics 12 years ago
This song about seeking a paradise in a place where there are no roads was originally part of an EP that Arcade Fire recorded in 2003. Drummer Jeremy Gara told popmatters.com why they decided to update it: "We started recording the album last November. We had a new studio space and all this new gear, so we just needed to start with something that was easy for us to play so we could get used to everything else. 'No Cars Go' had changed so much on tour from how we originally recorded it. The version on the EP is cool but it's a mess, and the version we had been touring with was way more of a straight-up rock song. So there was always talk of redoing it. And now that we had more of a budget, we wanted to record it with the string arrangements that Regine had always envisioned."

US TV network Fox TV used "No Cars Go" in an advert for the NFL which was aired during the halftime show of the 2008 Super Bowl. However, the network did not ask Arcade Fire's permission to use the music in the advert and the band considered legal action.

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Arcade Fire – (Antichrist Television Blues) Lyrics 12 years ago
Win Butler revealed in a Rolling Stone article that "Antichrist Television Blues" was largely inspired by Joe Simpson, the father and manager of Jessica and Ashlee. Drummer Jeremy Gara told popmatters.com: "It could be about other people, too, but it definitely applies to that family's dynamic. We haven't heard from their camp at all, which is great, because some people we've worked with have worked with them and said you definitely don't want to cross them."

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Arcade Fire – Ocean of Noise Lyrics 12 years ago
In an interview with the New Musical Express December 8, 2007, the interviewer asked about this song and Arcade Fire's fascination with the power of the sea. Multi instrumentalist Wim Butler explained: "My parents live near the ocean and we've gone there quite a bit over the history of our band. It's really isolated there by the ocean. I remember one time we went out on the 4th of July. It was dusk and we had a little motorboat, so we went out and the fog was starting to roll. We stopped and all of a sudden we were surrounded by fog. We had no idea where we were. And there was a fog horn. It's like you're never less in control of your own life than when you're in the ocean underneath a big wave and there is fog all around you. You can just see that you're a passenger in a weird sense. Things are out of your control. It was just that kind of feeling that I wanted to express."

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Arcade Fire – Neon Bible Lyrics 12 years ago
Frontman Win Butler told The A.V. Club why he chose the title 'Neon Bible' for the album: "I just jotted it down in my notebook and kept coming back to it. The song was very much off-the-cuff, written in one night and recorded the next day. Lyrically, there's a lot of stuff dealing with religion and culture, which I'm really interested in. It's an image that I kept coming back to that really felt like it was the title of the record. And everyone else in the band agreed."

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Alkaline Trio – Stupid Kid Lyrics 12 years ago
This song is about how miserable life can be if you develop a crush on one of your teachers in high school. The video tells a story of a little boy in elementary school who is in love with his teacher, doing whatever he could to please her. He gets made fun of my the other students, and soon the teacher ridicules him in front of the whole class, making him a laughing stock. After he leaves outside the room toward her window, he takes off the hat that he's been wearing the entire video, revealing two horns. The teacher can be seen struggling, surrounded in flames. Of course this video lead to controversy, and it was banned until it got edited so the student has no horns and the teacher is wrestling with nothing.

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