submissions
| Joanna Newsom – Cosmia Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I hate to be picky, but absolutely the only thing I don't love about this album is the way she sings "kith and the kin". I almost want to censor the sound she makes with her voice at those two points in the song. |
submissions
| Joanna Newsom – Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I absolutely hate this song. And I absolutely love the rest of the album. Except for "Three Little Babes", which is good, but frankly not half as exciting as Miss Newsom's original songs. So, I generally pretend that the album ends with Swansea. It makes a good ending song.
But...I haven't actually bought this album yet. I am hoping I have a different version of this song from the one included on The Milk-Eyed Mender. In fact I am pretty sure the version I have is from the Walnut Whales EP. It's absolutely agonizing, the way she sings in this version. There is this horrible cliche thing she does with her voice like ten times in the song, it makes her sound like a melodramatic teenager.
So...I'll be buying the album soon! And, assuming the album version is better, I will feel so much better! |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – 4th Time Around Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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this song is absolutely perfect. it alternately causes me to smile at the humor, and feel little pangs of a bitter emotion, especially when it gets to "she screamed till her face got so red then she fell on the floor..." the sum feeling is strange and beautiful. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – Bird on the Wire Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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something along those lines--the next line after that is "i have saved all my ribbons for thee."
it's a prayer or a love song, or both, depending on how you look at it. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This was the first Leonard Cohen song I ever heard...I guess now that I've gotten into him a little more, it's one of the lesser tracks on his first album, but it is still amazingly good. |
submissions
| Don McLean – Everybody Loves Me, Baby Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is pretty much the funnest song I'm aware of, by any artist, even over "American Pie" which is also one of the funnest songs ever, if a little more serious than this one.
A friend of mine was explaining to me (as a joke mind you, not a serious interpretation), that this could be a musical number from Star Wars Episode II, Anakin singing to Padme. It's funny how well that fits, for most of the song. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Maggie's Farm Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I would also suggest that normal people are not anything that narcissistic artists can relate to.
I don't think artists have any special understanding of what life is about, but simply a different understanding. That is, if you can justify generalizing that much, which I don't know that you can.
A great man once said, "An artist is a regular man with special delusions of grandeur." In fact that great man was me, and really there's no reason for me to say it now, except that I wanted to quote myself.
As far as the meaning of this song, and any Dylan song, and really any song or any work of art...well, the artist may be the kind that knows exactly what his art means and tells his audience exactly what it means, or he may be the kind that suggests any person that wonders about the meaning of his art should decide for him or herself. I think Dylan would probably be the latter kind. There's a certain school that makes a big deal out of it--Symbolism, I think. Anyway, the point I think is that you can't say "think about what you want it to mean, and realize that's not it." Because, that is it. It may not be what the artist intended, or what everybody else thinks, but what does that matter? Personally, as an artist, I don't think I know any better what my art means than anybody else does. And I believe I know what this song means just as well as Dylan himself does. See what I mean about special delusions of grandeur? |
submissions
| Phil Ochs – Ringing Of Revolution Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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One thing about Phil Ochs, from the few examples I've heard, he gives really great introductions to songs in his live performances. There's a live version of this that's hilarious. Awesome. I don't know whether it's on an album or not. |
submissions
| Green River – This Town Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The only bad thing about this song is it makes the rest of the album that it comes first on seem not really worth listening to. |
submissions
| The Mars Volta – Televators Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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All i have to say is that
"One day this chalk outline will circle this city"
is the best poetic image i've heard in a long time, and
"Was he robbed of the asphalt that cushioned his face"
is pretty damn good too. Probably my two favorite lines by The Mars Volta, right there. |
submissions
| The Mars Volta – Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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At first, and especially after reading the Deloused in the Comatorium storybook the first time, I thought Cedric Bixler was a very talented singer, but basically a hack writer. It seemed like he tried to cover up bad writing by being incomprehensible.
I still don't quite think he's a great writer, but the more I read these lyrics, and Deloused, the more bits of genius I find hidden in what always appeared to be nonsense.
For example. The lines "All my life I've been sewing the wounds, but the seeds sprout a lachrymal cloud." I love how the phrase "sewing the wounds" has a double meaning; sewing as in stitching, or healing, the wounds--or sewing as in planting, or creating the wounds. The same word can have two directly opposite meanings.
Another thing I've been thinking about, there are an awful lot of references to birds (feathers, talons, wing, etc.), it seems, and I wonder if it has anything to do with what nuclearjesus said earlier about the constellation cygnus representing zeus, who in swan form raped Leda. |
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