| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The Sword Song Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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-insane armageddon, the same (?) Again, awesome song. |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Emily Jean Stock Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| So he lost his love and he's pining for her, telling her the lengths he will go to for her, how much he cares, how he misses her, etc.... pretty straightforwards, lyrically... but such a neat song musically! I don't know, it's a pretty good, typical CYHSY song... reminds me "In This Home on Ice" musically, with Alec's voice in the middle (my mystery) | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Five Easy Pieces Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I especially love the last part: too far to go, to young to know: give up. Youthful idealism doesn't realize what a hard, punishing journey it's getting itself into with its change the world mentality, and is being told to give up... hmmm... but yeah, the whole celebration of all the diverse aspects of human life in the beginning is just beautiful. I wonder why, after all that, it ends with 'give up?' Maybe a commentary/exhortation: why, with life being so beautiful and diverse and amazing, do so many people still feel the need to say "give up." Maybe this song is to remind all those who argue for giving up that there is so much else, just day to day stuff, to live for. And I love the piano/harmonica at the very start, too. | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Satan Said Dance Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| pix101, get off your Christian high horse and just enjoy a song with a kickass concept... Sartre said "hell is other people," but now imagine "Hell is dancing for eternity." true, this song is not as substantial as some of the others on the album, but it is a welcome and fun break. | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Satan Said Dance Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| pix101, get off your Christian high horse and just enjoy a song with a kickass concept... Sartre said "hell is other people," but now imagine "Hell is dancing for eternity." true, this song is not as substantial as some of the others on the album, but it is a welcome and fun break. | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Satan Said Dance Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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He says to me to shake around And don't stop till you hit the ground |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Satan Said Dance Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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And I know it is not how you thought it would be No whips, no chains, just dancingX1937235959327 |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Yeah, for some reason when I first heard this song, I thought incest too... but not in a shocking, unnatural way, but in the manner of an expression of "hideous grief," to quote one of my favorite books of all time, Arundhati Roy's "The God of Small Things." The incest in that book is not titillatingly taboo, but a product of the "hideous grief" of family and social dysfunction portrayed so poignantly in this song. Actually, all of Neutral Milk Hotel reminds me of God of Small Things... the way so much beautiful emotion, nominally in a major key, conveys hideous grief so poignantly and powerfully... I guess I could say that Roy writes of terrible things in a "major key," too. Gosh, all this stuff just makes me cry, but it's so powerful... amazing. | |
| Wilco – War On War Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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What is war? It's a battle, a campaign, a fight against something. But it's also a metaphor for death, struggle, and pain. So a war on war is, in this context, I think, a fight against struggle, pain, and all the unpleasantries in life. It's the Prozac culture, in which everyone has some sort of unalienable right to be happy. But if you want to truly live, "you have to lose, you have to learn how to die if you wanna be alive." If you truly want to experience all the depth and complexity of life, you have to take your lumps, and lose your war on war. That doesn't mean you don't fight; you should always struggle to end your war, but when you lose, that's when you really live. This is a really cool song; I love it. |
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| Wilco – Jesus, Etc. Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Mikeyg, thebot, and fresh54 each get it, which shows how deep it is, which is amazing, considering the message is so simple: the world is harsh, but it's all OK, because we have our love. these are the kind of love songs that always make me cry... even if all the stars in the sky are setting suns, their love is a radiant star, and that's enough. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – No Man's Land Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Amazing. Why didn't this song make the real album? It's better than all but 5 songs on Illinoise. 17/4... it's true, that's insane. I love the imagery of the journey. Sort of reminds me of transcendentalism/Romantic poets (you know, Wordsworth waxing poetic about the countryside, the little things that are beautiful, etc.). |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Saul Bellow Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Saul Bellow = pretty much my favorite novelist of all time, but I can't for the life of me figure out why he is referenced in this song. He was a longtime central figure at the University of Chicago, and he was a highly opinionated, often outspoken genius, so I think this is another example of Sufjan Stevens taking a song he wrote and connecting it to Illinois in an extremely tenuous way so that it could go on his Illinoise album (or this outtakes album that wouldn't exist without the Illinoise album). | |
| Franz Ferdinand – Fade Together Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| That's the word I was looking for, SallyB... evanescent... when i was trying to describe the piano in Eleanor Put Your Boots On... this song is in the same style as Eleanor, but not quite as perfect... I really like how Franz Ferdinand has branched out on their second album, doing more stuff than the loud, darkly exuberant, dancy energy of their debut album (good stuff, mind you, but quite repetitive after awhile). | |
| Franz Ferdinand – Eleanor, Put Your Boots On Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I just love the images of jumping from high places and flying (or at least coming down lightly and elegantly as opposed to spattering violently) instead of falling. The piano riff is so powerful and moving in the same vein, too. It reminds me of what it feels like when I dream of falling... I always wake up kicking my legs, and my legs just feel so full of some neat-o energy for a few seconds afterwards. According to my i-pod play count, this is my second favorite song of all time, lol. | |
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Perfect Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| To me, this song sums up what happened when all my old friends from high school went off to college... I couldn't wait for this summer so we could all hang out just like old times, but everyone is so changed that it's just not the same... suddenly the people that I spent 18 years of my life getting to know better than anyone else and sharing all sorts of common experiences together are just all... changed, different, like I barely even know them anymore. I wanted this summer to be perfect, like last summer, but it just can't happen. Things change, but we (us sensitive people who miss the past) can always hope against hope that things will be perfect once again. | |
| Beulah – Comrade's Twenty Sixth Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| One of their friends turned 26, and this is all an inside joke. that's my guess. | |
| Beulah – Ballad Of The Lonely Argonaut Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| road trip, looking for el dorado? | |
| Beulah – Emma Blowgun's Last Stand Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| i always think this would make a great last track... but it's great anywhere on the album of course. beulah is so mellow... i pretty much love them to death. | |
| Beulah – Matter vs. Space Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I always thought it was "sure to be killed off in the very first scene" ... all the lyrics for this cd are crap on this site... | |
| Snow Patrol – Hands Open Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I don't think he's 'name-dropping' more than he is singing about his reaction to an amazing song... I only heard this song incidentally as background noise, but that lyric caught my attention... and Chicago is one of Sufjan's greatest, imho. I don't blame anyone for wanting to write a song about listening to that song, it can be a very moving experience. | |
| Cursive – Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| it's also cool how close the word sermon sounds to semen | |
| Cursive – Art Is Hard Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| It seems like whenever a band has been around long enough and been reasonably successful, they have to write a song about the crap they have to put up with in the music business, lol. At least they made it a really good song, like Cherub Rock by the Smashing Pumpkins. | |
| Cursive – Sierra Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I love this song... first, I love the intro... I love how it fades in, it seems very grand, like, while, the Sierras. It reminds me of seeing the mountains rise above the desert plains in Colorado. But I interpret 'Sierra' to be the girl's name, and I love all the perspectives in the song... of Sierra, the girl being raised by a single-mom just trying to scrape by in some poor, Western American nothing of a town, and the mother, and the regretful father. Very pretty. |
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| Cursive – Staying Alive Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This song is perfect... just perfect... the best last track ever. Have you ever cried yourself to sleep listening to it? wow. At the end, I always get this image in my mind of myself just flying away, away, zooming out into space, seeing the earth, and just seeing how insignificant I am and how all my little concerns that make me feel like crap during the day are really insignificant compared to the tranquil beauty of the universe, or, in the words of Camus's Meursault, "the gentle indifference of the world." My god, I challenge anyone to read the last few pages of The Stranger while listening to this song and not be bawling by the end of the experience. My god. |
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| Cursive – A Gentleman Caller Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Some comments: 1) There is a fine line between feminism and man-hating. Now I know that men (OK, lots of men) think all women are the same and just use them for sex, and otherwise have no respect for any woman. But I'm from Oak Park, aka the most liberal town in America (I'm generally liberal, but this place takes it to an insane level, so much so that it becomes like the community religion and nobody questions it, ever). So I know what it's like to be judged negatively just because I'm a man. This is what happens when feminists become the kind of creatures that they set out to oppose. In high school, there were seriously a large number of girls who were just plain sadistic in leading guys on, then inventing some phony story about how the guy had mistreated them, and brutally dumping him. 2) Jaked on Green Beers explained the (incredibly obvious) meaning of this song... usually I'm all for multiple interpretations, but interpreting this song as something other than this, especially something anti-man, is an affront to a great song. 3) This song, then, isn't misogynist in any way. The MAN is the unfaithful one at first, and the woman cheats on him to get back at him. Obviously that eye-for-eye logic makes sense rationally, but it leads to unforeseen emotional pain. Am I supposed to view it as misogynist because the woman comes to regret her (logical) decision? Does a feminist believe that women never make mistakes, and that if a woman feels shitty, it must be the fault of a man? Whatabout the line, "sometimes men can be so misleading/to take what they need from you." Yes, her man took advantage of her for sex. But the song does not sympathise with the man. It is addressed to the woman, through the woman's point of view, and the underlying nature of the song is that of great sympathy with the woman's moods and emotions (if a feminist wants to say that women should be strong enough to avoid such emotions, or that it is misogynist to portray women as emotional, then that is bs. There is a difference between emotional and overemotional. She's not freaking out and running to a man to save her or anything.). How it documents the course between her rage, her solution, her regret, and her eventual acceptance (the worst is over), is a very empathic portrayal of complex, very human feelings. 4) end long rant about feminism: this song is beautiful. There's something for everyone (except man-haters, I guess, lol). Someone said that they loved the start. I love the end, when it mellows out. I love the low strings at the end, and the lyrics of hope, forgiveness, and moving on. Cursive seems to have something for everyone in that sense. I know they're often compared to Bright Eyes, and I don't like Bright Eyes at all. I definitely see the emo-artsy-angry/depressed connection, but some points that Cursive gets over Bright Eyes for me: some parts of their songs are actually relaxing and cathartic. Bright Eyes is just telling you how shitty the world is for an hour straight. Tim whatshisname (Cursive's lead singer) can actually sing, unlike Connor Oberst. And there's more of a melody in Cursive, even in their most powerful, energetic songs. Granted, sometimes Cursive annoys me by going into making weird, nonmusical noises (see that fairytale song and the first track (sorry I don't know much about them; I just got this CD two days ago)). But Connor Oberst seems to have a fetish for screeches or disembodied voices ranting about crazy shit, and feedback and stuff like that. So anyways, that was a long, incoherent rant from a guy on cold medicine. Enjoy. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| arturus: yeah, I love the "folk aspects" of Sufjan, as you put it. Casimir Pulaski day and Decatur are awesome songs that are also very folk-based. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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OK, I know I posted on this yesterday, but that was just because I love love love this song, and I had to just say something about it right away (I just got this CD Friday, I get all music late, lol). But I have just finished reading all the comments, and I have a few things to say. 1) I'm disappointed by all the bigots I've seen on this board. All the people who say, 'I'll listen to Sufjan even though he's gay' and the like. Or, or course, whoever it was who just said, "gay. fag. pervert." Wow... it takes about zero brain cells to come up with that. If anyone would ever take, say two seconds to think about where their prejudice comes from, they would realize that it's absolutely baseless, because it would immediately become clear that there is nothing wrong with being gay. So at least we can take comfort in the fact that every bigot on earth is really, really stupid. 2) People on both sides of the gay question, why does it matter if Sufjan is gay or not? It's not your business. I'd say something different if he was some celebrity blatantly courting fame for fame's sake, but he just wants to make beautiful, deep music, so give the guy a break. Nobody should force him out of the closet if he is gay, because when it comes down to it, it's up to the person to decide when, if ever, to come out. I'm not advocating staying in the closet, just likek I wouldn't advocate abortion, but if someone wants to make that choice about themself, then that's their prerogitave. 3) This song is not 'obviously' about gay lovers, or straight lovers from the point of view of a woman, or brothers, or best friends. It's lyrics are vague enough that it could be any of those. How you interpret it is up to you, but don't tell someone that they are wrong, or worse, a homophobe, because they don't see the gay lover angle in it. I personally see it as two best friends because it so powerfully reminds me of nostalgic childhood memories with my best friends. I love music that is vague enough that it can be interpreted in several different ways and all make perfect sense to different people, and all give those people meaning and a way to make an emotional connection to the song. That's my two cents. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders (Part 1: The Great Frontier; Part 2: Come to Me Only with Playthings Now) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| this is another great song on this album... i don't want to analyze it though | |
| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This song always makes me cry, and miss people I used to know. It's beautiful. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Jacksonville Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Yeah, Doc, you've pissed me off too... just because the lyrics wouldn't stand as poetry doesn't render them meaningless. Poets have to form their words around a meter, rhyme scheme, etc... lyricists have all that to deal with, along with a melody. These are reasons why it takes much longer to extract the meaning from poetry than it does to extract it from prose, and they also make it even harder to extract the meaning from lyrics when you're just looking at them printed on the page. But when combined with the MUSIC, a lot of times you can get the general message. Lyrics are no place for COMPLICATED philosophical dissertations, but you can still get deep ideas with them, and they are better than poetry if you are trying for imagery, which is one of the main goals of an album about a place, or so I presume. This song, with it's bluesy-jazzy undertones, lyrics, etc.... well, it just conjures the underground railroad. Now, would it do that if you didn't know the lyrics? Probably not. But when the lyrics combine with the music, it hits you, and powerfully. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Casimir Pulaski Day Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I didn't read through all the comments, so I probably have nothing new to add, but anyhow: 1) This song is deep. Questioning God. "he takes and he takes and he takes." Amazing. Great. 2) This song always makes me cry. 3) I cry especially a lot on this verse: "In the morning in the winter shade On the first of March, on the holiday I thought I saw you breathing" -How everyone else can go about their day outside and enjoy the holiday, the mundane respite from work that we get here in Illinois for some Polish general nobody's ever heard of in any context OTHER than Casmir Pulaski Day, while the girl dies in the hospital. 4) This is a folk song, really. How many singers could put together an album like this including a folk song: the same melody, over and over again, different words in each verse, essentially telling a story. Yep, it's a folk song, alright. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Come On! Feel the Illinoise! (Part 1: The World's Columbian Exposition; Part 2: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I love the first part... so much energy, bouncy energy. I'm from Chicago, and it always makes me think of those fast-motion shots of the El Trains racing around the loop while cars and people go about their lives... what a dynamic, busy, uplifting song for a dynamic, busy, uplifting city. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Decatur, or Round of Applause for Your Stepmother! Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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thefooligan: he was born and raised in Michigan, and has never visited Illinois, my home state. Let me just agree with everyone: "Steven A. Douglas was a great debator/but Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator" is pretty much the best line ever. I can sing it to myself for hours, and just have this goofy grin on my face. And I tell you, if you've ever started a road trip early on some summer morning from Chicago, and headed west out through rural Illinois, just watching the farms go by and listening to the local radio stations, well, this song captures that feeling perfectly. |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Yeah, sinking and all the others are right, actually... He's meeting an old friend who has turned into a fake "goddess of cool" and he's imploring her to be real. I think the tone of the song shows how much he misses his old friend, and wishes they could go back to old times... it reminds me of stuff in my own life. but it's still neat to sometimes see it as ai, lol |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I love this song... for some reason after reading the comments here I always listen to it with the "a.i. vibe" in mind. This song is so... so... amazing... I wish I could be more articulate. If I was making a movie, I would use so many of CYHSY's songs in it... they would just make a perfect soundtrack for so many great, important, lifechanging moments of life. |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Yeah, Alec's voice sometimes reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at Wrigley Field (if any of you have heard that, you know what I mean), but I love it... it works so well. I love this song a lot... I just got Clap's CD yesterday and I can't stop listening to it. | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Details of the War Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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It's so saccharine that it would annoy me if it wasn't for the fact that it fits perfectly with the lyrics and the point of this song... I really love Clap's lyrics... even if they don't make any sense, they fit the song and Alec's distinct voice very, very well pretty much all the time. All the all-American love story imagery (the prom, football stands, etc.) mixed in with jarring reality in the words, which mock the white-picket-fence quality of the music. |
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| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| no it sounds like chastised. It gets annoying after awhile, but this is still a great song. All of you have good ideas... it's another song about general disillusionment/zombieesque state of the youth of the modern world. | |
| Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Over and Over Again (Lost and Found) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| justaguy pretty much got the meaning, at least in my opinion... I love this song so much... I love songs that make me happy. | |
| Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I love the timpani drums at the end... to me, it's like the song has given us a glimpse into the inner machinery of the universe, represented by those drums... the slow, regular, implacable beats are the inevitable march of time if any of you have ever read camus' 'the stranger,' this reminds me of the end, where meursault imagines a great, inevitable wind that has been rushing at him from his future and is now finally sweeping over him. this song is amazing. always gives me chills. |
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| Carl Douglas – Kung Fu Fighting Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| yeah, this song always makes me laugh... a lot of fun! | |
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Stumbleine Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| i just realized this is the perfect song | |
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Bye June Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| yeah, where is this song besides that cd labeled "acoustic" that a friend burned for me... it's neat | |
| The Postal Service – This Place Is a Prison Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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title track and lonesome cowboy: you're both wrong. I AM ben gibbard, and I never remember knowing either of you. Peace out, my loyal fans... your money makes me rich mwahahahahahah |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Thirty Three Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER POSTED ON THIS SITE IS A COMPLETE MORON EXCEPT ME! This song is obviously about a flock of swans that once crashed while flying over Chicago, Billy's hometown... it was in the papers... IDIOTS! everybody stop fighting! this isn't a matter of life and death! |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Take Me Down Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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does anyone know what other songs besides take me down, farewell and goodnight, blew away, and said sadly james iha sings on? i love his voice |
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| The Postal Service – Sleeping In Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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No... when you mail letters you put your address in the upper left-hand corner if you care to... it's called the "return address..." and it is also the "address of the sender" (elementary logic will result in that conclusion). What is the connection between the assassination of Kennedy and global warming... seem to be the 2 main issues that are getting addressed... ? I honestly don't know, but this song makes me think deeply about the direction that the world is headed... |
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| Taking Back Sunday – You're So Last Summer Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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amazing song... "the truth is you could slit my throat and with my one last gasping breath I'd apologize for bleedin' on your shirt" amazing lyrics... |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Blew Away Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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yeah... he's got a really great voice... very soothing... i just got pisces and so far i love it... i loved when james sung on mcis, and this is great |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Whir Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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it doesn't sound like he's singing "whir" at all... something like "buoy," maybe... or "whooee" or "phooey"... or maybe "asgashigangaopwgewqioh" maybe i have a messed up copy |
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