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Heatmiser – Wake Lyrics	13 years ago
Elliott being all screamy and hardcore always entertains me. This is short and it really really moves. I suppose the person described in the song is a bit upset about a girl leaving him, but rationalizes that it's fine that she's left him because he's too messed up for her anyway.

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Elliott Smith – Tomorrow Tomorrow Lyrics

13 years ago

It would seem to me that Elliott is talking about himself the entire song, and more specifically about writing the perfect song. He says, "No one wants to see you inside of me", I think meaning that no one wants to look at him like he's a real person. They treat him as some sort of idealized image instead of a person. He says in the second verse "This time make it sound like someone" imply that his previous musical efforts played into this sort of idealized image, and that this time he wants to write something that really does an actual person some justice. Then comes the main drive for my interpretation he mentions a noise (a song) coming out, and if not now then tomorrow. Then he mentions people calling his failures art, but they're wrong and won't know until tomorrow. He's saying that while people think highly of his past works they won't know what art is until he writes the perfect song. The last verse basically states that writing the perfect song is tough. He's trying to capture a certain aspect of the world and its people and convey it musically, but trying to reflect back all of those feelings is leaving him with static.

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Elliott Smith – Everything Reminds Me of Her Lyrics

13 years ago

I think this song is almost definitely about a girl, about some sort of failed relationship, as many people have already described. However, part of me lately has been entertaining the idea that this song is actually about his mom. Elliott has written about her (seemingly) in the past, and I feel as though a lot of his issues revolved around his early life with her and his step father Charlie that eventually led up to him leaving to live with his father. I get this feeling that even though he knew the crappy situation with his step father wasn't his fault, that he sort of blamed himself for leaving his mom. Hence "I never really had a problem because of leaving, but everything reminds me of her this evening." The only line I can't really reconcile with this interpretation is "Just because you came across it and lost it." Again, most likely about a failed relationship, but I figured this interpretation was an interesting take on things.

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Elliott Smith – Flowers for Charlie Lyrics

13 years ago

I think this song is basically about what it says it's about, all be it with a bit of an extended metaphor. Charlie, as some have pointed is a general army term for the enemy, and the song is indeed about a war. As many have also pointed out Charlie was also Elliott's step father and they were locked in a war of popularity, perhaps competing for his mother's affections. It's not entirely unheard of for there to be jealousy between step parents and biological children and vice versa. What Elliott is saying is that he doesn't want to fight this popularity war, but he's not trying to win Charlie over either, he's not trying to make friends. He simply doesn't want to worry about this issue, because staying alive gives him enough to worry about. He ends the song by basically telling Charlie not to tip toe around him because the war is over, it's a free world and he can do what he wants. So it's not so much about forgiving Charlie as it is about giving up on a sort of active resentment and animosity.

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Elliott Smith – No Confidence Man Lyrics

13 years ago

People are a bit to quick to come to a conclusion that an Elliott Smith song is only about drugs. Truth be told I don't think any Elliott Smith song is about any one thing. I remember hearing a clip of him talking between songs during a concert saying that he wouldn't play needle in the hay because there had been enough drug imagery, and that it wasn't really about drugs at all, they're just a vehicle for talking about dependence. Considering all of this, I'd wager this song is about Elliott's struggle dealing with his step father Charlie's bullshit, yet still being weirdly dependent on him in some cases, and still wanting to believe some of what he said.

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Elliott Smith – Dancing on the Highway Lyrics	13 years ago
This song really kills me, it's simply to easy to identify with. It would seem to be about there being an incredible distance between him and his lost love, and him just waiting and hoping that he'll get some sign of her. The line, "Still here if you want me, look at what I can do with empty time." especially kills me, I've endured quite a lot of empty time.

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Elliott Smith – Abused Lyrics

14 years ago

The first verse of this song is very telling. Elliott (or whoever's perspective he was writing from), can tell by the look on peoples faces that they can see just how damaged he is by his past abuses. He dislikes this because he doesn't want to use his abuses to garner sympathy or otherwise manipulate the people around him. The experiences happened so long ago that they're just a faint memory, they seem almost untrue. Despite this the effects his abuse had on him are more obvious than ever before. This point is reinforced by the second verse which describes the confusion that comes with feeling physically and emotionally drained over something you're not even sure you understand. The third verse I can't quite make anything out of. Other than some general language about a sort of hypocritical morality. What with churches telling children how to behave and what to believe in, but not really helping them when it really matters. The final verse is sort of a reiteration of the first, in that he continues to wonder how everyone can tell he's been abused even if he really didn't want it to show. I know there's a lot of debate over whether some of Elliott's songs refer to his own personal experiences literally or whether they were just scenarios he created for the sake of writing a song. I don't honestly think it matters. Either way, the things we choose to write about say a lot about who we are and what we've experienced. Elliott wrote quite a few songs that centered around abuse, frightening father figures, and torn relationships between mother and son. Even if these aren't autobiographical accounts of his life, to think that they aren't reflective of his experiences is just foolish.

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Nick Drake – Day Is Done Lyrics	14 years ago
I think the first/last verse are the most telling. It's seems like he's saying that at the end of the day whether you've lost or won it doesn't matter, all things are ephemeral.

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Elliott Smith – Suicide Machine Lyrics	15 years ago
I think fall poetaster summed it up pretty nicely, so I won't go further into the meaning of the song. Suffice it to say this song is just beautiful, and I really wish he'd have finished up this album before he passed.

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Elliott Smith – Placeholder Lyrics

15 years ago

This song is essentially about how he (or whatever character he was creating with the piece) is simply ordinary and replaceable. He feels like a loser who's just taking up space, and knows that it won't be long before someone fills that space in place of him. In response to some of the comments above, there likely is no god, and the world is no where near perfect. Evidence of the world working to well for us is an illusion. If it rains into a hole in the ground, and the puddle formed were to become sentient it might think to itself, "This hole fits me perfectly, this world is built for me." but we know this is false. Physics exists and we're built around it, not the other way around.

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Swan Lake – All Fires Lyrics

16 years ago

"All fires have to burn alive to live" I think that line is generally referring to passionate people. The passion could be for anything really. Love, honor, knowledge, whatever you can imagine. But we must suffer for the things we care most about, otherwise we'd never really live. So essentially, all fires have to burn alive to live. I'd comment on the religious messages, but well I'm not of the religious sort, so I'll leave that to someone else.

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Billy Joel – Two Thousand Years Lyrics	16 years ago
From the lyric "It's been a long time and now I'm with you, after two thousand years" I concluded that it's about a guy who's love for a girl is so epic that he feels the entirety of human civilization has been building up to it.

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Billy Joel – She's Always A Woman Lyrics

16 years ago

This song reminds me very much of my first girlfriend. Nearly every lyric in this song applies to her. I loved her but she didn't believe me, and sometimes she'd deliberately hurt me. She brought out the best in me, and the worst as well. Despite it all, and even though we grew apart a while ago, she's always a woman to me. So to me this song is about being in love with a woman who's got a bit of a mean streak in her.

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Muse – New Born Lyrics	16 years ago
This song reminds me of a poem by William Blake called A Poison Tree. In the poem the mans hatred of his enemy manifests as a tree that grows and eventually bears a fruit that kills the enemy. The new born in this song is the manifestation of the persons bitterness.

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The Shins – Caring Is Creepy Lyrics

16 years ago

It would seem to me that this song is about a man who is still troubled by a past relationship. Chances are it's been a considerably long time since it ended but it still bothers him. Despite the fact that it bothers him he puts up a front and pretends it doesn't as in the lines "hold it in", "walk the cramps off", and "I never got cold wearing nothing in the snow." He does this to stop the "squawking birds" who would be critical of him for caring about a long gone relationship. Because such caring is creepy. My favorite verse is the middle one which to me shows the hopelessness of his situation. "it's a luscious mix of words and tricks that let us bet when you know we should fold on rocks i dreamt of where we'd stepped and the whole mess of roads we're no on."

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Buffalo Springfield – Kind Woman Lyrics	17 years ago
The lyric "please say it's alright" means a lot to me. I've gone through some tough times, and I think they would have been so much more bearable if I had a pretty lady tell me everything would be alright, even if we both knew it wasn't true. Other than that the song is fairly self explainitory.

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Oasis – Wonderwall Lyrics

17 years ago

Though I can't understand why this person is the guys "wonderwall" I think I understand most of the song. It would seem that this guy really loves this girl (assuming that's his preference), and just doesn't know how to tell her. He speaks of all the confusion that might eventually bring thing together, such as the winding roads. The line "Maybe, your gonna be the one that saves me" I can very much relate to. When you're with the one you love it's an almost holy experience. It's like you've never been wronged and never wronged another. Essentially, love saves all lost souls. Lastly I find the line "I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now" to be a bit to possessive, and thusly slightly creepy.

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