| Regina Spektor – Après Moi Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I think the suicidal part comes from the titular line - 'Apres Moi, La Deluge" basically means "After I am gone, the flood won't be able to hurt me" or more simply "It won't matter what happens when I am dead". It's a phrase that has been used in various forms by philosophers long before Lois said it. | |
| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Wow, I never thought of it like this. I think the whole "We tend to bruise easily, bad in the blood" is a reference to how the Russian aristocracy was infamously plagued with haemophilia (a bleeding/bruising/clotting disease) - but on a deeper level, it could be talking about abuse, or the minimization of abuse ("Oh, he didn't hit that hard, I just bruise easily" and so on). Nuts. | |
| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Like...it's almost like she uses the examples earlier in the song to demonstrate that things get passed down, too. Like, "Well, my friend got blight etc from his parents - what will I be passing on to my child?" | |
| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| That said, does anyone else catch a definite "pregnancy" vibe from this song? She's talking about things being inside of her, being knocked up, sleeping around, etc. It could be a metaphorical baby (like...carrying around an internal abuser or something), but this song also strikes me as the dilemma of someone from an abusive family trying to have kids themselves. That nagging doubt - "What if my kids turns out as screwed up as I am? What if I turn into my parents and become abusive myself?" That feeling of having a potential abuser inside you is frightening. | |
| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Some of these "corrections" are still wrong. Here's the complete correct lyrics: My friend has problems with Winter and Autumn. They give him prescriptions, they shine bright lights on him. They say it's genetic, they say he can't help it, they say you can catch it - but sometimes, you're born with it. My friend has blight, he gets shakes in the night, and they say that there's no way that they could have caught it in time takes its toll on him. It is traditional. It is inherited predisposition. All day I've been wondering: What is inside of me? Who can I blame for it? I say it runs in the family, this famine that carries me to such great lengths, to open my legs up to anyone who'll have me. It runs in the family, I come by it honestly. Do what you want - 'cause, who knows? It might fill me up, fill me up. My friend's depressed - she's a wreck, she's a mess. They've done all sorts of tests and they guess it has something to do with her grandmother's grandfather's grandmother's civil war soliders, who badly infected her. My friend has maladies, rickets and allergies that she dates back to the seventeenth century. Somehow she manages in her misery, strips in the city and shares all her best tricks with [me]. Me? Well, I'm well. Well, I mean - I'm in hell. Well, I still have my health - at least that's what they tell me. If wellness is this, what in hell's name is sickness? But business is business and bus(i/y)ness runs in the family. We tend to bruise easily, bad in the blood; I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me, know me and my family. We're wonderful folk. But don't get too close to me 'cause you might knock me up, knock me up. Mary, have mercy - now look what I've done! But don't blame me, because I can't help where I come from. And running is something that we've always done well, but mostly I can't even tell what I'm running from. Run from their pity, from responsibility. Run from the country and run from the city. I can can run from the law, I can run from myself. I can run for my life, I can run into debt. I can run from it all, I can run 'til I'm gone. I can run for the office, and run from the cause. I can run using every last ounce of energy- I cannot, I cannot, I cannot run from my family. They're hiding inside of me, corpses on ice. Come in, if you like - but just don't tell my family. They'd never forgive me, they'd say that I'm crazy. But they would say anything if it would shut me up. Shut me up. |
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| Tori Amos – Graveyard Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Haha, this probably sounds weird/oddly perverted, but: I always thought this song was about having sex (possibly...in the graveyard) after someone has died. Kind of a juxaposition of feeling incredibly alive and the absence of life - "she's gone, but I'm alive" - you know? | |
| Men at Work – Down Under Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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LOL, as a qualified Australian, let me translate this one: - A VW Kombi van is the Australian poor man's road trip vehicle of choice. "Fried out" means that it's in really poor condition and overheating. - "Zombie" is marijuana, though some other people claim it's other drugs. - The thunder refers to both Australia's tropical storminess, and also to the awesomeness of the people/country (like footsteps, ie: we're coming! Better take cover!) - Vegemite is the national sandwich spread, made from yeast extract (beer scum, kind of). Usually only Australians can stand the taste (I eat it from the jar, haha), so eating a Vegemite sandwich is a good way to prove you're an Aussie (it's our secret "language" overseas). - To "Chunder", in Australian slang, is to puke. So, they're saying we get drunk and barf a lot, which...is true. Ahem. And of course, Australia is the land down under all the other countries. Hence, the land down under. |
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| Amanda Palmer – The Point of It All Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I'm quite sure it's "aces". To say, "That's just aces!" is circa 50s colloquial language for "That's awesome!" Here, it's definition 16: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aces?r=75 So what she's saying, when she says "You're aces for coming along - you're almost human after all" is "It's so great that you're trying to play along and humour us - sometimes it's like there's nothing wrong with you". Which definitely fits with the theme of the song. :) |
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| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| This! This! This is exactly right. The only disease the narrator has is the disease of the human condition, having been complicated by a dysfunctional upbringing. She's comparing it to diseases in an effort to make people understand, as illustrated by the line: "I'm telling you 'cause I just want you to know me" | |
| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Damn, sorry, I was agreeing with this: "We tend to bruise easily. Mad in the blood. This phrase suggests to me hemophilia, one of the more famously inherited disorders. maybe." Since, like I said, she's drawing a parallel, I don't think it matters that she wouldn't usually get haemophilia. But I also agree that she isn't talking about a specific disease - she's talking about her discontent and emotional problems, and comparing them to hereditary diseases. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Runs in the Family Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Indeed, I totally agree. Specifically, I think she might be referring to the Romanovs - the Russian royal family in which haemophilia was a genetic trait/a real problem. The Romanovs were a notoriously dysfunctional family, and so she's drawing a parallel. | |
| Amanda Palmer – Astronaut: A Short History of Nearly Nothing Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The line "I would gladly stay an afterthought" is so heartbreakingly sad, to me. It's like - "I don't care if you don't think about me, I just want to be in your life." |
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| Amanda Palmer – Astronaut: A Short History of Nearly Nothing Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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It means that she doesn't want to fuck him - she just wants to be close to him. To put your hand on the back of someone's arm and look into their eyes is to evelop yourself in an emotional intimacy that goes beyond mere sex or infatuation. So the fact that she says "I am still not getting what I want - I want to touch the back of your right arm" is a brilliant way of saying that she wants to be emotionally intimate with this person, but it just isn't happening. She also says something like this in "Another Year" - "I want my chest pressed to your chest" - which denotes a hug. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Ampersand Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"I have wasted years of my life agonizing about the fires I started when I thought that to be strong, you must be flame-retardant." I don't think that this verse is actually about how she set fires when she was young. Instead, I think that she's saying that - when she was younger - she used to put herself in risky/troubling situations to prove to herself that she could survive them. She thought that that was the only way that she COULD prove to herself, and everyone else, that she could survive them. Unfortunately, the result of this was that she just got hurt (or burned, so to speak), and now she realises she's spent years blaming herself/agonizing over it. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Ampersand Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This is the same literal adaptation that I get from this song, too! That her lover tried to kill her, by setting her building on fire, but that he killed everyone else instead. I think that the metaphorical interpretation is similar - that this guy got all destructive and tried his best to hurt her (emotionally) when she left him, but ended up alienating himself, instead, by being such an ass. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Colorblind Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Crap. I meant to correct the last verse, too, which also says "I love you like no other/But I know you're not the one". | |
| Amanda Palmer – Colorblind Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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These lyrics are slightly incorrect. Correct Lyrics: I love you like a brother. And I love you like a child. And I love you like a lover. And I love you dumb and colorblind. And I love you like a mother, even after all you've done. And I love you like no other. And I know you're not the one. And I loved you in bright orange, and in violet and in green. And I loved you in such colors that your eyes have never ever seen. And I loved the way you acted, But your one trick pony's dead. And I loved you unprotected. But you only love in red, red, red. I know its dark for good. I never listen when I should. You only see in black and white, so go on back to your own kind, and I'll go back to mine. I love you like a brother. And I love you like a child. And I love you like a lover. And I love you dumb and colorblind. And I love you a mother, even after all she's done. And I love you like a lover, but I know you're not the one. I think the meaning is pretty obvious. Gorgeous song. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Trout Heart Replica Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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murkyisdead, saying that this song is only about hurting animals is like saying that "Pretty in Pink" is ONLY about a dress. Or that Amanda's "Sex Changes" is ONLY about having a sex change. Both of these songs have two meanings, and this song is no different. The first verse seems to be mostly about trout/animals/the omnivore's dilemma. The second/third verses seem to be more about using the metaphor of the trout to describe Amanda's problem's with relationships. The rest of the song talks about both, alternately/at the same time (in the case of the butcher). "Killing things is not so hard/It's hurting that's the hardest part" does refer to hurting and killing animals (mainly trout), yes. However, it also implies that it's easy to kill off a relationship with someone else, but hard to live with the hurt that comes after. Plus, there's the title - "Trout Heart REPLICA" - which implies that Amanda is saying that her own heart is a replica of the trout's, it will keep beating long after death (in the trout's case, physical death - in her case, emotional death). If Amanda was just talking about the fish, she would have called the song "Trout's Heart", or something even more literal. I could probably take the song line-by-line and point out the double meaning in each, but I won't bother, since you're probably just going to respond to this with some kind of robotic "MEAT IS MURDER YOU ARE IN DENIAL YOU HEARTLESS CARNIVORE PETA PETA RAH RAH!" reply, anyway. But to class this song as having a single, literal meaning insults Amanda's genius in infusing it with double meaning and metaphor. PS: Human beings are animals, too. It's called "The Food Chain". Do you call cats monsters for eating mice? |
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| Regina Spektor – Hero Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I know it's just me projecting my own situation onto the song, but when I first heard this song I thought it was so...sad, and hopeless. About a loss of innocence, sort of. Like a person trying to psych themselves up with gentle language and babytalk and airplane noises, tell themselves they're tough, but knowing it's pointless. The line "Hey, Open Wide - here comes original sin" actually made me think of a girl losing her virginity to someone who she wasn't sure about, or didn't even care about - being faced with the messy act of sex for the first time, willing herself to keep going, saying "It's all right", as though if they say it enough it will be true. The Bridge seems to portray a sense of hopelessness, too - though we strive for the best, humans seem to eventually give in to their more primitive urges, we end up alone. The end, too - a person saying to themselves again and again, "I'm in control, I don't need help", but knowing it's not true. It explains why Regina says "it's all right" more than any other point, following that line, too - like the desperation and denial are increasing, as the narrator's control lessens. I don't know. It breaks my heart, though. |
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| You Am I – Berlin Chair Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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In my opinion, it's about knowing you're no good. The narrator of the song has someone who loves them dearly, who is willing to give them "golden, dragging kiss"es, who will force themselves to sit through the "re-run" of the narrator's troubled life (ie, they will watch the narrator get into trouble and get out of it over and over). But all the narrator can do is be himself in response, and he's a mess. He warns his loved one: "If you wait (around for me), I'll give all my aches to you/Take the chance to ignore what you're going through", he talks about his cold hands (cold hands, cold heart), and points out how fragile he is (a berlin chair). He tells his loved one, "It's too late, you're too late". It's heartbreaking. |
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| Regina Spektor – The Flowers Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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In my opinion, this is about losing someone - having someone die, I mean - and trying to find a reason to go on after they're gone. Clinging desperately to the flowers the dead person gave you, in hope that they might continue blooming, just because there's nothing else you can do. "Things I have loved I'm allowed to keep" seems almost like a petulant rebellion to me - "I may not have been able to hold on to my loved one, but I'll be damned if I throw these flowers away". "I'll never know if I go to sleep", however, reminds me of a weak plea against suicide - if she kills herself out of grief, she'll never know if the flowers bloomed or not. The rest of the lyrics make sense in this context, too, if you read them right. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Guitar Hero Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Based on the pictures she put on the website, and my own interpretation, I would say that this song is all about the young guys over in Iraq and Afghanistan right now, and how they had no idea what they were in for before they went. My friend once said, "Those soliders over in Iraq right now - boys no older than 22 or 23 - are playing the most realistic first person shooter game of their entire lives." And that's just it - that generation of men grew up playing video games about shooting and war, and they probably signed up to the army thinking that it would be like playing Duke Nukem or some such. But then they got there, and things were actually exploding and people were dying, and suddenly everything was real. And they couldn't handle it. But they couldn't "Turn it off", they had to stay and fight, even though it wasn't like the "ones back at home". One of the most haunting lines, I think, is the almost sarcastic, mocking "His hands are gone, and most of his head/And just when he was getting so good." Obviously, the Guitar Hero at the centre of the song has been blown up and killed - but the line kind of says to him, "You don't get three more lives, in this game. You only get to play once." |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Kaledrina Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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When I first heard this (live! It was amazing), it immediately struck me as the lament of someone who had been raped. A girl thinking back on a doll she used to have that's all broken, now - and then comparing herself to the doll, because she's broken now, too. |
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| Metric – Monster Hospital Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The chorus of this song is, to me, just....a desperate cry for help that I'm sure many can empathize with. People with illness, with trouble, they're always told to "Keep fighting!". Like it's a war - but, as Emily Haines notes, for many of these people "the war won't stop, for the love of god". And sometimes the war wins. |
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| Scarling – In The Pretend World Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I always thought about this song as being the malaise of a creative person. When they're writing/on stage/whatever, everything is perfect - but it's a pretend world. Back in the real world, there are real problems. | |
| Scarling – City Noise Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| It's about...life. Scenes from a life. Not everyone's life - but a lot of people live like this. | |
| Unkle Bob – Brighter Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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My god. No one has commented on this yet! Such a wonderful song. In my opinion, the narrator of the song knows a girl who is cheerful, but in a lot of pain/extremely troubled. She doesn't trust a single person ("only fools rush in"). She buries her pain and loses herself in sex and promiscuity. Men flock after her because she's too tired to say no to anything, and she watches them "fall at [her] feet", always smiling and never stopping for breath. But, though the men get physically close to her, they always "look but never touch" - she never lets anyone get close to who she really is. The song almost seems to be sung from the perspective of one of these pursuant men. Amazing, powerful stuff. Also, I think it's supposed to be "only fools rush in", ala Shakespeare. |
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| Gary Numan – A Prayer For The Unborn Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| God, I love the bitter sarcasm and overwhelming despair in this. | |
| Gary Numan – Dark Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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"Dark City" was actually a 90s movie. It's great if you haven't seen it - it very obviously visually inspired movies like "The Matrix". This song...on a less religious and more human level, I've always seen it as being about the innate darkness of man. The alternating choruses fear the dark and the light in turn - I see this as a comment on how man fears his own ability to harm, but is enthralled by his power. |
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| Arcade Fire – Cold Wind Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| To me, this song had always been about running away - from a lover or a life, or anything. Driving away in the dead of night (even in Summer, the dead of night often has a chilly breeze) and abandoning everything. | |
| Tori Amos – Cloud On My Tongue Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| About thinking that you've made it, only to find out that you're actually just going in circles - "Thought I was over the bridge now". The girl in the song wanted to get through this without getting hurt, but she's already infected with the cancer of her situation, she's already scarred (or "tattooed") by what's happened to her. And yet she can't stop getting herself back into the same mess. Gorgeous. | |
| Tori Amos – Beauty Queen/Horses Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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To me, this song has always been about wanting to save someone from something (be it drugs, sex, themselves, whatever) - but being so screwed up yourself that you not only fail to do so, you get sucked under with them. For some reason, I always picture siblings, in my mind - a sister trying to save her little brother from his own demons, after they both have come through a nightmarishly abusive past. She speaks to him as she did when they were young, like she's telling him a story - that there are horses that will take them away, she won't leave him (threads that are golden), that together they'll "make mother well". But the grim reality is that there is no escape, not for either of them. |
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| Tori Amos – Original Sinsuality Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I don't know enough about religion to interpret this properly, but when she begins to sing the last verse, I always tear up. I imagine that if there were a god, the knowledge that there was someone watching over you from on high would evoke the same feeling of safety and reassurance that you get hearing someone say to you, "You are not alone, baby - in your darkness, you are not alone." Intentional or not, it's a lovely effect of the song. |
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| Tori Amos – Cooling Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I've always thought of this song as one describing the end of a (fairly one-sided) relationship. Especially the chorus: "And I've heard every word that you have said/And I know that I have been driven like the snow/But this is cooling faster than I can" - it reminds me of a fight, of the author saying "I hear your problems, I know I've made mistakes, but please don't let this die - I can't let go this fast." The talk of brambles under bushes and fire turning to water makes me think that the author has hidden issues that are tearing her apart - especially since she says "So I thought I'd make some plans", like the fact that fire turned to water got in the way of them. The "kisses" line makes me think that there's something wrong with the relationship, morally - an affair? I still have no idea what the Peggy line means. The whole thing is gorgeous, though. |
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| Matthew Good – Weapon Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Wow. Compared to all the political hoo-ha here, I feel as though my interpretation is simple. But: To me, this song is about love. Plain and simple. Love is confusing and contradictory and way too intoxicating, and you should never turn your back on it or anyone who is in it. Love is the ultimate motivation for everything we do (we breathe in and out for it, we give in and out for it), and we would do anything in the name of it - kill, maim, betray, abandon. It makes us a weapon. And Matthew's only advice is: "Be careful. You be careful." |
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| The Innocence Mission – The Lakes of Canada Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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The lakes of Canada are utterly gorgeous - Google "Lake Louise" if you've never seen one. Standing before them, I remember feeling such a feeling of open space and freedom, that there really was beauty in the world, that I could hardly believe such beauty existed. It makes sense, because I see this song as being about feeling trapped. The woman in the song has been abused or mistreated or just ignored - stuck in a pattern for so long that life barely seems to have meaning. But she's seen the lakes of Canada, and she's felt those fleeting moments of joy that make all the pain worthwhile. And so underpinning the music is this sense of gritty, dogged determination; there is good out there. She won't give up. She won't be told that there's anything she can't overcome. |
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| Transister – Flow Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's about giving up, its about realising how hollow life is. No matter how much she pretends that there's magic in the world, when she looks at traffic, all she hears is engine noise. And she's tired of trying to kiss life into the dull and dreary world, so she just...stops. |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Sing Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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"sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing" I always thought this line referred to those just-plain-dumb people at shows who stand there with their camera phone and videotape the whole thing to watch later. If I'm right - what a beautiful metaphor, and just what this song is about. People ignoring an amazing live act to record evidence that it happened. In this song, about life in general, Amanda seems to be saying: Who cares about when you get home, who cares about having something to keep?! Sing, sing now! While you have the chance! The catharsis, the experience, is far more valuable than any boxed-up version of it you could collect. |
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| The Red Paintings – It Is As It Was Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I always interpreted this song as an expression of dissapointment in parents and authority figures. I know that sounds terribly emo - but it makes sense, with the lyrics. "The ones who made us are always looking for the ones who made them" seems to describe our preoccupation with the people who made us and raised us - our mothers try not to turn into their mothers, as we try not to turn into them. And the repeated line "Sorry that they/we didn't tell you about the world" shows how our parents failures become our own. Et al. |
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| The Red Paintings – Sing Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Actually, Just, while you are correct in asserting that The Dresden Dolls wrote this song, The Red Paintings covered this song on their latest CD, "Feed The Wolf". And the cover is amaaaazing. You should get the album if you can. |
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