submissions
| Tori Amos – Past The Mission Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I'm not entirely sure what this is about, but my impression was always that it was a story of two girls (the "hot girl", bold and brave; plus the narrator, a shy and/or younger girl whom the hot girl has taken under her wing.The close female friendship is sort of an echo of the one in "Bells for Her" from the same album) and some lovely, callow guy. The hot girl took him as a lover, and the narrator had a secret crush on him. The guy took advantage of/raped the narrator, and the hot girl killed him in revenge. |
submissions
| Bruce Springsteen – My Father's House Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I'd agree that the Father is actually God, and that the narrator feels lost and hopelessly estranged from Him ("No one by that name lives here anymore"). It's interesting that this song is followed on the album by "Reason to Believe," which is peopled by characters who maintain faith even in the depths of grief and loss. |
submissions
| Horse Feathers – Working Poor Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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"What failure gave us suits our taste."
So fatalistic. I love how the bounciness of the music contrasts with the bleakness of the lyrics. |
submissions
| The National – Sorrow Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Dude, nothing against Lost, which I didn't watch, but see: The Wire. Wait until just before you die, though, because there is no better TV show, ever, and everything you watch afterwards, even amazing shows like Mad Men, Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc., are a step down.
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submissions
| Tricky – Hell Is Round the Corner Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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It sounds like a comment on how black people (young black men especially, I imagine; and possibly also immigrants) are reduced to stereotypes, and the impact that social marginalizing has on them.
And yeah, it's exactly the same bass line as in "Glory Box." All of the trip-hoppers worked together in some permutation or other, and you'll find lyrics and music overlapping among many of the artists' outputs. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Prison Girls Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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No, I was right after all -- changed the lyrics back to match the ones on Neko's website. Still need new headphones, though. |
submissions
| The New Pornographers – My Shepherd Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Carl said on his Rolling Stone blog that this was inspired by a short story he read ("Crossbones," by Leonard Michaels) about a married couple who sort of simmer & don't do much of anything until the end, when they explode into violence ("Tripping wires we have so carefully crossed/ The science behind it at a perfect loss"). He also name-checked the movie Crazy Love.
Makes that chorus pretty damn creepy; hell, makes the whole song pretty damn creepy. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Make Your Bed Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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That the male lover and cheating woman are now united -- married, if you will -- in death? Jeez, I think your snark to far-fetchedness ratio is a bit off. |
submissions
| Lisa Germano – Sexy little girl princess Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think it's about a sexually inexperienced girl being exploited by an older (or just more experienced) man. The juxtaposition Lisa conjures of a little girl (someone's bright, innocent daughter) being introduced to sex via someone who talks to her in the language of really degrading porn movies... it's pretty painful. I'm obviously projecting quite a bit, but I can almost hear the cracks in the girl's self-image forming, as she internalizes this leering nastiness and learns to measure her own worth by it. |
submissions
| Lisa Germano – ... A Psychopath Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I've read that Lisa wrote this about an actual stalker who harassed her for years.
While I would agree with you, sin, that it's about always waiting to be attacked, I'd disagree that the narrator feels "ready" in the sense of being adequately prepared and up for the task of defending herself. To me, the song chronicles the slow but complete disempowerment and paralysis that is caused by living in constant fear. |
submissions
| Lou Reed – What's Good Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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"Life's good -
But not fair at all"
Oh my God, what a succinct worldview. Love this song.
I will note, though, that I have had bacon ice cream, and it was AWESOME. There is very little in the world that bacon does not improve. |
submissions
| Liz Phair – Favorite Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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God, this analogy in this song is so labored that if the rest of the album weren't so bad, I'd think she was joking. Not a songwriter who improved with age & success, our Liz. |
submissions
| The Boomtown Rats – I Don't Like Mondays Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I disagree that Brenda Spencer was "obviously just a girl who couldn't deal with the pressure of life anymore." Everything I've read of what she said at the time of the shooting and since then indicates that she's a sociopath, and as such immune to feeling pressure beyond that of her own whims (and on the day in question, ennui). I think the song isn't meant to make the listener empathize with the criminal, but to emphasize the existentially terrifying senselessness of the crime. Life doesn't have any rhyme or reason to it, and horrible things happen with no good explanation at all sometimes. |
submissions
| A.C. Newman – Failsafe Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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... aaaaand I'm wrong. Newman apparently recorded an earlier demo version of this song before making some changes & recording it for "Challengers." Don't let crow-eating happen to you, kids! Do your research! |
submissions
| A.C. Newman – Failsafe Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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OK, a) these lyrics are wrong, and b) this song should be listed under the New Pornographers, as it's not on one of Carl Newman's solo efforts. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Red Tide Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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It's been driving me crazy what this song reminds me of, and I just realized: it sounds like "London Calling" by the Clash. So it's weird, 'cause I love "London Calling," but this might be my least favorite of her songs from any of her albums but The Virginian. |
submissions
| A.C. Newman – The Heartbreak Rides Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Really? No comments? Man, I love this song, maybe my favorite on Get Guilty. No real idea what it means, unless it's about the casual corruptive promise of the "good life," of fame. |
submissions
| Liz Phair – Gunshy Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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SupahManDude, I think the "sea/see monkeys, do monkeys" is a play on words. In the backs of old comic books (I remember Archie comics in particular), there were ads for sea monkeys as pets -- basically, they were tiny shrimp that a kid wouldn't be able to kill too easily. The ads always anthropomorphized the sea monkeys & portrayed them as a family of suburban husband, wife, & kids -- a just-add-water American dream. Liz's double-edged lyrics spotlight how such ads reveal a desperation to achieve that dream, if only by purchasing an idiotic imitation of a real life. |
submissions
| Patti Smith – Wave Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I find this song very affecting, a child from an abusive household approaching a man whom she fantasizes is the loving, perfect father she doesn't have. |
submissions
| This Mortal Coil – Song Of The Siren Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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It's "Were you here when I was flotsam?"
There's a video of Cocteau Twins performing it live here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2vw189q4U&feature=related
The line in question is at the 1:15 mark, and it's pretty clear what Elizabeth's singing. |
submissions
| A.C. Newman – The Town Halo Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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This is my favorite of Carl's solo songs, and that's pretty much entirely because of the strings.
I like your interpretation, plsygroundlove. I'd take it a step further and posit that the song might be about one or many of the American fallen teen queens, like Britney or Lindsay, who traded originally on their wholesome image & then blew it once they started getting photographed sans undergarments, etc. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Make Your Bed Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Hm, I assumed that Neko was singing from a male POV: he killed his sweetheart's lover prior to her arrival at their rendezvous, and is now murdering her. This would be more in keeping with the tradition of murder ballads, so I guess your interpretation depends on whether you think Neko would be more likely to preserve or subvert said tradition.
Also, I think the line is:
"So go down as his trembling bride
For to quell all this fury inside me" |
submissions
| Neko Case – Fever Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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This song is gorgeous -- escaping death by hiding among the ants.
I've also noticed the references to trains, which are scattered through many of Neko's albums. The line in "Thrice All American" comes to mind, about there being "hope in the train yards that something inspired." She definitely finds them evocative, doesn't she? |
submissions
| Neko Case – Magpie To The Morning Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Yes to both of those corrections. I love the line about the mockingbird singing his song for someone who's afraid of the dark. In general, I think this song is gorgeous, becoming one of my favorites from the new album. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I originally heard "3 days 2 nights away from the fens/ Payment to anything that brings a quick return to my friends" -- but when I looked up the lyrics in other sources, they consistently were written this way.
Anyway, whether my ears or others' are right, this song definitely suits Neko's sensibility, with its take on nature as dangerous, gorgeous, and untameable. |
submissions
| Neko Case – Prison Girls Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Thanks; I've edited the light switch part. I respectfully disagree re: the other line, though; "socks" would make more sense, I think, but I just don't hear it. |
submissions
| Neko Case – In California Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I think it's "one more starlet, one more time." Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, was an aspiring actress when she was murdered (mouth cut ear to ear, as noted, and the body cut in half and drained of all the blood -- "bled dry"). |
submissions
| Neko Case – Pretty Girls Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Neko said in the NY Times a couple weeks ago that the song's about abortion, or more specifically about girls she saw waiting alone at a Planned Parenthood clinic to get abortions. I don't see the "TV... blaring and angry/ as if you don't know why you're here" line as an indictment of the girls, but of the TV/media: the girls aren't stupid, they get why they're there, and don't need a bunch of sanctimonious talking head pundits preaching at them. |
submissions
| Neko Case – I'm an Animal Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Hudsucker, you're mostly right, but the first stanza ends thusly:
'cause it's vain about its mane
and will reveal them to no one
Her courage, which she characterizes as "roaring" -- like a lion -- is too proud (vain about its mane) to reveal them (the things she's still so afraid of) to anyone.
I ADORE this song -- love the drums, and love the way she sounds on the chorus. I am wondering, though, why the hell she thinks heaven will smell like the airport. |
submissions
| Simon and Garfunkel – I Am A Rock Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I was wondering when someone would get around to mentioning Meditation XVII:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery... Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure... No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction... Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security."
I didn't realize that the song was written about Holden Caulfield, but I don't doubt that Simon also had Donne in mind when he wrote, or at least titled it; and I think that considering the lyrics in the context of the meditation reveals the narrator's situation as more dire than otherwise: in trying to seal himself off from the pain of loss, it's not just that he's not making himself any happier, but he's ultimately forfeiting the opportunity to find God and reach heaven. (Or nirvana, or oneness with the universe, or whatever. Not much here for us atheists, though, is what I'm sayin'.) |
submissions
| Luna – Bewitched Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I LOVE the 2nd verse: "her sleep is troubled/ her face will twitch/ she wakes up angry/ and I'm bewitched." I've had dreams before in which I was so infuriated that it carried over once I was awake; in one, my dad forced me to do my sister's laundry - I was so mad when I woke up that I kicked my sister, with whom I was sharing a room & bed at the time.
In any case, I agree with tbaumgar. The line about kissing the street (instead of the girl's face, which is deceptively reflected in the puddle) sort of indicates disappointed expectations of a partner-- that she'll be there, when in fact she's checked out already. |
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