| Train – Meet Virginia Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Coming from a small town, I can easily apply this song to a few people I've known growing up. The kind you know deserve to be somewhere else, maybe a great artist, a scientist, an astronaut, whatever, but for some reason or another got stuck in the middle of nowhere. And even though they yearn for that possibility of greatness, you also know for a fact that if they DID leave, they wouldn't be able to stand the "outside" world and come running back home within a week. It's not that they're not happy, they are, but they keep wondering "what if" all their lives. | |
| Sarah McLachlan – World On Fire Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This song is poetry. Few songs achieve that in my book. | |
| Chumbawamba – Tubthumping Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| Whenever I hear the song I picture an Irish guy drunkenly singing songs, loudly swearing at everyone who ever slighted him and making slurred impromptu speeches against England, his bosses, etc. Also perhaps getting into a fistfight over differing political opinion. But yeah, basically a drunken Irish. | |
| Eric Hutchinson – Outside Villanova Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Two words: Statutory rape. The girl is only sixteen. Notice that two sentences use a word that is emphasized but makes no sense in the context, "gifted" and "sinking". Both rhyme with sixteen. He's sleeping with a very naive (and pushy) girl who thinks they'll get married. The entire tone of the song is one of remorse, guilt, and hiding. It fits perfectly that he comes close to mentioning her age, but changes it at the last minute. The mention of being legal, cops, feeling dirty, concealing the evidence, etc. all point to this. |
|
| Junkie XL – Beauty Never Fades Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Yep, exactly. "Beauty that never fades" "Come to steal your lifeblood away" "Someone take me back to the angel realm" |
|
| Brad Paisley – Online Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Love this song. I know some people say it pokes fun at people who weren't born beautiful. What they don't realize is that it also mocks people who ARE beautiful. In both people being described, the nerd and the Hollywood supermodel, the nerd is arguably the better person. |
|
| Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
I have. I was born Catholic. Reading the Bible was actually one of the catalysts for me becoming an atheist. Jesus was a good man for sure, but the Old Testament god was pure evil. And there's nothing you can say that would change that. (First paragraph got cut off apparently, this precedes my previous post) |
|
| Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
I have a copy of the Qu'ran as well and have read a fair amount of it to know that both books are basically describing the same people, the same beliefs, and the same god - the Jewish one. There's a reason why all of them are called the Abrahamic religions, and why Muslims still refer to Christians and Jews as "the people of the book" (not "the books", but a single book, one they all share - the Old Testament). Read it yourself. Everything from Adam and Eve, to Noah, to Isaac and Jacob, to Abraham, to Jesus is in the Qu'ran. EVERYTHING. Muslims even consider Jesus the Messiah, though not a god. Jews in turn, don't believe in Jesus or Mohammed, and still believe that the real Messiah has yet to arrive. And you still think they're worshipping the same gods? LOL. They all even have the same ten commandments. I wouldn't call the Old Testament a "loving" god either. Almost everything he did was command people to conquer, enslave, punish, or otherwise annihilate other peoples. And the Bible is especially cruel to women. From Lot (the most virtuous man in Sodom) offering his virgin daughters to be raped, to specific instructions on how to beat your woman correctly. Ever wonder why that is? Because the Old Testament was written in the Middle East. Which has strongly patriarchal cultures where even woman today can't drive or be in the same room with a man who is not relative. That is the god you worship. A sky-father. A virtual recreation of the average leader of a desert clan a few thousand years ago. Angry, controlling, jealous, male. I hope you're not one of those American conservatives who seem to believe that Jesus was American. He wasn't. Everyone in the Bible is a Middle Easterner. As for being afraid of death, LOL. Ask yourself this, if you were not threatened by hell, would you still be a good person? Would you be generous or kind to your fellowmen if your god specifically tells you that the only way to go to heaven was to be cruel to them? I bet you wouldn't. You'd happily maim, torture, and kill if it meant a ticket to heaven, as the Biblical jews did to neighboring cities (including specific instructions to kill children) because you're so scared of the alternative. Don't believe me? Ask a terrorist, a soldier, etc. why they kill innocent people, and chances are they'll tell you "for god". An atheist who does a good thing, does it from innate goodness. A believer who does a good thing, does it usually because god/their pastor told them to. Which of these is true goodness and which of this is a selfish act intended to get you more points so you can get past the pearly gates without problem? And while you're at it, ask yourself why children already know instinctively the difference between good and evil, even without religion? And no, I don't care what you believe in. I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't pretend to know if there is a god or not, much less what he or she or it actually wants. It only matters to me when you start using religion to justify your hate and cruelty to other people. |
|
| Carly Rae Jepsen – Bucket Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
This song seems to be about a long-term (probably married) couple. They haven't spent time together for a while, and they're out enjoying an uncharacteristically carefree day on the beach ("Forget yourself say why don't we people watch?") Though they run into various mishaps ("Nothings really going as planned"), the woman is especially happy to see her man relaxing for a change ("See your laughter bubble over, lately you've been working too hard", "And I've been waiting to recognize that sparkle that's in your eye...") The man confesses something to the woman ("there's a hole in my bucket"), a problem that he believes will threaten their relationship ("I don't know how we're supposed to build a castle now"). The woman, however, reassures him that no matter what, she'll stay with him ("I'll stay until the sun comes down"). Personally I think the "hole in my bucket" thing might actually refer to sterility, LOL. The guy can't have kids, hence he's worried about how they'll start a family ("build a castle"). |
|
| Soundgarden – Non-State Actor Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
I agree with Naataq. Though the song can be applied to all NSAs from terrorist groups to evangelical organizations, I think it's mostly about the multinational megacorporation who hold control over a frighteningly large segment of the American government (and other governments besides). The ones who keep paying politicians to lobby for lower taxes for multibillion-dollar companies. Kinda like the crackpot Illuminati conspiracies, but real. "Coin in every pocket, more mouths to feed" - (Capitalism) "So weak in the land . . . I'll be the seed" - (Development aid and economic progress in general to third world nations, but with the ultimate goal of control) "I bring you the healer . . . and you are the cure, I am the drug" - (First world comforts, at the expense of monopoly) "A motherless country, of thee I sing" - (Extreme right politics, patriarchal values) "I teach you a lesson, sword for a pen . . . You are tabula rasa, I am the book" - (Control of the masses through propaganda, including steering countries to war) "We're not elected . . . and we settle for a little bit more than everything" - (They hold no allegiance to any country or people, but are motivated solely by profit) |
|
| Groove Armada – Get Down Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
It took me a while to understand the song. At first I thought it had Indian or Southeast Asian lyrics in it. Then I realized it was English. Jamaican English. But yeah, awesome song. But then again, Groove Armada is always great. |
|
| Powderfinger – All Of The Dreamers Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Kind of like religion in the old days really. Televangelists (Pat Robertson for example) made billions fooling dreamers that way. Nowadays, instead of religion, it's rights and environmentalism. | |
| Powderfinger – All Of The Dreamers Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I think it's about the irony of how "revolution" itself has become commercialized. How people are learning to capitalize on dreamers, and make money on leading them around. I see this all the time nowadays, when "civil rights leaders" tend to be bigoted idiots privately, live in posh mansions, and drive sports cars. And people still believe them. | |
| Better Than Ezra – Juicy Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I think it's more than just gossip. It's about tabloid journalism in general. The way the public demands (and gets) bad news, taking delight in somebody's death, starvation, war, scandal, etc. Schadenfreude. | |
| Better Than Ezra – Recognize Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
I think it's meant to poke fun at the "Catholic guilt" and guilt in general. BTE is not a religious band, as evidenced most clearly by their earlier song "Heaven". My interpretation is it's about people who were once religious but have grown less so as they grew older or renounced religion altogether. I'm one of those, and though I don't believe in any of the human definitions of "god" anymore, my Catholic upbringing is still strong. I still get apprehensive at times on whether by the simple fact of not believing (even if I live my life conscientiously) would mean I would still go to hell. The biblical imagery is pretty strong in this. And the chorus itself deals with apostasy. "Living out of the pocket, out of your socket" <- living life without depending on a deity or religion "Leaning like a Pisa, a moaning Lisa" <- drifting from the main church teachings "You come a pleading, but it's too late, we can't hear you, you're on the list now" <- that list of the damned "Lord knows you ain't that bright Better let your dim light shine" ^ A sarcastic take on Matthew 5:16 ("Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven"), about how god thinks you're apparently not fit to lead your own life and make your own decisions. Thus you should be guided very closely, while condescendingly bidding you to shine your pitiful "light". |
|
| Eels – That's Not Really Funny Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
Like other some other Eels' songs, I've always thought of this song as slightly creepy. It has and undertone of barely controlled rage in it. And yes, fairly easy to understand, it's about a husband and wife. Wife makes a joke about husband being "small", if you get what I mean. Husband goes along with it, but inside is seething with rage. From then on, he goes a little paranoid and thinks he's the butt of all the jokes in the neighborhood. The calm delivery and the incongruous pet names reminds me of what we call a "cariño brutal", literally "savage love". Somewhat corresponding to English "hard love" and "wifebeater" depending on context. The husband really really does not think it's funny. |
|
| Better Than Ezra – A Lifetime Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
This is one of my teen "anthems", one of those songs that takes me back to my high school days. Regardless of the inspirations, it's a very simple song. I think dec3idol explanation is the best. A childhood friend, Allie, dies on a car crash on the day of their graduation. Later in her funeral, her classmates stole her urn to scatter her ashes in the place she loved, the beach. They reminisce there about her, including themost narrator's most cherished memory of her singing an REM song on the hood of the car as the sun rises, when she was most alive. When the narrator gets home, her parents are there, but while her dad was a little angry about the theft of the urn, her mother understood their reasons. And he goes up to his room to grieve. It's about saying goodbye to a friend you'd always thought would be around for the rest of your life. Even as a snotfaced too-cool-for-life kid, I always thought of this song as poignantly beautiful, as are most of Better Than Ezra's songs really. They are one of the few bands I can relate to in every song, and not just like them because the songs are catchy. |
|
| Imogen Heap – Wait It Out Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
It's about despair and giving up. The listlessness of the "in-between" the event and the recovery. The withdrawal from the world in an attempt to stop the hurt. It's about a situation where no matter how hard you wished for things to change, there is nothing you can do that will make it better, short of a miracle. Where you stop struggling to stay afloat and let yourself sink. It's about grief so deep you can't even imagine how things can ever get better after it. Even if it does, you'll never trust the world in the same way again. You can't escape it, you can't beat it, and you're not quite ready to die yet, so you really have no choice but to wait it out. |
|
| Poets Of The Fall – Roses Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
That's a way too literal interpretation of the song. Religion has a way of turning the world "black and white" instead of actually showing the "colors". Plenty of people who've been religious all their life are lost in the way described by the song. This song is more about epiphany, not the literal organized religious kind, but the metaphorical kind of waking up and actually seeing things for what they are for the first time. As mentioned by the third poster it's about feeling alive again. It's definitely a spiritual song though. Just not specifically about any religion. |
|
| Shawn Colvin – Sunny Came Home Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Oh and I couldn't help but think of this song when I first saw the 2007 movie "Waitress". It fits it perfectly. Also RIP Adrienne Shelly. :( | |
| Shawn Colvin – Sunny Came Home Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
The song is undoubtedly about escaping from domestic abuse, it's not metaphorical. The whole tone of the song is also filled with tension, unnerving, yet strangely cathartic. Here's how I see it: a mother in a small town getting beaten and probably raped regularly by her husband for years. ("Count the years, you always knew it") Yet she hasn't left because it's the only world she knows. She's scared of him, yet she's more scared of how she (and her kids) will get by without him. The problem might be compounded by small-town mentality as well. Religious perceptions that a woman is nothing without her man, parents worried more about looking bad to other people than their daughter's well-being, general red-neck chauvinism, etc. So she bore it all silently. On the outside everyone else just sees her as a meek non-person, but inside she's slowly going crazy. ("She says days go by I'm hypnotized, I'm walking on a wire, I close my eyes and fly out of my mind, Into the fire") Then one day after coming home from her latest stay at the hospital (for getting beaten up of course), she decides she's finally had enough. (the "Sunny came home" refrain) She sets the house on fire, grabs her kids and runs away. ("Get the kids and bring a sweater, Dry is good and wind is better") One thing the song only hints about though, is if whether she killed anyone in the process or not. She might or might not have killed him. ("She didn't believe in transcendence") It's a happy song I guess. It's about finally asserting yourself and leaving all the things that hurt you. The last line is positive: ("She's out there on her own and she's alright") Granted, I also acknowledge that the problem may not have been an abusive husband (though it's the most likely, given that the song indicates she has kids). It may also be molestation, bad memories of a hometown, or huge guilt over something. The only thing we're sure of is she escaped, but not without destroying the thing that almost destroyed her. |
|
| The Goo Goo Dolls – Iris Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I've always wondered at the meaning of this song. I think none of the Goo Goo Dolls are gay, but... this song describes something almost every gay teenager goes through perfectly. Falling in love with a straight friend and wrestling with the implications of it. "Give up forever", is pretty much how it feels like for most, especially for those raised in religious families. It's sin after all, according to the church. Either give up love and being happy in this life or give up heaven. The symbolic undertones of the fact that it's somehow entitled 'Iris' doesn't help either. It has nothing to do with eyes. Iris is the personification of the RAINBOW in greek mythology (that's where the term for 'iris' in the eyes comes from). And we all know what rainbows usually symbolize, heh. But yeah, I think it's just a coincidence. This was, after all, supposedly written specifically for the movie 'City of Angels'. And yeah, Iris was a messenger of the gods (much like Hermes), she is often depicted with wings (also like the goddess of victory - Nike). And 'messenger' in Greek is "angelos", where the English word for 'Angel' comes from. Still, this song reminds me of Third Eye Blind's "Jumper", which was actually written about a gay guy who tried to commit suicide rather than face the rejection of everybody in his life. Both are really about hiding the real you from the rest of the world (applies to both genders, gay or straight). |
|
| Eagles – Frail Grasp on the Big Picture Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
First stanza is about tabloid journalism. Y'know... the kinds which are more concerned about generating the most attention possible with little regard as to truth or the consequences of their actions. The kind that destroys completely innocent people either for the sadistic glee of seeing someone fall or simply for the money. The kind that kills people by rehashing the wars of our grandfathers - racism, religious intolerance, sexism, homophobia - etc. again and again and again. As if it weren't enough that we had world wars and civil wars and massacres and whatnot over those issues in the past. Simply because they always get the most attention from the crazies. Second stanza is about love junkies. The people who go all mushy at the *concept* of love, yet doesn't actually *get* what it is to be in love. They float on clouds and whatnot, thinking it's gonna be sunset walks on the beach and happily ever afters. They don't really see much past the cloud of short-term passion that they mistake for being actual love. Then end up with a divorce two years later. Éros rather than Agápe, sold on the Hollywood idea of love. Third stanza deals with the religious (conservative) right. The people who always group people into two kinds - those who is favored by God and those who aren't. The funny thing is - those favored are ALWAYS them, while those damned are always the others. They're the ones who always try to get you to convert to their religion so you can be 'saved'. Doesn't matter if you're a good person anyway, you have to give all your money and follow their rituals or else you go burn in a lake of fire. The scary thing is, they always get this mad happy gleam in their eyes when they imagine other people being tortured for eternity. Oh, and yeah. They ALWAYS are the most ruthless when it comes to money and the most lecherous when it comes to sex. The list of 'morally upstanding' politicians and 'chosen by Jesus' televangelists who end up making billions at the expense of others then getting caught in sex scandals is very very long. Yet people still send their life savings to them and go to their churches every sunday. Lip service, as if going to church means they can be excused for being cruel in real life, because after all, they already bribed God didn't they? |
|
| The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| JAM4321 is right. The song is really just about nostalgia. I'm not even of the 1970's generation (I'm a 90's kid), but the entire song makes me remember the escapades with friends as teens, all the craziness. How they all seem to stupid and shallow now but you still wish you could go back to those times. | |
| Poets Of The Fall – Roses Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Poets of the Fall are of the few bands who can actually claim the title 'poet'. The lyrics are just so fucking beautiful. If surrealism in visual art could be translated into music, this would be it. | |
| Jakob Dylan – Holy Rollers for Love Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
It's obviously about militant evangelism who become the very thing they preach against. My favorite line in the song is the second stanza: "Ain't no gentlemen here hiding wings The devil himself would be puzzled to give Any reasons to sink his fingers in All this voodoo and black magic Doing the work that was his" If I was the devil I'd be completely flabbergasted too that some people do evil in the name of the person who was supposed to fight it. |
|
| Better Than Ezra – King of New Orleans Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
The song is about seeing a group of drunks beating up a homeless runaway. First stanza refers to his hanging out in apartment steps when the night comes looking for a 'mark' ("Angel on the stairs"), propositioning both men and women ("and he loves the girls/boys") just to earn enough money to survive ("going to make twenty dollars before the weekend's over"). The rest of the song recounts the feelings of observers who sees him being beaten up. ("Did you see the blood run down?") Nobody actually stops to help him. Some people laugh and think he deserves the beating he gets ("Did you laugh at all when the people walked right by and said aloud, 'You gutter punks are all the same.'"), while some just helplessly try to ignore what was happening ("It's easier to let it slip out of your mind.") First time I heard this song I thought nothing of it. Then I listened closer and realized what it really meant. The light-hearted tone of the song belies it's darker meaning. "Bum-bashing" is a very real thing and results all too often in actual murder. The "sport killings" of homeless vagrants by spoiled teenagers or drunks simply because they can and no one cares what they do to the homeless anyway. They're like kids who torture pet animals, except that they are actually beating up and sometimes killing in cold blood another human being. And yeah, again, nobody actually cares if the bums die. It's one of the reasons why I think most of humanity are either completely apathetic/plain stupid or truly evil. |
|
| Alice Peacock – Alabama Boy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
I don't know why, but first time I heard this I immediately thought of gay rights. :/ Especially the part about God's apparent apathy at violence done in his name. The reason probably was that I know a few people who went through this from down south. They went through really horrible shit growing up. Beaten up by their own dads for not living up to expectations, thrown out of the house with only the shirt on their backs, the things they did just to survive as kids on their own in the streets. Some of them grow up as irrepairably damaged angry human beings, some die and no one cares about it. But I know a few who are, to put it in the corniest way possible LOL, simply some of the most beautiful human beings alive. Holding no resentment for the suffering they've been through and ironically being closer actually to what Jesus taught than their supposedly 'religious' parents. Y'know... people who really are at peace with the world. Few people can claim to have gone through the kind of suffering that some people have and still end up forgiving. This especially resonates with me: "You could've chose hate but you chose love" Anyway, the song could also refer to someone who went through an abusive childhood. I'd really like to know what this song is about though. Was it about a specific person? A specific incident? And Alice Peacock, apparently, hasn't posted anywhere else about it. |
|
| Eagles – The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Is it just me, or is there some sinister undertones to the song? To me it sounds like a gang rape. :/ | |
| Green Day – 21 Guns Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
@Matt04, not putting down soldiers at all. But the people who lead them to war in the first place. Seen too many good people die because a national leader decided he didn't like the way another national leader looked at him at the last summit. And yes, I too think some sort of violence is necessary. I can understand for example, cops, and agree readily that they are needed. But soldiers or martyrs in wars about things that will probably never affect them individually? For example, in the middle ages, wars could be fought simply because a Queen had a personal quarrel with another monarch. And hundreds of thousands of people could die. Even today, some very minor differences in scriptures between people who worship the same god is enough to pit nations against nations. And do you really think it's a cause they believe in? For soldiers who volunteered for a specific war, perhaps, but what about those who enlisted long before a military engagement happened? Or those who were drafted? In the military, orders are orders. You don't question it, even if you disagree with it. That is what I meant for soldiers not fighting for their own cause but the cause of their leaders. I can think of dozens of example outright. The only Japanese-Aemerican regiment of the US in WW2 for example (442nd Infantry Regiment), were ordered to attack an entrenched position of Germans in Italy. They knew it was suicide and they protested, but the General Dahlquist, the guy who ordered it refused to reconsider (probably driven by racism on his part as well, he considered the regiment as little more than meatshields). They lost roughly a third of their numbers and died extremely heroically, but they succeeded. They are the most awarded military unit in the US ever, ironic in the fact that the US actually put their families in internment camps for fear of them being Japanese sympathizers. They redeemed it a thousandfold. But a lot of them still died because of a stupid order they could not ignore. |
|
| Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
It's about how children usually spot the worst holes in adults' beliefs. The 'god' of adults, is male, patriarchal, wrathful, acts like a spoiled brat, an extremely authoritarian school principal, and a sadist at times. Totally unlike how a creator should be. A child, meanwhile, still innocent and sees things for what it is, can immediately see the inconsistencies. Why is god male when it is actually women who give birth, nurture children, and are symbols of life? Why would he ever condemn any of his children to a sad life or hell if he created them in the first place? It's the kind of questions you think of when you see a child born with an incurable genetic disease. When you see christians beat a gay man to death (a double damnation, if you ask me, they're tortured and shunned while alive and then sent to hell afterwards, how could a god do that?). When you see the wars and terrorism resulting from what is exactly the same god from different prophets. But you immediately suppress because of ingrained conditioning. You are not supposed to ask because doubt is bad. We end up never thinking much about it, and going on with out lives pretending like we understand faith and god. Going so far as to pretend to know his thoughts, what he wants and what he does not want. When in reality we simply have just set the questions aside and settled for the most convenient answers, no matter how wrong or how harmful they are to our fellowmen. We laugh at children's questions like that because we don't know either. |
|
| Monster Magnet – God Says No Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Like negativecreep09 I too think the meaning is pretty straightforward. It's about how religions and how they often demand certain prerequisites to heaven, which is if you follow to a T would pretty much mean you wouldn't even live at all. You'd spend your entire life being miserable and preparing for the afterlife, an afterlife you don't even know exists. | |
| Monster Magnet – God Says No Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| But that doesn't really make sense, if the album was a failure, they couldn't have known that while they were writing the eponymous song for it before it even hit the stores, would they? | |
| Monster Magnet – Heads Explode Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| One thing is clear though. It's about sex. | |
| Monster Magnet – Heads Explode Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
"Keep that thing in your pants You got nothing for me no Your sister knows how to dance She might be more my speed yeah She moves just like a panther baby I'll bet you never knew" 'Thing in your pants' suggests he's actually speaking to a guy. But declines his sexual advances. "I'm a pillar of salt You'll never be worse than me no So get in the fucking car We got us a world to bleed yeah I hold all the combinations To give you peace of mind" Reference to Lot's wife looking back at Sodom and Gommorah. The plural form of Heads in "Heads explode" is also quite suggestive. Seems like it's a bisexual threesome. Dunno tho. Heh |
|
| Junkie XL – Beauty Never Fades Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Specifically the allusions to immortal beauty, and the 'fallen angel' mythos surrounding vampires (the nephilim). | |
| Junkie XL – Beauty Never Fades Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
I fell in love with this song after seeing it on an eve online trailer. Still strongly associate eve with it. It was only recently when I realized that the song is actually about vampires. |
|
| Third Eye Blind – About to Break Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
EDIT: From homophobia (the refusal to accept it as not being a choice, the 'selective' reading when it comes to reading the Bible, the glee Christians show when gay people get killed for no reason) And yeah one thing I forgot to add: the 'break' may still come out positive in the end. But yeah, it will come at a price. |
|
| Third Eye Blind – About to Break Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
This song is powerful... and sad. What kuomika quoted is exactly what I'm feeling. It's an ominous feeling of an impending global war or something. A breakdown in the liberal vs. conservative tension. And yes I feel it everywhere. It's like almost everything everyone is feeling nowadays is how to hate everyone else. From homophobia (the increasingly violent), to tea-partyers (the increasingly violent calls to action against 'socialists'), to conservatives (the anti-immigration law, thinly veiled latent racism, the hysterical Obama-blaming centered primarily on his being black), to religion (Fred Phelps, Islamic Terrorism, the slow mutation of Christianity into a religion of pointing fingers), to thought (anti-intellectualism, the growing resentment against scientists for 'taking away tax dollars'), To politics (the 'politics of fear', us against them platforms), to the environment (the apathy on global warming, the oil spill, and the decline of environmentalist mentality). People's views are getting narrower and narrower, and some are already refusing to accept common humanity as a good enough reason to try and bridge the gaps. No one empathizes anymore. No one sees just how much suffering they are inflicting on other people. No one wants to see the long-term impacts of what they are demanding for. If you don't know what I mean try reading comments in news stories sometime, the way people laugh at global disasters half the world away, the way people try to find out the race of a criminal and then blame it all on race if he turns out to be not white, the encouragement on shooting illegal border crossers on sight, the holier-than-thou arguments of the bible thumpers calling for the killing of homosexuals as if they were animals, the blanket blaming on terrorism where americans make it worse by provoking the peaceful muslim majority, the comparison of socialism to soviet communism as if they are even the same thing (they're not), the calls for war, greed (the refusal of people to have their tax dollars used in saving lives, the support of big companies for conservatives in exchange for tax breaks, the refusal to take responsibility of the fact that 1% of the population of America owns 35% of the nation's wealth, while the people who actually do the work, the bottom %40 divide 0.2% of the wealth among themselves. And you wonder why the economy collapsed). History always repeats itself doesn't it? WW2 seems so far away now, 50 years is all it takes to forget the real horrors of war. No one seems to realize what they are asking for. Especially now that the threat of war doesn't anymore mean merely street fighting and tanks and airplanes. No. If war broke out today it'd be nuclear. It's scary because sometimes I feel like I'm the only one aware of it. The most powerful line in the song for me is this: "Stand up and let me get a look at you Can we all take a wider view" |
|
| Green Day – 21 Guns Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
I think it's about surrender. The importance of sometimes just giving in. So many of us tend to put too much value on heroism and sacrifice sometimes forgetting the whole point of it. When we see a martyr, a hero, someone who died bravely, do we even think about the things he was fighting for? Did his death make any sense at all? In most cases, no. He was probably fighting for something which in the long run doesn't matter at all. Fighting for someone else's ideals. One bullet is all it took for one life. For what reward? The 21 gun salute? The privilege of not being called a coward? They're still dead. And all the medals and the kudos in the world can't hide the fact that the thing he was fighting for wasn't his own. The people behind the wars benefit from the sacrifices of the people they send out to die. I just wonder what would happen if people just refused to fight each other flat out. We'd probably live in a much better world. Except for individual cruelty, nothing really justifies the mass slaughter in wars of people who don't even know each other. The guy you are killing in the field isn't a faceless evil minion, he is a human being with a home, a mother, a life. A meatshield for his own masters. Puppets playing to the strings of old men sitting comfortably back home. This reminds me of a quote from Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons: "In all the human societies we have ever reviewed, in every age and in every state, there has seldom if ever been a shortage of eager young males prepared to kill and die to preserve the security, comfort and prejudices of their elders, and what you call heroism is just an expression of this fact; there is never a scarcity of idiots." And yeah, the song isn't just about war. It can refer to relationships, teenage rebellion, partisanship, religious extremism, etc. It can refer to any sort of struggle where you stop and catch yourself. Realizing that you weren't really even fighting for the things you believe in, but for the things other people want you to believe in. |
|
| Jay Brannan – Half-Boyfriend Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Also, i think it's the same guy jay sung about in another of his songs "String-along song" | |
| Jay Brannan – Half-Boyfriend Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
fifisgenie, exactly. I think it's about a f*kbuddy (a half-boyfriend). The first rule of FB-ing is to not fall in love with your FB ("Mine was the heart I never thought you would be break"). The ironic thing is that the guy was the person who finally convinced jay to stop being so cynical ("anti-misanthrope") and succeeded in opening up his heart again or whatever to a serious relationship (even if the guy wasn't actively courting him). To put it simply: It's unrequited love from someone who didn't want to fall in love in the first place with a guy he didn't even like as a person. And haha, I don't think some of the posters even realize that Jay Brannan is gay. |
|
| Jay Brannan – Lower My Gun Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Lyrics-wise, I think it's about an old one-night stand. The guy saved him by getting through to him when he most needed it. Convinced him in a way to keep going on ('lowered my gun'). Guy looks him up again hoping to 'rekindle' it, but Jay (?don't even know if it's autobiographical haha) doesn't feel the same way anymore. It was a much needed and much appreciated helping hand when he was down but he just doesn't feel the same way anymore. Possibly the guy has gained weight (the bubble gum reference) or something. But either way it's not just the same anymore. Song's kinda sad (for the guy) but honest (for Jay). It's really about how a single event (in this case, the one night stand) can hold different significance for different people. |
|
| Jay Brannan – Ever After Happily Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Haha I remembered when I started to realize this too. I've always been a hopeless romantic. But growing up I slowly began to realize it wasn't really that way. Especially resonant in the gay community. Where growing up we had to go through being alone in the most horrible sense of the word. Just kids wondering why we felt that way, wondering why the God of our parents and friends could do this to us, and why people hate us so much. All of that are dealt with alone, there was no one to talk to about it. We come of age earlier, having to deal with the facts of life and the general insanity of the world at a younger age, something most people only go through later in life. Anyway, end result: we almost always end up either being bitter or retreating into ourselves. Becoming introverts, we took comfort in those fantasies of that magical 'someday' when we will meet that perfect guy/girl who'll take us away from this shitty world and live happily ever after. Boy could we be so wrong, haha. The gay community is just as prejudiced, just as f*d up as straight relationships. Maybe even more so with our obsession on physical perfection. If you don't look like a movie star, you'll almost certainly be shoved to the sidelines. I think this can be linked with one of Brannan's earlier songs (which he admitted he doesn't believe in anymore) - Housewife. Which says perfectly what most of us felt like when we were younger. I bet he wrote that in his mid-teens haha. It's sad, but from having hopes like 'Housewife' you end up with songs like this sooner or later. 'Happy ever afters' happen, but only to a very few people. And frankly I'm not holding my breath anymore. |
|
| Jay Brannan – Bowlegged And Starving Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Mine too. The song is about coming home from a hook-up. It's also about not relying your happiness on that of another person and not spending your life desperately looking for the fabled 'love of your life' and just enjoying the moment. It's kind of happy and kind of cynical in a way. But the line 'Love is a buried treasure' still betrays that he hopes someday he will still find it, just that he won't actively seek it and hinge all his happiness on it like a lot of people do who end up being miserable. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.