submissions
| Cracker – Low Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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The title "Low" is a small play on words. We would normally call an illicit drug user "high" but the singer doesn't feel up in the sky when on heroin--he feels hidden and safe underground. Hence, instead of high, "Low." |
submissions
| The Clash – The Guns of Brixton Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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The song was recorded in 1979 before the riots. But clearly the Clash, having lived among the Jamaicans in London, were aware of the tension that resulted in the riots. |
submissions
| The Clash – The Guns of Brixton Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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I don't think this is the straight anthem of resistance as it is generally seen. It is a double message. The main story is about the futility of the gangster life, which will end in violence one way or another. The Ivan character lives well on his criminal acts but the reckoning will come. In the end his only choice will be death or jail. There is no good option when an armed police team is at the door.
The chorus strikes a note of fighting the power. Maybe the connection is that just as the criminal will eventually meet his fate, the forces of oppression must eventually confront the rebellion they incite. Everyone gets the violence they deserve. |
submissions
| Dinosaur Jr. – Thumb Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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One of Dino Jr's best and the acoustic version on J Mascis' album Martin + Me is also great. For me this is a straightforward confession and apology from a chronically depressed man to his lover whom he knows he cannot ever give the active, energetic love he so wants to give. In many ways he hates himself: the excuses he cannot stop offering, the moods when he cannot stand to be around anyone at all.
Some of the references are oblique to me; no idea what the thumb means or what the ingredients are. But it is clear that this singer often can't even make it out of bed, string together his words, or be kind to the ones he is close to. The upbeat passage is his understanding that although he despises the way he feels, he understands that he is still bringing something important to his lover and he accepts himself in his deeply flawed state. |
submissions
| Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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This section I think describes how he didn't want to leave even during a long period of mutual unhappiness with the relationship. It was rewarding in some way to be trying even when the tries were failing. He would rather stay until some definitive end and he is never going to be the one to call it quits.
This is pretty normal male psychology. I'm not sure where it comes from; maybe an identification of the female with the mother and the loyalty and forbearance that that mother-son relationship requires. |
submissions
| Gotye – Eyes Wide Open Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I don't see anything specifically about global warming or any other specific eco-apocalypse. It's more broadly about the overuse and destruction of earth's natural resources and the possibility of doom in store, and the tragic reluctance to collectively plan and restrain resource utilization. The similar song to what we heard from the Club of Rome and Garrett Hardin and many others back to Thomas Malthus. That's not to say it can't or won't happen but hysterical doomsaying can be mistaken the same as glib overconfidence. An objective and engineering oriented perspective is needed. For some alternative ideas check out computer science professor John McCarthy's page at http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/commentary.html Warning, he is not a kneejerk anything and he will likely challenge some of your preconceptions. |
submissions
| Amy Winehouse – Rehab Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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You are right about the Jay-Z lyrics. For those last two lines I heard:
My heroin flow’s more lethal than marilyn’s nose
I’mma OD ‘til I’m in peace like Anna Nicole, ho!
He pronounces heroin like "heron". Marilyn's nose I guess refers to Marilyn Monroe's sharp, perfect, surgically enhanced nose. She overdosed on barbituates. |
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