| PJ Harvey – Pig Will Not Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Not repenting for your sins? Not admitting that you have a part to play in the ending of a relationship? Rebelling. Refusing. I will not! These lyrics don't seem right to me... isn't it "do my will" instead of "get out of my way" and where are the woof woofs? In the liner notes it says this song was inspired by Charles Baudelaire's The Rebel. https://www.sics.se/~piak/poesi/PoetryClub/TheRebel.html |
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| PJ Harvey – Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I've noticed that with this album, and with Let England Shake, the lyrics included with the album aren't necessarily what she actually sings on the tracks. So perhaps people aren't wrong in thinking she's singing Danielle, but I also think she's just exaggerating the name for effect "Daanieeelll". When I first heard it I thought it was Danielle and that it was about two people who were going from childhood to adulthood. Growing up but still wanting to play. When you're an adult you don't get to play hide and seek in the garden. "There is no laughter in the garden." I still think that's what it means, even if it's Daniel. Anyway, the lyrics in the AWAMWB booklet are: Erika is watching. Daniel is hiding. Erika is counting,"16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9"..... Erika is coming. The sun is setting the scene. In the garden it's starting to rain. The trees are trembling. Erika's repeating,"oh, oh, oh, oh"..... Erika is feeling something. Daniel is hiding. She's counting,"16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4"..... The sun is leaving the scene. It took a look and turned away. The trees are trembling. Erika's repeating,"oh, oh, oh, oh"..... There is no laughter in the garden. |
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| PJ Harvey – Bitter Little Bird Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Also, I have a tattoo of the title of this song and birds that Polly drew on my chest... I hope I have not misheard the lyrics all this time! | |
| PJ Harvey – Bitter Little Bird Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I thought the lyrics were; I will change I will transform I will turn myself Into a bitter bird Bitter will I fly Into your garden Bitter will I sing By the lilac tree I will change I will transform Don't shoot me down This bitter bird Bitter will I fly In through your window And bitter stories will I To your sister tell Oh bitter sister tell What are your sorrows And ask of us of ours ...I happened to do some double checking and I found that these lyrics are adapted from a Russian folk song from the book Russian Folk Lyrics Translated and Edited by Roberta Reeder; I will change-transform myself into a bitter little bird, Bitter will I fly to mama's garden, Bitter will I sit on the sweet apple tree; ... My oldest brother will say: "Let's shoot it!" ... Come bitter sister, up to our high tower. Tell us about your sorrow, ask us about ours https://books.google.com/books?id=1qJCfA4q_tgC&pg=PA181&dq=russian+folk+lyrics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIj-HJhOfqyAIVzEgmCh3GAwmJ#v=onepage&q=russian%20folk%20lyrics&f=false |
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| PJ Harvey – April Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I've always thought this song was about getting older and not being ready for it. April (youth) has come and gone without the singer realizing it. April showers bring May flowers. "April, dressed in all his trim, hath put a spirit of youth in everything." - William Shakespeare, sonnet 98 allviolet mentioned T.S. Eliot - "April is the cruellest month" Then again, it could be about depression. The sadness of the rain, being unprepared for it and the silence. "These days just seem to crush me"... "What if I drown?" ... "April, your rain, it overcomes me" Perhaps both? Sadness and getting older. That being said, I've never thought of this as a sad song. I find it quite uplifting. |
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| PJ Harvey – The Dancer Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I had to look up "Danza, Danza Faciulla Gentile" after reading your post. According to the translation "fanciulla gentile" means "gentle young girl" which I didn't know, so thank you for mentioning the aria. http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=603 https://youtu.be/MXkB37Ad5yw |
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| PJ Harvey – I Think I'm A Mother Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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You know, that makes much more sense to me than any child/baby theory that I've heard and, combined with the quote* from Polly that megique added, I think that this song is about wanting protection/security and not getting it from her lover. She doesn't want to be their mother. She still needs mothering herself. *I couldn't find a source for that quote... doesn't mean it's not real but all I could turn up was that it might be from an article in Alternative Press from June 1995. |
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| Everything Everything – Duet Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: It’s a recurring theme in the album. Speak up. What’s up with you? Talk about it. Tell people if you’re struggling. Don’t try to hide it. What are you wrestling with? ... Michael: It’s probably my favourite track on the album. It’s got that joyfulness about it. Jonathan: It’s a chink of light at the end of a pretty dark album. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Radiant Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: There’s a couple of songs that end with me turning my own preachiness on myself. Saying, actually I don’t make any changes either. I’m sorry I’m so shit. On ‘Radiant’ I say: “you can make a difference so easy but you don’t”. And then at the end I say: “I can make a difference so easy but I don’t”. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – The House Is Dust Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: It’s a family breakup/divorce sort of song. A conversation between partners: you take the family, I’ll take the car. It’s got flippancy to it but with a suicide overtone. And then, a bit like ‘Undrowned’, it starts losing it a bit. Going on about: isn’t there anything more than this? Feeling pretty dejected. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Armourland Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: I wanted the general lyrics to counter-act the chorus and to be very unromantic. And, yet, it is a love song. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Choice Mountain Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: ‘Choice Mountain’ is essentially about depression and feeling like there’s no point in doing anything or that you’re not going to achieve anything, I guess. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that all animal embryos are the same and then they turn into elephants or dolphins or whatever but there’s that point where they’re all the same and all have the potential to be ‘the thing’. The story is one of those… a fish egg just drifting along and thinking what am I going to be? Am I going to be the dolphin of your dreams? I could be a lion or a whale. But I’m probably not going to. Just drifting along in the darkness. Jeremy: It’s quite a dense allegory… Jonathan: A metaphor of… you’re not going to achieve anything and just carry on undeveloped. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Kemosabe Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: "It’s one of the more Man Alive clusterfuck songs in some ways. It’s about turbulent relationships and feeling alone even if you are with somebody. It’s playing off the Lone Ranger and his relationship with Tonto. The fact that he’s the Lone Ranger despite – well, he’s always been Tonto. I always thought that was funny and a bit weird. And I liked the language: Yippeekayay and Hiyo Silver and Kemosabe." http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Torso of the Week Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Jonathan: ‘Torso Of The Week’ is inspired by the many exercising folk of Manchester. I was going to the gym a fair amount and I would go at night quite often, sit there on my bike or whatever and obviously your mind wanders because there’s this terrible, terrible music in there. And I was listening to Scott’s Journey to the Antarctic and just looking at these people like zombies on their treadmills. I was thinking how weird it is that in this day and age we come into a room to use our bodies. You have to set time aside to use your body. It got me thinking of the balance of work-life and the lure of the bright lights and some kind of story in my mind of a woman who is struggling to stay on top of things with all the stuff she has to deal with. A treadmill woman just going and going and going. It struck me as a sad struggle in some way. Jeremy: It’s not meant to be spiteful. It’s sympathetic. All these external pressures that are put on women, especially to be thin. We’re not saying everyone should be unhealthy. We all have to go to the gym from time to time but the title comes from those magazines that put pressure on people to go to the gym. Jonathan: And also I wrote it being in the gym myself. I’m in the gym, for God’s sake. There’s a torso of the week sitting in there in the magazine and that’s not me. http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track-features/everything-everything-arc-2-115571 |
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| Everything Everything – Regret Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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"It's not actually [about girls going to Syria]. Someone wrote that in one of the early interviews, and everyone else copied it, which is understandable, but it's not the crack. I wanted the album to be littered with predictions and clues that I was going to become a terrorist... become the other. I wanted people to piece the album back together after it'd finished and find these clues, and one of them is in "Regret" - this feeling that I'm going to do something soon and you're all going to hear about it. I wanted that threat to open the song and be a constant unnerving thing throughout the record. I can see how does work in the context of girls going to Syria, or that kid that just went and got killed though. All that feels so local to me. This recurrent issue with ISIS, there's people like Jihadi John... he's from England, some of the people he's killed were from very near me. Those guys, very ordinary guys, were just thrust onto the world stage, and it's fucking crazy... "Regret" is about the importance of the individual, as in one guy's knife against one guy's neck becoming global news. The power of that is insane. It's the most powerful thing you can do on Earth, apart from kill yourself, I suppose. Lots of things go into the song, but it comes out quite benign in the end. I think about all this a lot more when I actually write lyrics down. It's more a song about regretting mistakes and wishing things were different." http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track/track-by-track-everything-everything-on-get-to-heaven |
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| Everything Everything – Get to Heaven Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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"It has this central theme of 'rising above', and that's really where the joy of it lies. The whole idea of it is that it's slightly sarcastic, where I'm talking about really awful things happening - there's an old man burning himself alive, the streets are filled with soldiers and tanks - and the narrator/protagonist is just responding with 'oh... where did I park my car?', as if completely desensitised to it. There's horror in our faces every day, and we are slowly caring less and less. I care less and less, and it's worrying that I'm becoming desensitised to the sheer amount of horror. This phrase, 'get to heaven', is something that everybody is arguably trying to do in their own way - even the people who are blowing themselves up, they're just trying to get to heaven... it's just a different heaven. I love the fact that the song sounds so positive, but it could be siding with terrorists as well. I like that duality. Loads of the time on the record I'm setting out the stall, like there's clearly something bad happening and then I'm suggesting that maybe I would be on that team with one or two changes in my life. I'm not resolutely patriotic, I'm not into the general narrative of the West. I'm quite 'anti-West' in a lot of ways, and I do sympathise with some - some - of the things that people would never even consider. That's not at all to say I agree with any of the awful, awful shit, however. I'm certainly closer to that stance than a lot of people... but talking about these things and understanding them is important, as opposed to putting them in a box and throwing them away; that's a way to perpetuate the problems in the world, and, as stupid as it sounds, I feel far too bold to be doing that. I feel that there's not better things to be doing. We should be more mature about it." http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track/track-by-track-everything-everything-on-get-to-heaven |
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| Everything Everything – To the Blade Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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"It's written as a letter to someone who is close a person who's done something terrible. Basically, it's three times removed from the person who did the act themselves, and I'm talking to somebody - maybe their son has joined ISIS and is rejected from society or their wife has become a monster - about this feeling of not understanding why what is happening is happening, or how anybody could ever be driven to something terrible. I'm almost trying to comfort them... but there are also bits in the song that suggest that in the right situation anyone would do the same thing, and that's really very scary, but I think it's worth saying. It's something people won't consider for a second - that they could be one of these monsters if they were in different circumstances." http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track/track-by-track-everything-everything-on-get-to-heaven |
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| Everything Everything – Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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"When you first hear it you might think I'm naming all the seasons, which I'm not of course, but it's this idea of the cyclical nature of growing older and becoming jaded, or part of the establishment... becoming just like all your forefathers and making all the same mistakes. I used to be much more idealistic than I am now, and I worry that I'm caring less about other people and things like that. Neurotic bollocks [laughs]. The verses deal with the fact that throughout time you always kings and paupers, mixed with some of the stuff that was happening in Israel last year with the children being killed on the beach and just how wrong that was. The end breakdown bit about the baboon is a paraphrasing of this 17th century insult - 'you are a thief and a murderer and you have stolen the face of a baboon', or something - and when I first read that, I just thought that it was the most weirdly specific insult. It sounds quite modern as well, I think, and if someone said that to me now, it'd mean just the same. The fact that such an old insult still has the same meaning now brought the whole idea of the song back to me in a very realistic way: things haven't really changed." http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/track-by-track/track-by-track-everything-everything-on-get-to-heaven |
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