Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Gotta tell you what I heard
From agent orange
Mister suntan
Mister happy man
Mister I know the girls on all the world tours
Mister agent, yeah
He's my favorite
And they don't understand
He's got palm oil pants
Yes, he's down and there and everywhere
He's getting in too deep in this
Underwater city where she swims and swims
From agent orange
Mister suntan
Mister happy man
Mister I know the girls on all the world tours
Mister agent, yeah
He's my favorite
And they don't understand
He's got palm oil pants
Yes, he's down and there and everywhere
He's getting in too deep in this
Underwater city where she swims and swims
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Cajun Girl
Little Feat
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Dreamwalker
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I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
No Surprises
Radiohead
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Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Blue
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
"There’s one called Agent Orange. Naturally, if we're talking about the boy/girl matrix, there's going to be a war zone at some point in our story...and we go into Agent Orange. If we're gonna have a war, we have to bring warfare in. I decided to make him a bodybuilder because that memory has to transmute also - the skin. To become like tango, the idea of tang, or the idea or orangina, an orange muscle secret agent who we long...that song, Agent Orange is the one o'clock cabaret moment, where you're had a couple of amarettos on the rock, and there's just a sadness. But you know that sadness when you know your relationship is over and you're still alive? You know you're not dead. You've got all your body parts. You're all there. You've got a date. He's got a new love...(long dreamy pause)..and you go on with it." -- Tori; Musician, May 1996
"There's certain times when I wanted the listener to just lay there. With Agent Orange, I was hoping you could see this orange-bodied muscle man, and give yourself a giggle so that we'd transform this being from a mutilated skin person to Orangina. It's the idea of becoming Tang - transmuting the chemical effect. You can't forget that happened - you can't forget the warfare. So, of course there's that level. I just had to bring it in. I decided to bring it in as a muscle man." -- Tori; Aquarian Weekly, 02/21/96
Sorry, this song HAS to be about her bodyguard Joel. Especially the "Mister I know the girls on all the world tours" plus the physical description comes pretty close too :)
Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used from 1961 to 1971, and was by far the most used of the so-called "rainbow herbicides" used during the program. Agent Orange (as well as Agents Purple, Pink and Green) contained dioxins which have caused serious harm to the health of exposed Vietnamese, Australians, Canadians and Americans, as well as their children and grandchildren.
does the "palm oil" hands refer to napalm then? to carry on the bio/chem weapons theme?
I met Tori Amos when she had her bodyguard Joel with her and introduced him to me and the other fans waiting to meet her before her gig in Sheffield when From The Choirgirl Hotel came out. She dragged him over and said, 'THIS is Agent Orange' and they openly joked about his fake orange tan. It definitely makes sense she is talking about him.