Frozen into coats
White girls of the north
Filed past one, five and one
They are the fabled lambs
A Sunday ham
The ancient snow
And they could float above the grass
In circles if they tried
A latent power I'm known to hide
To keep some hope alive
That a girl like I could ever try
Could ever try
So we just skirt the hallway signs
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection
And weakened falling eyes
In cheap shots from the tribe
And we're off to Nemarca' porch again
Another afternoon
Of the goat-head tunes and pilfered booze
We wander through her Momma's house
The milk from the window lights
Family portrait, circa '95
This is that foreign land
With the sprayed-on tans
And it all feels fine
Be it silk or slime
So, when they tap our Monday heads
Two zombies walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth our time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
So, when they tap our Sunday heads
Two zombie walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth the time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
White girls of the north
Filed past one, five and one
They are the fabled lambs
A Sunday ham
The ancient snow
And they could float above the grass
In circles if they tried
A latent power I'm known to hide
To keep some hope alive
That a girl like I could ever try
Could ever try
So we just skirt the hallway signs
A phantom and a fly
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection
And weakened falling eyes
In cheap shots from the tribe
And we're off to Nemarca' porch again
Another afternoon
Of the goat-head tunes and pilfered booze
We wander through her Momma's house
The milk from the window lights
Family portrait, circa '95
This is that foreign land
With the sprayed-on tans
And it all feels fine
Be it silk or slime
So, when they tap our Monday heads
Two zombies walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth our time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
So, when they tap our Sunday heads
Two zombie walk in our stead
This town seems hardly worth the time
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme
Too far along in our crime
Stepping over what now towers to the sky
With no connection
Lyrics submitted by heyheyhey111, edited by Gryphoning, augustgw, DumbBunnies
Phantom Limb Lyrics as written by James Mercer
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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wutdahellz,
Because you asked for feedback with regard to your "women in combat" thesis -- well, here it goes.
wutdahellz said:
i think this song has to do with women in the military and the trials and tribulations they face from people who believe they dont belong. i think it also has to do with our troops being over in the middle east and Mercer's discontent with the whole situation.
elvisatemydonuts response:
I think that music is subjective, and lyrics can mean different things to different people when filtered through their own experiences or unique world view. You seem to be very focused on women’s issues and the war on terror.
I disagree with your military/war conclusions because if that was Mercer’s intent, he’d have written,“...girls of the West”, not the North. (If we were at war in Venezuela, “...girls of the North” would fit, but we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan where we are known as "The West").
The main, (and most obvious), reason I’m sure you came up with incorrect assumptions about the song’s meaning, is because you started off basing your conclusions from incorrect lyrics.
Examples:
wutdahellz said:
frozen in two coats-->metaphor for having two selves..being a woman and being an officer...and how its impossible to segregate the two.
But with the correct lyric:
frozen winter coats--> Well, there goes that metaphor of “two selves” (which in my opinion was a huuuge stretch anyway).
wutdahellz said:
fire past one fire the one-->guns.
correct lyric:
file past one five and one-->NOT guns.
I will say this wutdahellz; You have a very fertile imagination!
It’s much more likely that he is recalling his school days in England, (he spent part of his youth growing up in England), where “The North” is a common phrase referring to the working-class cities and/or the lower-middle class.
But even though that is slightly more likely, it's still impossible to say what the true meaning of this song is without asking James himself, because each line is more ambiguous than the next and seems to have little to do with the previous lines.
Perhaps this song was all a stream-of-consciousness effort where he drops the following huge hint that there is no actual cohesive meaning to this song, but only random thoughts:
"Follow the lines and wonder why there's no connection."
Of course, I may be wrong.
reminds me of a really great U2 song. this album is pretty good.
This song is very nonstalgic... It's almost as if he is critisizing the educational system for encouraging a standardized approach to learning as opposed to a more individual method. He kind of describes as going through motions during school, alwasy considered insobordinate to the system (phantom and a fly). After "A week of rolling eyes"(week day) they are off to a friends house listening to music and drinking. During his youth his community all "feels fine be it silk or slime" implying now that he looks back it seems foreign and superficial.<br /> <br /> It's like after he left (tap their sunday heads...) he finally woke up from this trance and his "town seems hardly worth the time", once they get out they will not have to subject to the standarziation in order to get ahead. <br /> <br />
The correct lyric is "foals in winter coats".