The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Dear Sirs
If the pavement comes alive on Flatbush Ave with toothy smiles
Comprised of traffic cones and manholes become eyes
And birds burst into flames while singing Satan's praises
And fold into the sky and rain down ashy danger
If every office empties and all slaves walk in dazes
To a pool of liquid money where they bathe blissfully naked
And drugs no longer taunt me and flooze around my conscience
And every woman beating rapist is securely in their coffins
If every open hydrant in a Brooklyn time summer moment
Is opened up by cops and folds out into an ocean
And rent is paid by bread literally and parking isn't paid for
And food stamps can be planted and childhoods can't be damaged
If fire could power space ships that safely ship the creators
Of dynamite and gun powder to the graves of all who faced it
And the slurping nerf of bureaucrat life and bean counting slave owners
Is twisted in on itself 'til they shave off their own faces
If all the coke and crack in the nation is collected in a top hat
And force fed to the children of every CIA agent
And dust heads get an angel and an acres worth of rainbow
And the projects turn to clouds and the stupid aren't so proud
And the snivelling grimace mongrels of infected money
Slobbing pesticrats ignite into a brilliant beam of light
And mercy is the rule and the exception's mercy too
And the desert comes to Brooklyn and the president goes to school
Time flows in reverse, death becomes my birth
Me fighting in your war is still, by a large margin
The least likely thing that will ever fucking happen, ever
If the pavement comes alive on Flatbush Ave with toothy smiles
Comprised of traffic cones and manholes become eyes
And birds burst into flames while singing Satan's praises
And fold into the sky and rain down ashy danger
If every office empties and all slaves walk in dazes
To a pool of liquid money where they bathe blissfully naked
And drugs no longer taunt me and flooze around my conscience
And every woman beating rapist is securely in their coffins
If every open hydrant in a Brooklyn time summer moment
Is opened up by cops and folds out into an ocean
And rent is paid by bread literally and parking isn't paid for
And food stamps can be planted and childhoods can't be damaged
If fire could power space ships that safely ship the creators
Of dynamite and gun powder to the graves of all who faced it
And the slurping nerf of bureaucrat life and bean counting slave owners
Is twisted in on itself 'til they shave off their own faces
If all the coke and crack in the nation is collected in a top hat
And force fed to the children of every CIA agent
And dust heads get an angel and an acres worth of rainbow
And the projects turn to clouds and the stupid aren't so proud
And the snivelling grimace mongrels of infected money
Slobbing pesticrats ignite into a brilliant beam of light
And mercy is the rule and the exception's mercy too
And the desert comes to Brooklyn and the president goes to school
Time flows in reverse, death becomes my birth
Me fighting in your war is still, by a large margin
The least likely thing that will ever fucking happen, ever
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Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
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The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Mountain Song
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction
Jane's Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell gives Adam Reader some heartfelt insight into Jane’s Addiction's hard rock manifesto "Mountain Song", which was the second single from their revolutionary album Nothing's Shocking. Mountain song was first recorded in 1986 and appeared on the soundtrack to the film Dudes starring Jon Cryer. The version on Nothing's Shocking was re-recorded in 1988.
"'Mountain Song' was actually about... I hate to say it but... drugs. Climbing this mountain and getting as high as you can, and then coming down that mountain," reveals Farrell. "What it feels to descend from the mountain top... not easy at all. The ascension is tough but exhilarating. Getting down is... it's a real bummer. Drugs is not for everybody obviously. For me, I wanted to experience the heights, and the lows come along with it."
"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
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How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
The song is El-P writing a "letter" to the government essentially saying that even if all of these wonderful and impossible events happen, him fighting in your war is still highly unlikely.
Also, the opening line is "If the pavement comes alive, on Flatbush Ave a toothy smile comprised of traffic cones and manholes become eyes"