| Avey Tare – 3 Umbrellas Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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He doesn't say "I've been hiding under three umbrellas", he says "I've been hiding under green umbrellas". "Three umbrellas" is used only in two spots; the first is "I don't take for granted my three umbrellas", and the second is a call-back at the end of the next verse. And I strongly suspect it "three umbrellas" alludes to how 1 + 1 = 3 ifyouknowhatimean. Father, mother, child each standing in the rain has an umbrella. Thus "my three umbrellas" means "my family". I'm not necessarily going to say there isn't also a marijuana reference in there, but essentially every song he's even written gets described by someone as "actually a metaphor for doing drugs" and I think it's just a lazy way to interpret something that's a tad opaque. David Portner just writes a bit like a Modernist. |
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| Animal Collective – Unsolved Mysteries Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| On second thought, this post is retarded. I can't find the delete button so uhh... Nevermind. | |
| Animal Collective – Unsolved Mysteries Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I'd like to break from the "not literal" line and say it's about pulling the plug on someone you've spent your life with. It just clicked with me this morning. The first part is painting a picture of a memory and talks about how we have to leave it behind. That's obvious and simple... Then we have: "And oh, what's pain? ... what's sadness anyway? It's not crying like a child ... what's graying? ... what's ageing anyway? It's not growing in the wild" This part's simple again (I think), that aging and sadness are not the emotions children and teenagers feel that make seem petty or juvenile when you're older. This correlates with the feeling in the first verse of missing those joyous moments like when your child ties his shoelaces for the first time, as time drags you away from it. Then we get to what I believe is the meat of it; "But I feel like I've just been born When you look at me with your green eyes When you look at me with your black eyes When you look at me with your dead eyes" The feeling of being just born could mean anything except apathy. When a child comes out, it's a shock, and it's crying, but this expression surely means joy... And when? Your green eyes are healthy. Black eyes are injured. Dead eyes have nothing behind them; they're _brain dead_. It's a sequence from life through maybe an injury (car wreck?) to a coma. Then: "And I can't understand when holding her hand, So womanly, I have to go kiss her" These are one-way interactions. Envision the speaker by her death bed, holding her hand, kissing her while she is passive. "And what a surprise to look in those eyes To find suddenly, he is Jack the Ripper Too suddenly, he was Jack the Ripper There he goes..." He has to kill her. Go from being affectionate to cutting life support. Of course it is "too suddenly"; it can only be too sudden because it's something you never want to have to do. "Stop crying like a child ... She stopped crying like a child" This is a "call back" - a term usually used in comedy writing - to when the speaker established that sadness and pain are not crying like a child. (They are this.) Finally, the name, I would bet anything was chosen after the song was written because of the "Jack the Ripper" metaphor. It may mean something more, but I would bet not. I'll note, finally, that I think most animal collective songs do have more meaning and if you look at (for example) the older, pre-album, live versions of Taste (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm6Hg8zxsjE) and compare it to the album version you can kind of see their process in full view as it goes from a very blunt, clear, piece almost in the tradition of business writing to something that strikes me as Modernist. Lines like "I dearly tried to like the clothes you showed to me" become "only ma'd pretend to like the clothes ..." But of course it's entirely possible this is just a big inkblot test ;) |
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| Sigur Rós – Svefn-G-Englar Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| I've played the song Svefn-G-Englar almost daily for the past 3 years. I swear this song is fuck'n rad! I'm *obsessed* with this band. Ever since I heard the song in the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, it's been my absolute favorite. | |
| Sigur Rós – Svefn-G-Englar Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| Funny you should say that, backstab but... Seeing the poll on the Sigur Ros website, almost half the people going there are Americans ^_^ | |
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