| Paul Simon – My Little Town Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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This song must have been released when I was about 2 or 3 years old because my very earliest memories include a vision of being driven around the New England town where I was born on a winter day, and this song was playing on the radio. I remember how grey the overcase world was, how faded and old and tired everything seemed. And that's what it reminds me of: shabby old New England towns that are lost in the dead and dying memories of the Industrial Revolution, and the glorious old factory buildings that are now contemned relics of a by-gone era. Simon and Garfunkel's last - and one of their best - songs. |
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| Counting Crows – Mr. Jones Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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I think this song is sad. Have you ever been to one of those dive bars in New York City, where people have go-nowhere jobs and go-nowhere lives? They don't go home to loving wives and kids, but they're regulars at some dive, getting cheap thrills drinking and fantasizing about sexy women who will love them, being famous, and having a better life. That's what this song means to me. I think the reference to Picasso's painting is right on the money on one level, but look at this lyric: Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales Stare at the beautiful women "She's looking at you. Ah, no, no, she's looking at me." These guys are fantasizing, talking crap, drinking. This is a life without content, and it's a lonely existence. He keeps talking about how lonely he is, and that he doesn't want to be lonely. So basically, he's drunk and depressed. The reference to gray is powerful because gray, again, is a nondescript color (think fog). These guys are staring at a "yellow-haired girl", which is a cheap, fake hair color, and it suggests something that's faded and old. And he says that he doesn't believe in anything (he's shallow and empty), but he wants to be someone to believe (a leader), he wants to be Bob Dylan (a poet), and he wants to be a star, which is often described as a lonely, shallow existence. He doesn't focus on any particular fantasy, but skips around a lot. He's a daydreamer, who spends his time drinking and hanging out instead of doing something to be a man of substance and interest and value to others. I love the song, but I think it's sad because it's about the most pathetic state that a person can be. |
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