| Elliott Smith – 2:45 AM Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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hehe, I laughed when I really heard: "and i'm putting myself on warning for waking up in an unknown place with a recollection you've half erased" He's talking to the part of himself thats addicted to alcohol! What else erases memories and fits so well with the rest of the song? "sleepwalking" "mute memories" "for the soaring high or the crushing down" "living in a cloud" - being intoxicated "the boss" - the part of him that needs to get drunk "the pretty thing" - a girl, obviousley "the both of you can just fade to black" - the two that hurt him, the boss and the girl. The whole time he's cursing his addiction, halfway through you find that he has recently fallen to it - making an ass of himself, getting beat up, and passing out. Walks out of the alley or whereever and swears he's never going back to boozing. sad yet endearing |
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| Elliott Smith – Single File Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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just, really, a bunch of drug addicts in a line on their way to die. He's telling the idiot kid there's a price he'll pay for being like the "dying shooting stars" (the toll being the death that the kids putting into his own arm). Elliott's clearly not singing about how all the best musicians are always heroin addicts. |
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| Elliott Smith – Needle in the Hay Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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was the man you? C'mon: "sometimes they just get caught in the eye you're pulling him through" needles have "eyes"... the little slit on the dull end that you pull the thread through. |
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| Elliott Smith – Between the Bars Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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SubRosa, do you have any more support to your explanations? It seemed to me like you picked "bars" and "hands in the air" and connected them through "people put their hands up at concerts, concerts have music, music is written down using bars", adding "there must be a hostile boyfriend she cant get away from" along the way. ... The entire "bottle" view of this song is obvious: "drink up"x4 but clearly unfitting: "drink up with me" Implies two objects: what is to be drunk up, and what the listener is with. Elliot's one of the very last people I would expect to see carving up grammar and coherent thought like the bottle explanation implies. "keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest where i like you the best and keep the things you forgot" -A bottle doesnt have a heart, unless you treat it like something with a heart, in which case it wouldnt be a bottle. -There's no meaning in having "a bottle" think that he's the best drunk out there, or rather, the best one thats had a sip from it. -"Keep the things you forgot" makes sense because, hey, drunk people forget things. But this isnt a song about effects of alcohol - and I havn't seen a song by him yet (save some from Heatmiser) that throws random junk in. They're all very focused on one pure thing. and several other portions of the song..... Please read what I said above again... its saddening to have people think this song (one of the very best ever written) is about a talking bottle: "my booze starts telling me to drink even more when I'm drunk... I need to compose a song about this". I'll stick to my "singer as a figure that personifies depression and subsequent addiction" explanation. |
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| Elliott Smith – Say Yes Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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The morning after refers to the morning after a one night stand. In the morning after a one night stand, the reality of where she is tends to hit, and the girl leaves. There's a turning point in relationships when you see the reality of what the other person is like, and you leave or stay. He's laying in bed, happy, reflecting. "it's always been wait and see a happy day and then you pay and feel like shit the morning after" For him, it's always been a wait until that point (although he was happy before it hit), but then he paid for having a relationship when they got to that point (and she left). "now I feel changed ... down I'm standing up the morning after" Now that she's remained with him in "the morning after", he's happy. "situations get fucked up and turned around sooner or later" His relationships always get fucked up at some point (at that turning point).. "and i could be another fool or an exception to the rule" in this particular relationship, he was just waiting which one of the two outcomes it would be: him being a fool again for trying, or the exception to his feeling that this would always happen... "you tell me the morning after" it all depended on what she would do the morning after. "crooked spin can't come to rest I'm damaged bad at best she'll decide what she wants" It's like he's in a constant car crash, he's in bad shape, and now she'll decide what she wants. "I'll probably be the last to know no one says until it shows see how it is" He'll be the last to know if she chose to leave him, nobody says anything until it all becomes clear to him, that's how it is. "they want you or they don't say yes" this part is particularity good: 'they want you or they dont' 'they want you or they say no' 'say yes' (want me) and now, back to the beginning: "I'm in love with the world through the eyes of a girl who's still around the morning after" She stayed, and he's in love with everything (enjoys life) through the fact that she wants him. "we(/they) broke up a month ago n' I grew up I didn't know I'd be around the morning after" In the live kcrw recording, he sings "we". In the soundtrack he sings "they". The Ben Folds cover sings "meh" (likely because he too doesn't know which it is). if it's "they": She was with someone, they broke up a month ago and that's how long our couple have been together... all the while, and all his life, he didn't know if (he'd?) be around the morning after. ("I'd be" perhaps because if she isn't in the relationship neither is he, or he becomes after a breakup as disillusioned with a girl as she was with him) if it's "we": they broke up a month ago, he grew up during that time, realizing that he's "still there the morning after". He goes back, and she's still with him the morning after. (After she realizes what kind of person he is, breaking up with her and all). (as juicyclad said, but different ending) |
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| Elliott Smith – Between the Bars Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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You have to realize that when a person feels depressed they are comforted by the feeling. Its not depression itself that feels so bad, as people say, but the situation that causes it. Elliott feels comforted enveloped in self pity, hopelessness, depression. This is "the comfort he gets from feeling hopeless/depressed" talking to him. He treats this comfort like a person, or a part of his mind. The song is sung by it to him. Judging by "drink up, baby, stay up all night" (and the rest of the song) he's giving the comfort a persona of a caring, understanding and (cant put it to a word... loyal? ...detached?) girlfriend. (Neither male, nor simply friend, nor wife or other family member). He's in love with her, and trusts her. She (the feeling/comfort) comes to him, asking him to stay up and drink with her. It's in her nature to remind him of how he fails himself and others. When he does what she says (what the feeling leads him to doing) he forgets about the causes of his problems. The 'images of people he's been before stuck in his head', that she drives away, are perhaps bad things he has done, or how well he was before, or more likely, how full of potential he was before. In any case, he wants to be rid of those memories, visions of himself. He sits on a curb, or the grass in the city park, or a bench with a bottle in his hand and looks up at the stars (thinking of how his life is, of course). She (the comfort/depression) kisses him. She does this between the bars of an addiction to HER (not necessarily alcohol). A person who wants to be caught doesn't stand with his hands in the air. The catcher does. He's saying that the person who will catch his fall is himself. He's waiting for himself to pull himself out of depression. Waiting but not doing anything. "I'll make you mine" to "like you the best" is her laying down how she feels for him. On the surface, she says he's very special to her. In the back of his mind he suspects that she isn't altogether attached to him. It makes the whole relationship seem like he's in love with her, and she doesn't love him, but has enough feelings for him to stay close by him when he needs her. Depression and the comfort never really love you like true happiness does. "and keep the things you forgot" - I'm here for you to relieve yourself on. |
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