submissions
| Sonic Youth – Teenage Riot Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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fuck emo!!!!!!!!! back in the day, thurston would have skull fucked any emo-kid who tried to go to a SY show. anyway, scrawny little emo boys would have been scared to show up at a SY show in the early 90s. we used to tear that shit up - those were real mosh pits, man.
shit, man- I ate fried chicken with thurston and kim in central park before a free show they did, summer of '93. things were awesome - we still thought clinton was going to clean up all the shit created by bush and reagan.
Rehabdoll and Deus - you guys are both right about this song. |
submissions
| Sonic Youth – Hey Joni Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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i'm with poopeater - one of their best. certainly it is Lee's best song. I'm going to fuckin' go off when they do this live at the pitchfork show! |
submissions
| Sonic Youth – Kotton Krown Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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happy, ironic song - they still do it live. saw them open a show in seattle with this. sounds better than it did 15 years ago. |
submissions
| Sonic Youth – Tom Violence Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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funny - I always thought it was "cock sucked for honesty . . ."
I like the real lyric better. these guys still fuckin' kick ass. |
submissions
| Jane's Addiction – Ocean Size Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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one of the greatest rock lyrics of all time: "I want to be more like the ocean / No talking, man, all action." fucking brilliant! |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Satellite Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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i think the lyrics are supposed to be more impressionistic - not really telling a complete story, just creating a little bit of a picture. but holy crap, the guitar chords and progression and melodies are just so unbelievably beautiful, simple-sounding, but so complex musically if you try to dissect exactly what he was doing. fucking genius! |
submissions
| Jenny Lewis – It Wasn't Me Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Anyone who says she can't write a good song after hearing this album, and especially this song, needs to really open his ears and mind to her unique voice. Jenny's writing as well as anyone in this song, taking her own history and turning it into something larger and universal that resonates with her audience. If this isn't good songwriting, I don't know what is: "in hollywood and washington / they shake and smile through the harm they've done / but it's your little red wagon / and you gotta pull it"
This song is great, this album is remarkable, and Jenny Lewis is on her way to being as good a singer/songwriter as anyone else in popular music. No exaggeration. |
submissions
| Rilo Kiley – I Never Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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oh . . . and how envious I am (and about a million others I'm sure) of whoever inspired this song! |
submissions
| Rilo Kiley – I Never Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Agree with Drucifer - it's a pretty straightforward song and clearly intends to evoke some retro genre of classic white soul/pop music. The music and lyrics are a little too schmaltzy for me, like a lot of what's on this particular album (Execution of all Things is far superior in my opinion), BUT Jenny's voice and persona pulls this together so well that I think this one actually works, as much as I might hate to admit it. I'm not sure anyone else could actually do this without it all deteriorating into a Celion Dion-like mess of pop goo. |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Late Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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To be honest and up-front, I'm not a Ben Folds fan, and I've heard this song more than a few times, and it always strikes me as somewhat disingenous and a little opportunistic. I'm guessing if Elliott were around to hear it, he'd say something like "whatever." This is about as much as I feel when I hear it too. Anybody agree? |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Single File Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This music/melodies of this song are, like all Elliott's other work, unbelievably original, and even though he wasn't using it at the time, there's no doubt the lyrics are about heroin users waiting in line for methdone. You want evidence? Everyone has the "same kind of scars" - track marks; your "arm has a death in it" - in addition to the drug which itself is deadly, users get infected sores on their arms or wherever else they shoot, which can cause life-threatening infections.
How about "help yourself to this bitter pill?" Methadone is a pill - and it is bitter - and it is frequently given in a "paper cup" at the clinics.
How about the people in line called "shooting stars?" Elliott didn't like to have his songs pigeonholed as "drug songs," and they shouldn't be - but the references in these lyrics are not subtle at all. There's nothing wrong with seeing other meanings in them, though.
And songs about heroin addicts and methadone clinics may sound depressing, but nothing is more depressing to me than the fact that so far 144 people have written about how great they think the lyrics to "you're beautiful" by james f..king blunt are! |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Single File Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This music/melodies of this song are, like all Elliott's other work, unbelievably original, and even though he wasn't using it at the time, there's no doubt the lyrics are about heroin users waiting in line for methdone. You want evidence? Everyone has the "same kind of scars" - track marks; your "arm has a death in it" - in addition to the drug which itself is deadly, users get infected sores on their arms or wherever else they shoot, which can cause life-threatening infections.
How about "help yourself to this bitter pill?" Methadone is a pill - and it is bitter - and it is frequently given in a "paper cup" at the clinics.
How about the people in line called "shooting stars?" Elliott didn't like to have his songs pigeonholed as "drug songs," and they shouldn't be - but the references in these lyrics are not subtle at all. There's nothing wrong with seeing other meanings in them, though.
And songs about heroin addicts and methadone clinics may sound depressing, but nothing is more depressing to me than the fact that so far 144 people have written about how great they think the lyrics to "you're beautiful" by james f..king blunt are! |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Pretty Mary K (Dead Imagination) (Either/Or demos) Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Unbelievably beautiful melody and guitar counter-melody - even his unreleased music is better than so much of what's out there. The lyrics remind me of what Elliott said in alot of his interviews - that his songs come to him like little movies. The scenes and characters in this song really come alive in my mind when I hear it - like watching a movie. |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Easy Way Out Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Agree with the comment above -- he's speaking to/about himself and with some real sarcasm and disdain, as is obvious in the last verse. I think he must have been written during an especially bad time. |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Easy Way Out Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Agree with the comment above -- he's speaking to/about himself and with some real sarcasm and disdain, as is obvious in the last verse. I think he must have been written during an especially bad time. |
submissions
| Eels – Rock Hard Times Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Does anyone else think about the "Needle in the Hay" scene from Royal Tenenbaums in the last verse of this song: "the surest sign that the end is coming soon . . ."?
I wonder if E is a fan of the film? |
submissions
| Eels – Rock Hard Times Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Does anyone else think about the "Needle in the Hay" scene from Royal Tenenbaums in the last verse of this song: "the surest sign that the end is coming soon . . ."?
I wonder if E is a fan of the film? |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Little One Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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The missing lyric is "if it's good shit you won't know and I won't know the fact . . ."
I think the album may have better been ended with this song rather than "distorted reality," which could have been placed earlier. My reason comes from the last several lines: "all things have a place under the moon as well as the sun." These lines to me represent the most affirming moment of the record and offer relief from the darkness that encompasses the rest. With these lines, I believe Elliott is reassuring himself and all of us that the pain he has experienced and set to music, indeed his life, his death, are all part of a greater human experience, not all of which is about suffering (as his life was not all about this), but of which suffering is a necessary, inescapable part. His art was about describing human frailty, inner pain, and external conflict with unflinching honesty - that he set all this to some of the most beautiful melody ever written accomplishes in song a portrayal of life's ever-present dialectic between suffering and joy. In this way, he accomplishes what only the greatest artists and literary figures have done. |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – King's Crossing Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This song is like none other I've heard. He has put his torments to verse, setting them within some of the most beautiful, poweful music that he's written. The most chilling moments come at the beginning and at the end of the song. The beginning, when we hear Elliott's lone voice struggling to rise over the clamor of street urchins, dealers, etc., paints for us a truly vivid and wrenchingingly painful picture from his memories of what we imagine are so many late night, back alley moments. The end, when he sees "dead men talk to all the pretty nurses" and "instruments shining on silver trays" reminds us who know how his final moments transpired of only one thing. "Don't let me be carried away" - this heartbreaking plea would have been answered by many thousands of us in a second. If only we knew how. |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Miss Misery Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I believe most of you missed the meaning. To me, this is one of the most beautiful and accurate descriptions of major depression in modern music. Elliott's "Ms. Misery" is within him - it is the darkness from which he attempts to extricate himself. Sadly, this may not be possible and he knows this. "I know you'd rather see me gone
than to see me the way that I am," he retorts within himself. There is hope here, as in "but I am in the life anyway," but it is impermanent and he ultimately resigns: "I try to be but you know me, I come back when you want me to."
When it is understood that Elliott's words are directed towards himself, we are immediately gripped by the knowledge that they foreshadow his fate. We can hope that Elliott has found some release from the suffering that resounds in these words - and those of us that found in him a truly empathic soul can be thankful that he gave us a voice of uncompromising honesty. |
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