submissions
| The Mars Volta – Drunkship of Lanterns Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I've only recently gotten into the Mars Volta but I'm really digging this one. I don't really get what they're doing with the "pig" and "sheep" parts (farm animal motif?), cuz there's kind of a story behind the De-Loused album, right? but anyway, Cedric's delivery really fits the desparation and drunken confused-ness in this one. |
submissions
| Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles (Mama Black Widow Version) Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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it's defiintely one of those creepy, uneasy kinds of relationships. I usually assume that, since it's a guy singing, that it's a guy (although it could very well be a girl too). The Mama Black Widow thing may or may not have to do with the song. I'm guessing it does, though, since it's a pretty specific phrase so to speak. But we can say with certainty that there's something in the idea that the "you" in this song is being violent towards the "me", the speaker, and that it's similar to the mating practices of black widows and many other insects, where the female mates with the male and kills him. |
submissions
| Maroon 5 – This Love Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I think "This Love" is about this guy and this girl who both want a meaningful relationship w/ each other, but they both won't admit it. The guy gives off a vibe that all he wants is sex because he thinks that's what the girl wants ("Kept playing love like it was just a game PRETENDING TO FEEL THE SAME") and the girl just takes it and is probably afraid that if she even mentions committment, she'll scare the guy away. Their relationship is on-again/off-again and is only physical, but they both want it to be emotional as well...but they don't tell each other that. The guy is looking back on what happened, with the girlfriend leaving him again, and now he KNOWS that "her heart is breaking" (kinda giving a hint that he knows what's going on)...but the bridge of the song makes me think that the guy wants to fix the problem, but he thinks the girl thinks sex will solve the problem ("cuz I know that's what you want me to do"). It's like they're almost there w/ the guy knowing that he's hurt her somehow, but can't quite put his finger on it. That's what I think "This Love" is about. |
submissions
| Randy Newman – Political Science Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I saw Newman play this on Conan O' Brien as well. I thought he had written it yesterday. It was before I had truly discovered his music, so I was a little uneasy because I thought he might be serious. This song is similar to the Dead Kennedys "Kill the Poor" in that it would be an awesome idea if it weren't so terrible. |
submissions
| Randy Newman – Sail Away Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Another reminder that Randy Newman has bigger balls than any other songwriter before him or after him. It's great how the song starts sounding sweet and ends up being incredibly condescending and belittling once you realize what it's about. |
submissions
| of Montreal – Lysergic Bliss Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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the Phantom of Liberty is apparently a surrealist film, which makes sense when you're talking about "lysergic bliss", a high achieved by taking LSD. |
submissions
| of Montreal – Rapture Rapes the Muses Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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lots of nerdy allusions here. Wong Kar Wai is a Chinese film director. Antediluvian means really old, so antediluvian Troy is Troy as it appeared in the Iliad and the Odyssey, a budding superpower city-state. Erebus, the son of Nyx (night) and Chaos (chaos), embodied primordial darkness. in that last stanza, I think he's talking about how Erebus' presence is insulting to how bright he (the narrator) is shining, and of course he's shining (like ancient Troy) because of this girl he's in love with. |
submissions
| of Montreal – My British Tour Diary Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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does anyone know how they do that one thing they do in this song? it sounds like volume swells or something, some kind of studio trick.
"the Apples" is obviously the Apples in Stereo, one of Of Montreal's Elephant 6 sister bands. |
submissions
| King Crimson – 21st Century Schizoid Man Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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the only really weak line, IMO, is "Nothing he's got he really needs". it's a good line, but it feels a bit forced and pretentious ("look what we can do with language! we're British!"). I love this song to death, though. Tindalos' observation that the theme of the lyrics is echoed in the music is dead-on. |
submissions
| Ween – Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy) Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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it's incest. well, not necessarily incest. "daddy" could be a desired pet name, but it's definitely about child molestation.
I read on allmusic that this song sort of makes fun of power ballads/power metal/etc., and to me it makes enough sense. there's kind of a bombastic, grandiose tone throughout the song. |
submissions
| Ray Charles – I Can't Stop Loving You Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I think this song was written by Don Gibson. The verses are great. The way that all the lyrics just kind of meditate on the idea of not being able to move on, and wanting to just sink into that feeling instead of doing anything about it. and yes, it hits pretty close to home for me too. |
submissions
| Chixdiggit – Stacked Like That Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I looked up "stacked" on dictionary.com and I guess the word can be applied to both sexes. I thought it only meant large-breasted. the things you learn.
this is a great song in the "short, simple, and silly" tradition perfected by the likes of the queers and the descendents. |
submissions
| The Postal Service – Such Great Heights Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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olwen, I think ben gibbard writes all the words. someone can correct me if I'm wrong.
the lyrics are very sweet, and they're easy to identify with. it's kind of about coping with how much you might miss your significant other. does anyone else think this might be written by ben from the point of view of his girlfriend because it goes, "when you are out there on the road for several weeks of shows".
for the rest of the song, it's kind of nervous and timid. it seems like the speaker is going over the edge a little bit, and is using the ideas mentioned in the first half of the song as an escape mechanism. he/she can't even seem to leave a message on his/her lover's answering machine because of nervousness. is the person the speaker is talking about even the speaker's lover? who knows. this is still a great song. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – See America Right Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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the metaphor of love as weather is great. the last few lines are cool because of the way Darnielle delivers them. the lines: "If we never make it back to California/I want you to know I love you" could be taken as tender and sweet, and they are, but there's a certain menace to them in the way he spits them out. |
submissions
| Neutral Milk Hotel – Song Against Sex Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I'm having a hard time figuring out how the second verse fits in, but I think the first and second are related. The first verse is about the speaker (who could easily be a guy or a girl, by the way (and I know he says "oh boy you are so pretty", but "oh boy" could easily be an exclamation, like "oh my you are so pretty" or "oh gosh", etc.)) meeting this guy and becoming infatuated, then he looks out the window and sees that the world is burning or something. I think the "pretty girls and the burning men hanging out on the hooks" may be talking about how guys tend to have a hard time seeing girls as people, rather than just girls, and vice versa.
I think the line about "mass suicide occult figurines" is a reference to the album by John Vanderslice, which bears the same name. does anyone know if it could mean something else? again, the whole second verse confuses me.
then the final verse might be about the speaker going home with the guy he met, but the speaker decides he/she doesn't want to sleep with the guy because they just met and it would be loveless. the speaker decides to "sleep out in the gutter ".
and then for some reason the speaker sets himself/herself on fire. I don't really know why, but there is talk of suicide in the second verse. maybe the speaker would rather die than live in a world where sex is loveless? I'm not sure. |
submissions
| Fenix TX – Minimum Wage Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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it's just a little deeper than "being a teenager". if they wanted to make it like that, they probably would have mentioned girls or cars or something. this one is saying that minimum wage is far too little to live on these days, and that the government could give less than a shit about it. |
submissions
| The Beatles – All My Loving Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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right on, Livvy. the way I see it, the speaker in this song isn't so much brooding over how much he's going to miss his lover as much as he's reassuring his lover that he'll always be thinking of her. it kind of feels like a collection of sweet nothings you whisper into you lovers' ear before you're about to leave on a trip, "I'll write home every day" and stuff like that.
but when he says "I'll pretend that I'm kissing the lips I am missing", does he mean that he's going to be kissing other girls while he's away, and pretending that he's kissing her? I guess that's kind of sweet in a way... |
submissions
| The Beatles – Tell Me Why Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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it's not that sad is it? the Beatles' deliver this song like they're having the time of their lives.
but it's pretty straightforward when it comes to meaning and all that stuff. I think Lennon called the song a "throwaway" or something like that after the fact. nonetheless, the song is catchy as hell and the execution is flawless. |
submissions
| The Beatles – Dig a Pony Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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a lot of it seems to be simple word play. psychedelia is all about flowing phrases and words that sound good together, whether they make sense of not. and don't think you can do this just by picking random words, because you can't. Lennon, on the other hand, tossed off brilliant stuff like this in his sleep. |
submissions
| Modest Mouse – Australopithecus Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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this one makes me think about the ever-persistent question of whether or not humans are that much more evolved than our ancestors, or if we're still just hairless ape-men who live to fuck. if you think about it, a lot of our base desires and a lot of our actions center around sex and primitive drives. |
submissions
| Modest Mouse – Cowboy Dan Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I don't really have much to add. I think it's "can't get that egg to turn over", rather than, "can't get that engine turned over", mostly because the former actually makes sense.
the theme in this song is similar to "gravity rides everything", but it focuses more on mankind's struggle and frustration with fate. it's about not getting what you want, being impotent in the face of your limitations. the line "God if I have to die, you will have to die" always gives me chills. |
submissions
| Modest Mouse – Gravity Rides Everything Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I'm gonna go with mousefan on this one. Brock probably didn't mean to be directly profound in this one. it's kind of a laid-back message, and I might even want to go out on a limb here and suggest that the line "But at least I don't see you float away" is saying we need the inevitability of life. the fact that things will pretty much be the same if a given person (with some exceptions, like MLK, Hitler, etc.) never existed helps keep people humble. pardon the pun, but gravite helps us stay grounded :-) |
submissions
| Fall Out Boy – Grenade Jumper Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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Less Than Jake, whose drummer co-owns Feuled By Ramen, the label that Fall Out Boy started on, specializes in "this song is about this dude I know, and he rocks" songs. they have at least one on almost all their albums (if not all). I think the tempo they chose to take this song at is perfect. |
submissions
| Fall Out Boy – Calm Before the Storm Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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good observation about the title, L-Kyne.
I love the first two lines in this song. He sort of starts it off with a cliche line, "sat outside my front window", but then he immediately steps back and goes, "yeah, that was a lame line, but keep listening because it gets better". this idea recurs in the last two lines of the same stanza (the "let's get this party started"s), and possibly when they say "set it off", because to me that sounds like something you'd hear in a full-on dance pop or hip-hop song. |
submissions
| Fall Out Boy – Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash (Wish You Were Here) Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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this one is another basic "I'm pissed because you broke up with me" tune. what sets fall out boy's stuff from the sea of other "I'm pissed because you broke up with me" songs is the dazzling wordplay. I think in this one, he his former lover to die (evident in the song's title, and elsewhere), and then he wants to die too (the "make my bed the grave..." line). but as always, he only half-means what he's saying, which is evident in the chorus. |
submissions
| Fall Out Boy – Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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my favorite part is:
"So bury me in memory
His smile’s your rope
Wrap it tight around your throat"
I haven't seen Rushmore. where does the quote appear in that movie and in what context? I'm sure it's interesting.
the part where he says, “I could have died with you” is great because it's kind of a backwards way of saying something like, "I wanna spend the rest of my life with you". That and the fire/alcohol images are what make this a great song. |
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