submissions
| Dory Previn – Mythical Kings and Iguanas Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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This song is about the perils of being overly cerebral and losing touch with the "lizard brain" and the sensual nature of life. The "mythical kings" part cracks me up though, because I have a friend who was fascinated for a while with an ancient king, and I like to tease her about it. If only this were "mythical kings and chickens" it would be perfect. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Begin The Begin Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I see references to current events, but also to Reconstruction as a supposed second beginning for the South. The philanderer's tie and murderer's shoe seem to imply a dissatisfaction both with politicians now and carpetbaggers back then. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Half A World Away Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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This song kept me going on my first real dig: alone in a world of strangers, with no lifeline back home, mostly just me in the dust as the sunlight seeped its way across the hole. No way to call home (no electricity most of the time, no phone ever, and pre-cellphone days). Hauling it alone...(wheelbarrow of rubble to sift)...go it alone...hold it alone...(the occasional bone, baby skull fragments so old they were almost dust)...I listened to this song over and over on my Walkman, using batteries I had to make a treacherous descent to replace. Good times. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Texarkana Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Such a good roadsong! To me it suggests the loneliness of a person on their first great roadtrip alone. Family, lover, home are all half a world away and the speaker has to confront himself as self-alone-in-the-world for the first time, which is often both a wrenchingly painful and joyously exuberant feeling.
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submissions
| Belly (US) – Feed the Tree Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Death, but also rebirth! Notice that the speaker mentions that the old man was someone she used to be, before she was the "squirrel" Baby Silvertooth. Lovely song referencing reincarnation. |
submissions
| The Who – Behind Blue Eyes Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Yeah, Hitler had blue eyes, the picture where they look brown is wrong. Look at his baby picture sometime, they're bright blue. This song is clearly being sung by someone who was "behind" (as in, "the man behind") Hitler, which would have to be Goebbels.
Shoulder's a Jew? Cool, so am I, we have something in common! |
submissions
| David Bowie – The Man Who Sold the World Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I think that "sold" in this case is being used as in "sold the world on the product," not as in "exchanged the world for money." In other words, the Man Who Sold the World is some guy who's really good at marketing. |
submissions
| Indigo Girls – Mystery Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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This song reminds me of my best friend and me, because we started at opposite poles and ended up with an impossible bond. The line about love being "dictated or chosen" is the kind of thing he and I could work up into an utterly tasteless private joke...arrrgh, I miss him now that we live a continent apart. :-( |
submissions
| Rush – The Fountain Of Lamneth Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I have always interpreted the line, "Like old Sol behind the mountain, I'll be coming up again." as a reference to reincarnation. The main character is born, he grows up, achieves his goal, and dies; and he knows he will do it again next lifetime. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – No One Knows My Plan Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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This is a song about a guy sitting in a prison cell and planning to take over the world. He was "careless" and let the people around him know he was planning to overthrow the government, so they had him arrested.
This guy's probably writing a book while he's locked up, and that is the "angle" and the "blueprint" he is working on. He's also an artist, because he's sketching autumn leaves. He thinks he's a great philosopher like Plato, but really he is just a crackpot.
The dancing and shouting and lovely music and burning autumn leaves foreshadow something that the crackpot and his whackadoo friends will do when they get together in September for their big party day, and also because the crackpot who's planning stuff was arrested in November. The shrieks of pain foreshadow the effect the guy's plan will have on those around him.
(The identity of the imprisoned egotistical artist and pseudo-philosopher who is planning something terrible is left to the reader's imagination, of course....) |
submissions
| Barenaked Ladies – It's All Been Done Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is about reincarnation and a couple of people who keep meeting up and almost falling in love. The other person in the song says "goodbye" when they die (believing death to be final) but the speaker says "goodnight" (meaning he will see her in the morning of a new life) and he is right, they do come back. Reminds me of an argument a long time ago between two of my friends, where one used to call the other nuts for believing in reincarnation...some decades later, the guy who called the other one crazy believes in it, too. Ha. |
submissions
| Barenaked Ladies – When You Dream Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about reincarnation. When you accept reincarnation as a simple fact, you end up wondering who every baby used to be, because no one seems to be new. |
submissions
| Neutral Milk Hotel – Oh Comely Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Holocaust reincarnation, just like the rest of this album! The only question I have is whether the "two-headed buy" who is referenced in the album refers to the writer himself (one "head" his current mind, the other a past self, either Goldaline or her dead lover). I wonder if Jeff Magnum has ever heard of Rabbi Gershom and his work with reincarnated Holocaust victims? |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Fake Out in Buenos Aires Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This is obviously about the daring capture of Adolf Eichmann. The "fake out" refers to the Israeli agents' ruse to get him onto the airplane without being intercepted by the Nazi-friendly Peron administration. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Spiraling Shape Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This song describes the relationship between two friends during WWII. The speaker is advising his friend not to become a nazi (the spiralling shape is a swastika in motion) but the friend does anyway, and then after the war the friend claims he never *really* believed in the nazi agenda and didn't enjoy it, but the speaker can't forgive him. The friend can "never go back" to being just a normal person again. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Finished With Lies Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This is another WWII song. This one is about Goebbels, imagining that after his death Goebbels decides to tell the truth and nobody believes him. The "fix it..." line refers to the way the propagandists deceived so many people. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Fingertips Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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It's about what everyone is doing and thinking at the moment of nuclear annihilation--or else about the life of a person, beginning with the doctor's fingertips on his head, and ending with the mortician's fingertips closing his eyes. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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In the first verse, we get the first clue. The speaker of the song is somebody who feels vulnerable: "doomed and drowned," and is frightened that he'll die young. Why is he frightened? We find that out next.
In this verse we get a few clues about the person the speaker is singing this to. He's eligible to be hanged, and we've already heard that his very existence threatens our speaker, makes him feel he'll die young. So we can safely assume that the man who ought to be hanged is a killer. In fact, let's just call him that--the Killer.
Hanging is an unusual method of execution nowadays, but when it was more popular, people widely knew that being hanged with a long rope was unusually brutal, often causing decapitation. That "they" would hang the Killer with a long rope suggests he's so heinous that nobody would care what happened to him.
We also see that the Killer has *not* been hanged yet. He has escaped, and is now in hiding. This is the most important clue to the Killer's identity. (Start thinking now: who should have been hanged, but escaped?)
The matter of the kitchen table is also important. Lying on the kitchen table is odd. Tables aren't used for relaxing. In fact there's only one context where one lies on a table, and that's a doctor's office. We see by this clue that the Killer is involved in the medical business. (Got it yet?)
The speaker is announcing that he's tired of this, tired of the Killer escaping justice. His wife, serving the "banquet of (his) life" is tiring him by telling him to stop focusing on the case. It has become his life, and he's hopped on the kitchen table to demonstrate how important it is to him: "I could conceivably be killed by the Killer, how do you know we aren't all at risk with this madman walking around free?"
Now, let's throw the clues together and see what pattern we've got. The Killer is a notorious doctor, eligible for hanging, but running around loose. This can fit only one person--Josef Mengele, who wasn't hanged like all the other Nazi war criminals, but escaped and lived in Brazil till he died of natural causes. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Dirt Bike Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This is yet another WWII song. The "dirt bike" is the Third Reich, and they've got plans for everyone. "Now I ride..." refers either to the ordinary people getting caught up in the mania of nazism, or to people being deported on trains (trains feature prominently as symbols of inescapable evil in TMBG songs). |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Dr Worm Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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CanteenDave, you are BRILLIANT. I agree with almost all of your interpretation--let's say, 90% of it. The references to WWII are obvious (as in so many TMBG songs) but the worm in question is of course Dr. Mengele.
As the song says, Mengele would eventually be revealed to be a worm. "Rabbi Vole" playing a solo probably refers to one of Mengele's conscripted inmate-nurses, who were forced to assist in his evil experiments.
This song is part of the vast WWII-inspired song arc that runs through TMBG's music. I am surprised that CanteenDave is the only one who has recognized it. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Boat Of Car Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This song is about Chappaquiddick. Ted Kennedy was "trying to get somewhere" (the Presidency) but now he's haunted by the scandal. The traces of fingernails come from the drowning woman clawing at the windshield. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – The Bells Are Ringing Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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This song is so obviously about the Nazi rise to power and how ordinary Germans were brainwashed by Nazi propaganda. I think it is one in a series of TMBG songs about World War Two. |
submissions
| Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody Lyrics
| 21 years ago
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I think this song is about a soldier who has gotten home from Vietnam on leave. He's facing the grim fact that he's killed someone, and he believes that this means he will be killed when he has to go back to Vietnam. He is sitting in his mother's house, probably in the fall (this seems like a fall song to me) and imagining his life in wartime as an opera. |
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