| The Weakerthans – Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961) Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| To go off of the previous post a little bit, a political Marxist and a Marxist theorist aren't necessarily the same thing. Being a Marxist theorist doesn't constitute Communism, but instead emphasizes the study of how economic conditions impact different literary texts. An example would be how Hemingway's short, quipped sentenced reflected the industrialization and production-line mentality of American in the early- to mid-twentieth century. | |
| Jets to Brazil – Orange Rhyming Dictionary Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Alright, it's late and i'm bored so I'm going to try to break this song down just for the hell of it. Please do not think less of me for any mistakes, because you're probably the one who's right. "words in my head / atom splitting up the twins / rocks inside my head again" -this might mean that the narrator (see: blake) has all these thoughts and words rolling around in his head basically with no direction or meaning "keeps me from your bed / sends me errand boy at swim / to drag my lake for scars" -these un-writeable and undefinable words are keeping him from being with the one he loves; the latter lines perhaps suggestion an inward reflection trying to find some hidden scars from the past "do the stars conspire / to kill us off with loneliness / am i so inspired that i could save / the both of us?" -the first two lines are a rhetorical question wondering whether or not everyone is destined to ultimately live their lives along; the last two lines are a question that hints at maybe this jumble of maddening words in his head might be the key to saving both him and the one he loves from living this life of loneliness "stayed up all night / rubbing words but they don't take / now the sun says / what a mess you've made" -these lines describe that the narrator was up all night trying to give his mess of words some order and meaning but it never happened. not that it's morning, he sees in the daylight all the crap that he made during the night "with a bag of beer / held like the last girl on earth / to keep your hands from words" -i think he's saying he's beginning to see the futility in trying to solve the puzzle of his mind and is turning towards alcohol to drown out his pain and loneliness, but this in turn keep him from working out those damned words "do the stars conspire to pin us / down like butterflies / a life on the trial the hot stare america" - another rhetorical question: he's feeling as if fate is singlehandedly preventing him from accomplishing what he set out to do. then, perhaps he feels as if his life is on trial and that he is living in the judgemental eye of everyone "sunrise cemetery nervous breakdown / saw my angel making eyes at strangers / i was indisposed i couldn't blame her / know i came to bury and wound up staying" -he noticed the girl whom he loves is making eyes at another guy (perhaps at a funeral due to the cemetary part) but he realizes that he was indisposed with his mental anguish of his insolvable puzzle and drinking to actually confront her. when he realizes this, that he'll never have the one he loves, a part of him dies. hence the symbolic meaning of the cemetary, he came for a funeral but part of him died and stayed there "verse in my head / first light fingers rake the hills / turns a landscape into lines" -again, he still has these words in his head, but perhaps they're making more sense, seeing as how he has arranged them into a verse (that craft blake, slipping a song-writing allusion in). again he finds himself still writing as the sun comes up. "finds the phantom limbs / connects the dots i got her name / from an orange rhyming dictionary" -perhaps the first two lines are suggesting that he's finally cracking the code, the words in his head making up the phantom limbs and connecting them like dots. then, of course, finding her name in an orange rhyming dictionary means that she was never real to begin with, or that the love wasn't real. "sunrise cemetery nervous breakdown / saw my angel making stories for me / now i know her and she meant to save me / with an orange rhyming dictionary" -this is a tough one. i'm thinking that he again finds himself in the cemetary, and this time he has confronted his love, and perhaps they even become friends. when he says the part about her making stories for him, maybe she is helping him untangle to neverending web of words and thoughts he has in his head. and saving him with an orange rhyming dictionary is perhaps meaning that realizing that his love never exisited he was able to free himself from the paralizing loneliness and depression he was dwelling in. "do the stars conspire to shock us into tiny measures / can you survive going crazy every time you see her?" -he's wondering if fate throws little things into our lives to shock us into remembering just how insignificant and powerless we are. Finally, after all he's realized and overcome, he still can't help but go crazy everytime he sees that girl, whether it's from the lingering feeling of love or just the reminder of what he had to go through. |
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| The Dismemberment Plan – The Face of the Earth Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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I believe this was the first Dismemberment Plan song I ever heard, so it always has a spot close to my heart. I love how this song describes those strange relationships that, however short-lasting, leaves an indeleble mark upon you. It may have only lasted a few months, but for some reason you find yourself looking back on it with a sense of nostalgia for years to come |
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