submissions
| Okkervil River – Black Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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This is directly from Sheff for an article he did:
"Black" is the fourth song on Black Sheep Boy. It took me an awful long time to get to track number five. When I was a teenager, a close friend confessed to me she'd been through something akin to what Sheff describes in "Black." While I'd never compare my relatively small secondhand trauma to what she went through, it still changed who I was in some fundamental ways. I became less trusting, more skeptical and a whole lot angrier. I was mad at the world for letting something like that happen. Mad at God, if there was a God, too. And, like the narrator of "Black," I wanted this guy dead. If just knowing about this friend's pain was a black cloud over my head, I couldn't (and still can't) imagine what it was like for her.
As Sheff says in the below Q&A, "every single person who has known women knows women who awful shit has happened to." It's probably true, but because the topic of sexual abuse is still so taboo–usually spoken about in hushed, shameful tones when it's spoken about at all–it was revelatory for me to hear a story I thought was my own packed into a punchy pop song that first time. It's a testament to Sheff as a songwriter that he was able to bottle the raw emotions that come with an experience like this and turn them into a song so balanced and subtle and tight. It's emotionally complex: There's sadness here as much as there's anger and, as Sheff also points out, there's some silver lining in the emotional gulf between the woman who has come to terms with what happened to her and a man who is just grappling with it for the first time. Time does not heal all wounds–I think Sheff would agree that that's a lie. But maybe in time we can learn how to disempower those who hurt us. Anyway, that's the lesson I'm choosing to pull from a song that still leaves me with an awful lump in my throat. |
submissions
| Sharon Van Etten – Love More Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Seems to me this song is talking about a unhealthy relationship. Being young and naive and taken advantage of by someone yet you believe it to be good and love. Could be totally wrong though. |
submissions
| Metric – Gimme Sympathy Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I think the title is an obvious reference to "Gimmie Shelter" by the Stones. I find this song to be more about just being a band in general such as "we're so close to something better left unknown". I think this line is saying that they are so close to perfection/total collapse it's better "left unknown". She is asking would the band rather be like the Beatles who were so creative they self imploded or the Rolling Stones who stayed around forever. Her reference to "Here Comes The Sun" seems more like she is asking that she be creative but be able to "make mistakes". Kind of a answer to critics who expected her to do so much after her solo album....just my two cents anyways. |
submissions
| Ween – Baby Bitch Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I always thought this song was just about the singer finding himself in the usual relationship problem. A bad break-up and the girl is still vindictive. However she still slips in and out of his life. He has moved on, yet she hasn't. Despite him knowing her inside out people do not believe him. So now he tells her to just "fuck off" because he knows she is two faced.
Or it's about space aliens...who knows with Ween. |
submissions
| Okkervil River – Black Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Ha, I love how someone comes up with a relevant theory based on what the band themselves said and people still say things like, "it's obviously about molestation". First of all it could be about molestation but it could also be about being abandoned.
I however believe what Gita said it just makes the most sense when reading the lyrics. I think the allusion to the girls mother and "daddy's coat" is making people think that he is speaking of molestation. I think he is just using "baby daughter" as a affectionate term like she is almost a daughter to him (like saying baby girl). Also most molesters maintain contact with children, this seems to referance one specific date where a "door" was slammed shut. To me it's pretty obvious that he is saying she got picked up and the man she loved dumped her and she references this a lot.
Just my two cents. |
submissions
| Eels – 3 Speed Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This a qoute from E about the song...""After My Descent Into Madness it’s a kind of flashback to the time before things went wrong.To the innocence of the childhood, but there is a dark cloud waiting above. A 3 Speed is a bicykle from the sixties. It starts like that, she is riding on her 3 speed. It’s a symbol of the innocent time." refering to Elizabeth and her writings from a book he found while she was in the mental hospital. |
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