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Cake – Frank Sinatra Lyrics 20 years ago
This song is about the long lost respect for the individual. That respect eminates from the nether reaches of our psyche reaching out to us, the dismembered constellations..ie the conflicted community. Beyond the nuclear weapons that protect us from each other, the burning convictions that keep us in check and the marketing that sells us out, our psyche reflects the ancient traditions of respect and wonders how they can be made valuable again.

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The Postal Service – Brand New Colony Lyrics 20 years ago
This song is about evolution. A brand new colony refers to a new communal spirit which will transcend the various insecurities that beset us.

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Modest Mouse – Doin' the Cockroach Lyrics 20 years ago
I haven't actually heard the song but was intrigued by the discussion so here's my two bits..


I was in heaven
I was in hell
Believe in neither
But fear them as well

He has been to places he doesn't believe exist. This can mean he really does believe they exist but would like to ignore or he believes they exist only in the ephemeral and by discounting their existnce he controls their significance.. ie. There is no heaven or hell in absolute terms. Only in terms which are at the mercy of the observer. He fears them only as ideas of absoluteness or rigidity.

This one's a doctor
This one's a lawyer
This one's a cash fiend
taking your money

These are the personalties he has encountered in these places. Both doctor's and lawyers are cash fiends taking your money, indistinguishable from one another. They exist in both in heaven and hell becuase both heaven and hell are indistinguishable from each other.

Back of the metro
Ride on the greyhound
Drunk on the Amtrak
Please shut up

These are the ways he gets around heaven and hell. He is bothered by the rudeness of of it all. Public transportation being a lonely affair for an individual wishing for more humanity in a place full of humans.

Another rider
He was a talker
Talking about TV
Please shut up

Here is a rider regurgitating the gossip which further alienates us from ourselves.

This one's a crazer
Daydreaming disaster

This is himself perhaps hoping for something to happen. Anything to wake people from their stupor.

The origin of junk food
Rutting through garbage
Tasty but worthless
Dogs eat their own shit

Rather blatant metaphor for the trash we feed our minds. Trash which keeps us locked in these boxcars or routine driven by machines

We're doing the cockroach yeah
Doin the cockroach yeah
Doin the cockroach yeah (alright, not bad) (X3)

The cockroach similarly is a machine. Surviving by instinct to find the lowest means of existence.

One year
Twenty years
Forty years
Fifty years
Down the road in your life
You'll look in the mirror
And say, "My parents are still alive."

Here he sees his parents in his own reflection and realizes he has become like them, a cockroach.

You move your mouth
You shake your tongue
You vibrate my eardrums
You're saying words
But you know I ain't listening

It's all BS so why do you bother flapping your gums.

You're walking down the street
Your face
Your lips
Your hips
Your eyes
They meet
You're not hungry though

This one is tough but I'll say it's an allusion to the preceding stanza. Here the individual realizes they are part of a whole which can not be satisfied by BS.

Well late last winter
Down below the equator
They had a summer that would make you blister

The equator = the equalizer. That is, the point where we are bound together by neccesity of respect. In a world devoid of respect for the individual it is very hot in deed.

Oh my mind is all made up
So I'll have to sleep in it (X3)

Once again, once our minds become rigid they are closed to new ideas... ie comatose.

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