| Beth Orton – Central Reservation Lyrics | 20 years ago |
|
I think it's about love, dreams, life and memory. I'm not entirely sure what it all means, but here's my go at explaining it. I'd love to hear everyone's comments/alternate theories. It starts off with her remembering the night just passed; maybe she's making her way home from her lover's house. She's still feeling that warm fuzzy love feeling that she had the night before ("stepping through brilliant shades/Of the colour you bring.") The chorus begins by commenting how reality both heightens and devalues things: "And everything and nothing is/As sacred as we want it to be/When it's real" and ends with deciding that it's better to live in reality, but being uncertain about what the yardstick for reality is ("Make it real/Compared to what?") The second are third verses are describing how she feels with her lover: "If this is where memories are made/I'm gonna like what I see" and "It's like living in the middle of the ocean/With no future, no past" -> it's just them two, and everything else is blocked out. She realises that they're so caught up in each other that "everything that's good about now/Might just glide right past" but remembers how she feels when she's with him ("Stepping through brilliant shades/Of the colour you bring") and decides that although she could change it "this time is whatever I want it to mean," she doesn't want to: "this time is fine just as it is." The song is just so evocative, emotive and sensuous, I love it! |
|
| The Killers – Somebody Told Me Lyrics | 20 years ago |
|
Maybe he's been trying to pick up a girl for a while ("seventeen tracks") but then someone tells him that she has a boyfriend. Buuut he's put in too much work ("Breaking my back just to know your name") to just walk away and besides he doesn't want to "let a rumour ruin my moonlight" so he tells her that he heard her boyfriend looks like looked like a girlfriend he had in February last year (clearly an insult and letting her know that he's single) and then goes on to tell her that "It's not confidential I've got potential." Then again it is a electronic song and the emphasis is on the awesome beat and the dancefloor feel, not on the lyrics. |
|
| The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It Lyrics | 20 years ago |
|
I think the song is about looking back at decisions made in the past and trying to accept them even though you might wish you'd chosen differently. "Smile like you mean it" -> he doesn't mean it, what he's thinking about/remembering doesn't make him happy, but he knows he can't change what's happened so he has to make the effort to accept it. While he's trying to come to terms with it he has to put on a front to hide how he feels by smiling like he means it. When he sings "Dreams aren't what they used to be/Some things sat by so carelessly" he's looking back on his youth and thinking about the dreams he used to have and how he misses that idealistic stage. I think the song comes down to him thinking about a particular relationship he had that might have ended badly and now really regrets. "And someone will drive her around/Down the same streets that I did/On the same streets that I did." He knows that he will never get back with her, and that someone else will replace him in her heart, and that is his biggest regret. After he thinks about the girl he repeats to himself "smile like you mean it" as a reminder that he has to accept what has happened and try to move on. I agree with Marno that it is a really sad song about remembering times that are gone forever, and mistakes he might have made that he can never change now. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.