| Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Good point mattkid4, I think the "friend" is definitely his younger self. In this song, therefore, Neil Young is advising his younger self to be careful with love and not live with "his head inside a dream", the dream being false love. | |
| Neil Young – Don't Let It Bring You Down Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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To me, this song has nothing to do with social decay, or war, or anything like that. Just looking at the words, you have to infer a whole lot to get any kind of social commentary. Pretty simply, I saw the primary theme of this song as the struggle between night and day. The entire first stanza (before the chorus) is just a series of descriptions of what he sees or feels around dawn, presumably in a big city. "Old man lying by the side of the road with the lorries rolling by" is just that, an old man lying, maybe drunk or whatever, with trucks rolling by as the day begins. The second little section, though, makes more sense as Young says "Blue moon sinking from the weight of the load And the buildings scrape the sky" The "blue moon sinking" is the moon at dawn and the "weight" it is under is the metaphorical weight of the day compelling it downward to make way for the sun. And, also fighting to push the moon (aka night) out of the sky are the buildings as they "scrape the sky". The buildings, just like the "lorries", represent the day as they represent facets of business, i.e. the business day pushing night out of the sky. Next, where Young says "Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn And the morning paper flies" he seems to be talking about how useless the day is as it is traditionally thought to bring warmth and I guess the actions of the day. But, in describing the "Cold wind ripping down the alley" he says that the day can't even overcome the remnants of the cold of the night. And, in describing the wind making the morning paper fly, he is saying that just as the paper is written (the "morning" paper") it becomes useless and discarded, another point against the day. Then, in the final section before the chorus Young says, "Dead man lying by the side of the road With the daylight in his eyes." This would seem to contradict the whole 'day is bad' theme so far in the song as this man presumably died at night and it is only the daylight illuminating his dead body. But you can't discount the fact that it is the "daylight in his eyes". Just as night is expected to bring hardship, day is supposed to bring respite, but it was too late and can only shine on the eyes of a dead man. It also works in that only in the light of day do the repercussions of night take shape. And, as everyone knows, repercussions are bad. Then comes the chorus which, as in many Neil Young songs, seems to be very confusing. But, when taken in the context of this night vs. day theory it makes more sense. He says "Don't let it bring you down It's only castles burning, Find someone who's turning And you will come around." The "castles burning" can be understood by thinking of a relatively simple image. Remember the buildings described previously that "scrape the sky". Those can be seens as the castles, and as anyone who has lived in a city knows that when dawn breaks the windows on most skyscrapers become bright yellow and orange, looking almost like they're 'burning'. See, castles burning at dawn. And the "don't let it get you down" part can be his reassurance to those who live at night, that the day shouldn't get them down. The "find someone who's turning And you will come around" can just be an extension of that as he tells those who live at night to find those others who look away from the sun and wait for the night. Now for the second half. To open it up after the chorus , Young says "Blind man running through the light of the night With an answer in his hand". Here there is obviously more night imagery. The blind man himself sees everything as night, which may be why he is in possession of the truth. And the "light of the night" can be playing off of the fact that the blind man sees in the night just as in the light of day, or on the previous sections of the song as they showed night as superior to day, thus "light". Next, Young says, "Come on down to the river of sight And you can really understand" Now, if anyone else hears this song and see it as set in New York then you are thinking like me. The whole song seems to be talking about NYC. So, the "river of sight" is the Hudson if you go with this theory, and, as anyone who has had a long night with no end in NYC knows (you know what I mean) you often end up by the river in the morning, for whatever reason. Neil Young might have been playing on this near ritual within this song. After that, he says, "Red lights flashing through the window in the rain, Can you hear the sirens moan?" As he has already described day as breaking this is presumably happening during the day. And, it is clearly referring to the police or an ambulance, both indicators of bad news. And, though whatever bad thing happened that is now being dealt with probably happened at night, the key is that the repercussions will happen in the day, which is, I think a key point in the song. Finally, Young says "White cane lying in a gutter in the lane, If you're walking home alone." The white cane was probably left there the night before, and now it sits, awaiting the night person who is staggering home alone, to guide him home. A final remnant of the night helping make sure this person gets home. So, there you have it. Neil Young's take on the value of the night over the day. The night being fun and partying, staggering home, etc., and the day being work. Well, I tend to agree with old Neil, night rocks. |
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| Squeeze – Pulling Mussels (From The Shell) Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| fingering girls in various locations... thats it | |
| Jethro Tull – Living In The Past Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song is a pretty obvious Tull song, about loving a woman. The first four stanzas hes just talking about how much he loves her, then gets to the point of the song. "We'll go walking out while others shout of war's disaster." This, to me, pretty clearly means that when hes with her he doesnt care about whats going on, just thinking about a time with her that everything was good. THe whole song is like that. |
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