| The New Pornographers – The Fake Headlines Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| Totally agree with you, dougievile, on that line. | |
| Billy Bragg and Wilco – California Stars Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| This song is very dreamy. Woody Guthrie is a treasure! | |
| Billy Bragg and Wilco – Walt Whitman's Niece Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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What a fun, irreverent song. Seeing as how it was written fifty years ago, I wonder if it's factual at all. Admittedly, though, I doubt it. |
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| Billy Bragg and Wilco – Birds and Ships Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| The singer here sounds like either Sarah Mclachlan or Natalie Merchant. Anybody know? | |
| Wilco – Spiders (Kidsmoke) Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song is a lot like Muzzle of Bees, the next song on the album, in structure. It dilly-dallies for a few minutes, then lets loose. I have a really short attention span for songs, but for some reason I have no problem waiting for this song to build up. Heh, WeedMan, you're such a stereotype... |
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| Beck – Hollywood Freaks Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Sinking: an 808 is a drum machine, one of the first, I think. It's used a lot in electronica and hip hop. And don't feel stupid-how many people know drum machines, no less by their model number? |
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| French Kicks – Don't Thank Me Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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... = something about a soundstage? BTW this song appears to be about the typical messed up relationship. |
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| John Lennon – How Do You Sleep? Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Despite each Beatle essentially contributing to the breakup, Paul was the first one who actually left for good, and made it public. Towards the end, each of them were taking extended leaves of absence (even Ringo), even during recording sessions. But no one had the guts to cut himself from the group for good, until Paul. I could see some resentment from John there, as he could just as easily have left, but didn't in the interest of the group. It wouldn't be until years later that someone in his position could have really looked at the inevitability of the situation with a clear mind. |
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| Jack Johnson – Better Together Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song refers loosely to the album's title, so I think that dreams are an important element. "and all of these moments just might find there way into my dreams tonight" This is saying that he hopes his day with this girl finds its way into his dreams because it was so wonderful. "but if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene" This is saying that he hopes that his dreams in turn influence his day with this girl, because they are also wonderful (because they are about her). The phrase "In between dreams" is doubly significant. In one sense, its the way he poetically describes his waking day, but its also how he gauges the passage of time and experiences with this girl. Some might measure it one day at a time; he measures it one dream at a time. |
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| The Black Eyed Peas – Gone Going Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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The story of a successful musician forgetting his roots is so old it's cliche. I'd be surprised if this song is directed toward any one artist, because there's no specificity anywhere. Hell, the artist's name is "Johnny" how generic can you get? And, InsertEmo, Jack Johnson is laid back, but I don't think he's laid back enough to contribute to a song about how much he sucks. |
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| The Proclaimers – Over And Done With Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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I'm honestly not sure if I would like this song so much if I hadn't heard it on Bottle Rocket first. Am I so vain? Regardless, here are my impressions of the song: The first stanza regards either his first teacher or his first sex partner (I feel like I've read the second interpretation somewhere else). The next regards when he becomes a man, i.e. loses his virginity. The last is when someone dies. If you accept the latter interpretation of the first stanza, the first two stanzas are inherently related. The third might only make sense if the man dying is himself (losing your virginity supposedly makes you a man, whereas watching the same man dying would contravene that notion). That these events "didn't make the impression that some people say" indicates that losing his virginity wasn't as special as he had imagined-perhaps that's how the man he becomes has died. If you accept the former, all three tie together as a progression from learning facts (school) to learning love, to learning death. Or, birth, life/love, and death. When he says "my bed hold a trinity" I for some reason imagined that the brothers lost their virginity in a three-way, but that's kinda twisted, isn't it... |
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| Sonic Youth – Cotton Crown Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| Could the cotton crown be a bandage covering the needlemarks? I don't know, I don't shoot heroin. | |
| OK Go – It's A Disaster Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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"It's a disaster, It's an incredible mess, but it's all that we got now" pretty much sums it up. I'd call it embracing a failure instead of abandoning it and having nothing. I especially like the line "[are you] smart enough to fail." Everyone encounters situations like that. |
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| Franz Ferdinand – What You Meant Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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It seems like the whole song is a response to Alec (maybe referring to the lead singer, Alex Kapranos--I wonder who authored the lyrics) saying "We're as cold as the step cement." Each of the stanzas is an attempt to interpret that line. The funny thing to me is everlong and bkat004 don't know what the song is about, but the narrator in the song doesn't know what it's about either! |
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| Franz Ferdinand – Eleanor, Put Your Boots On Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| I think that by saying "put those boots back on" he is imploring her to get out of whatever hotel she's sleeping in, hit the airport and fly back to him. | |
| Animal Collective – Doggy Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| How unbearably sad. When I hear this song, I picture an out-of-focus sunset in autumn. | |
| Akron/Family – Before and Again Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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I like the combination of acoustic guitar with overtly digital blips in the background. It's definitely a song about longing-longing to be somewhere else, to express himself, and the struggle to capture memories. Beyond that, I'm not sure. |
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| Spoon – I Summon You Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Great song. So melancholy. I can't really tell what it's about. It sounds like her love is a vacation from the unbearable stress in his life. With all the law and police imagery, I am reminded that a summons is a legal document. I doubt that means anything, though. But what does everything else mean? |
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| Spoon – Me And The Bean Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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It could be a song about someone's daughter. I don't think that Britt Daniel has a child, but he admits that not all of his songs are autobiographical. The relationship described by the song, with her offering idealism and him offering strength, seems to mirror that between a father and daughter. Plus the last line takes on a literal AND figurative meaning. |
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| Spoon – No You're Not Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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When Lot is warned by God to leave Sodom and Gomorrah, as his family escapes his wife turns around, either to survey the destruction of these two cities or to actually return, and she is turned into a pillar of salt. With this in mind, it makes it easier to think that he is dead, but he can't comprehend it yet. He's no longer an address, or a name-he's inert. The kiss is cold because he's dead? It's a stretch, I know... |
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| Spoon – Dismember Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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"put the notebook down"-stop analyzing me "take off your dress"-get busy |
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| Spoon – Change My Life Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song is pure irony. The narrator (which could be anybody at some point in their lives) proudly claims that he doesn't want money, fast love, an exclusive relationship, or really anything that people might covet in a relationship. These are also things that a self-centered person would request. Instead, he just wants the one thing that can't be guaranteed. Because of that, he is actually more conceited. On the other hand, by the loosest of definitions, "changing someone's life" is the easiest thing in the world: all you've got to to is exist, really. So maybe the song is more direct than I interpret it. |
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| Spoon – Something To Look Forward To Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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There is a kind of repressed fury in this song. I think the song is about how you can't just rush a relationship or it gets stale too quickly. "You gotta make me shut up" might mean that he's revealing his feelings too much. Part of the fun in the beginning is the mystery that is destroyed by saying "I love you." The second half is the same thing, but from a physical perspective. |
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| Spoon – Revenge! Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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"Big blank slate every day" means that he tries to forget and forgive what's in the past, but it's nagging him like a "push pin stuck in." Saying "I fucked up now I just won again" kind of reflects what revenge is all about. Without a cause, revenge would be like fucking up. With a cause, it's like winning a match of wits. BTW, is it lavalette? That's the name of a city in Wisconsin, but what does that have to do with anything? Because he mentions "I just won again" is it "[something] roulette?" |
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| Spoon – Utilitarian Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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kemekonga-"sounds like a call to arms" Couldn't put it better. Based on the lyrics that aren't figurative, it might be a song about a youthful long distance relationship. "Forty six blocks" would be "just halfway across the world" to no one but a youngster. "Meat in my arms"-??? "Steel in my teeth"-braces? "Making out"-kissing "Taking out"-going on dates "Utilitarian"-at that young age, love is sometimes a troubling experience, but still better than the alternative "Just halfway across the world"-so his resolution is to make the trip even though it's fricking far away BTW I love that raw emotion that comes out of his voice when he screams "It's uuuuuu-tilitarian." |
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| Spoon – Don't Buy The Realistic Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Killer song. Here's my stab at it: The two lines that seem to define this song: "Words are, not much to say" Reality is not the sum of any recollection. There is more to a moment than words, or pictures, or even one person's experience of that moment. "Face the, gets in the way" I almost feel like there's a fill-in-the-blank after "Face the." Facing anything gets in the way. And yet if you don't face anything, you are fleeing from reality. Or, as the title would imply, you aren't buying into reality. In other words, just read the title. |
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| Beck – E-Pro Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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One potential insight is in the title. "e-" and "pro-" are both prefixes. When attached to the same root, as in "emote/promote", "evoke/provoke", they have very dissimilar, but not opposite meanings. The former has a very personal connotation, the latter external. There are a lot of double and even triple meanings used in this song: shooting a gun/shooting your mouth, picking up/talking trash (to garbage, no less), tongue-twisted/too much to taste, snakes/eyes of a gambler. I don't know what to make of it, just thought I'd point it out. |
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| Spoon – Quincy Punk Episode Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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On the surface this song appears to be about a suicide. But then there's that line "no one-if you could speak-would believe you"... is it staged or something? Then he emphasizes "In the ground," almost like a taunt that this person can't speak because he's dead. Good song, no doubt. |
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