submissions
| U2 – One Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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God, this song kills me. Sure, it may have been written about a guy coming out to his dad but I think most of us have had a situation like that: there's someone in your life you love desperately but you simply can't go on having that person in your life hurting each other like you are.
Dudette asked about the Jesus / lepers verse; at least to me that's kind of the key to the song. Whoever this is (let's stick with the story that this is a guy coming out to his father) has basically ruined this guy's life by trying to convince him the love he has felt for other people isn't real ("you act like you never had love and want me to go without"). The father (by this reading) still has a guilty conscience about this and keeps seeing him wanting everything to be better once the son has seen the light.
But things won't get better that way, and the "I" in the song has finally realized that as much as he loves his dad, he can't let them keep on hurting each other. And if that means they can't see each other for years, or ever, then that's how it is. It's realizing that you love someone enough to remove them from your life because you can't love each other sanely. And something about the sound of this song absolutely captures that feeling for me.
And, yeah, I think people who get married to this song are crazy. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Particle Man Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I think like most TMBG songs the interpretation says more about the interpreter than the song. Still, to me it's about three ancient philosophers: triangle man is Pythagoras (he thought everything could be reduced to geometry and math), particle man is Empedocles (he thought everything was made of little particles), universe man is Parmenides (he thought everything in the universe was One, and was generally kind to disagreeing philosophers. He even out-talked Socrates at one point but wasn't an ass about it), and person man is Diogenes the Cynic (he lived in a garbage can and got beaten up a lot). Pythagoras (triangle man) hated atomists like Empedocles and humanists like Diogenes (or Cratylus), and in the end his philosophy won out and ended up creating the modern (meaning post-450 AD) world. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse in Your Soul Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This song intrigues me, especially with the Jason reference, because Plato once described the way we attach emotions to memories as a "birdhouse of the soul". You see something familiar (like a nightlight) from your past and like releasing a bird into an aviary it goes and finds the same kind of bird and hangs out with them. TMBG always picks such seemingly random phrases that have really deep histories and meanings. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Johnsburg, Illinois Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Funny how you have no idea where she is now, or how she feels about him... in fact, he points to everything (a tattoo, her hometown, a picture) EXCEPT the girl herself. |
submissions
| Eddie From Ohio – The Three Fine Daughters Of Farmer Brown Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I love this song though it irritates me that every time they played it live Julie's (the singer) dad would get the crowd screaming so you couldn't hear them sing. When they were first playing little clubs in VA and DC it was amazing the sound they could get on that bridge. |
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