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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – We Call Upon the Author Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Well I think the powder trail line is about Nick's own father, who was a writer. The lines preceding it certainly seem to be in the first person: Cave surrounded by his (young) fans. Also worth noting that the line he sings when they do the song live is "some kind of SPOOKY powder trail, straight to my father's heart".
The verse about the author dying ("with tubes up his nose") might be a reference to Roland Barthes' famous essay, The Death Of The Author, which is about how the author's intentions are no longer relevant to interpreting literature. Neat trick to mix that up with what seems to be the death of God - possibly it's about how God doesn't seem to be around much these days, compared to biblical times.
"Who is this great burdensome slathering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought" is an absolutely amazing line, if you ask me. But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain. |
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| Brian Eno – Golden Hours Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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i rescind any & all comments i may previously have made on this song (guess i must have been thinking about "here come the warm jets" and been led astray - and realityripple, if you ever read this, eno definitely did say in an interview once that urophilia was "certainly a reference" as far as that title is concerned: http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/interviews/nmetxt.html - interesting item anyway)
instead I offer this little factlet on the title of this song: I've heard "golden hours" used in photography, to refer to the hour just after dawn and just before sunrise, referring to the beautiful colour that light takes on at those times. Seems like a candidate for where Eno got the phrase from, even if it doesn't mean anything special.
While I'm here, I might as well also recommend Ida's beautiful cover of this song. |
submissions
| Low – Words Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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well I've listened to it many times and I now am 100% sure that the first time it is "that pain is easy to put in words", but that then he says "too many words" afterwards. It's still a really great line that way, I think. |
submissions
| Eels – Fresh Feeling Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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"Yes, he uses the sample and plays it backwards in this track."
haha what? It's not backwards!
Just listen to it man, it's the same line as from Selective Memory. I think violin sounds all weird when you play it backwards anyway. |
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| Garbage – Bad Boyfriend Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I don't think it's just about how "women don't really seem to go after the good guys". I think there are serious undertones of some kind of abuse in the relationship in this song - but it is still a very sexual song. I like it a lot. |
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| MC Lars – iGeneration Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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but don't you think that the overuse of brands+buzzwords is meant to suggest something about our generation and its culture? ie. that we are kind of lacking in ideology etc. - all we have is some kind of consumerism and some kind of love of irony. Perhaps.
"POSTMODERNISM" |
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| The Cure – All Cats Are Grey Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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i like the thought that it is about death, and lying in a grave. However I don't think the grey cats=the dead. I think what is meant is that all cats are grey when you are looking up at them from beneath the soil. You know? |
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| Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Sleep Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The tempo change during the first climactic section of this song is a very beautiful moment of music. One of the most beautiful that I have heard. I like to dance to this piece of music. |
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| Low – Sea Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This is an excellent little song. The repetition really makes it, I think. |
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| Johnny Cash – Country Boy Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think this song is a message to a young Johnny Cash, from an old Johnny Cash. When I say younger Johnny Cash, I mean him in his early days of being signed to Sun Records, when he was - you know - carefree, and so on. It's good.
The best line is "I wish I was you and you were me". Like, "I wish I could be having the fun that you are having, but I also wish you knew then what I knew now!"
awesome. |
submissions
| Low – Words Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always thought that the end of the first v erse was :
"Is that the truth?" he says/"that pain is easy to put in words/to put in words".
A quick google reveals that I am the only person on the internet with this opinion, but the verse seems to make a lot more sense that way, and is a lot more beautiful. |
submissions
| Willy Mason – Still a Fly Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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My favourite willy mason song, by a large margin. Surprised no-one else has commented on it. It has such a feeling of melancholy...
I think it is what it feels like to be a "precocious" child. Did you know willy mason was only 19 when this album was released? He is a smart guy. |
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| The Books – Read, Eat, Sleep Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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aleatoric, by the way, kind of means "luck-based", as in: a method of composition that involves an element of randomness or something out of control of the author. Which relates to the music of the books maybe? |
submissions
| Nirvana – Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Lead Belly cover) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I really think the thing about this song that makes it so chilling and spooky and gives you the shivers is that it is so mysterious. So many people have recorded it, but it is very unclear what the song is really about (as evidenced by the various interpretations on here). I think the fact that it's very vague and impossible to really figure out, but still having so much emotion in it, I think that is what makes it such a chilling song. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – I'm on Fire Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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It reminds me of all kinds of bad or unhealthy but passionate love. People are strange, love is strange.
Nebraska is an awesome film - I can well believe that there is a connection between this song and that. And of course, it was the inspiration for Springsteen "Nebraska". |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Brompton Oratory Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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this is my favourite nick cave song too. In fact, one of my all-time favourites by anyone. I love it, and it makes me cry more often than any other song I can think of. It is very very beautiful. |
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| Ed Harcourt – Metaphorically Yours Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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saying "we are joined at the hip LIKE siamese twins" is a simile that describes how they are joined at the hip, but the idea of being joined at the hip is not literally true, so the whole thing is a METAPHOR
"it's a simile within a metaphor/for the feelings that i store" |
submissions
| The Cure – Truth, Goodness and Beauty Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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"and also, I think it might help if you try closing your eyes and listening to the song... not just the lyrics"
you know, that was a little bit patronising. I'm just up for a little bit of debate here, dont assume that I just don't pay as much attention as you. |
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| The Cure – Truth, Goodness and Beauty Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Hmmm. I guess what I am saying is that while you think it is about "the three cursed pursuits of humanity", I think it is really just about one person, in particular, and Robert Smith's relationship with her?
I think that is where we disagree. Some of what you said I do agree with though. |
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| TV on the Radio – Ambulance Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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i think this is about an abusive relationship, where there is just enough that you love to "keep you where you belong/all wrapped up in wrong", but you're still aware that it is an unhealthy thing.
and "i will be your accident if you will be my ambulance" is, like, uh....
it's like, loving each other, but in a broken way.
"co-dependency?" |
submissions
| The Velvet Underground – Candy Says Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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"To me, it speaks of the sad and futile yearning to be as free as blue birds, to be a part of the flow of nature and without the heavy burdens of a human body and big decisions draining your soul.
I like to think of it as wanting to just BE. to not have a body or any of that, to just exist. And that is what the question means: what would we see if we were able to be free of our selves?"
Yes, it is all of this, expressed via a person called Candy's desire to have/not have a sex change. |
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| Sigur Rós – Untitled 1 Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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"Sigur ros is one of the only bands who can pull that sort of thing off: making a song with no lyrics have meaning."
"Only Sigur Ros could sing a song in gibberish and make it sound beautiful and moving without being pretentious."
Statements like these frustrate me because, people, there is so much music in the world, and while sigur ros make beautiful music, the concept of meaningful/meaningless nonsense syllables is not a new thing. For example, Brian Eno has been doing it for the 70s. Many other "post-rock" bands have done similar things, all with equally beautiful results.
So please do not make generalisations |
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| Brian Eno – Golden Hours Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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it's a piece of music with a fascinating combination of feelings though. it reminds me of Under in that respect. |
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| Brian Eno – Bone Bomb Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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eno said this was inspired by reading a certain newspaper, and seeing two articles:
an interview or something with a girl who was going to be a suicide bomber and had plans and stuff but then didn't go through with it, for whatever reason, and
an article where a doctor was talking about the effects of a terrorist blowing themselves up, and how it shattered their body, and the bones became like shrapnel, and when you looked at the bodies of people killed in the blasts, they have bone-shrapnel all in them and it was impossible to tell whether the bones belonged to them or someone else. Yuck. |
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| The Cure – Closedown Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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i love how long the song is and how short the vocals are. this must be my favourite cure song, i think. it's lovely. |
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| The Cure – Truth, Goodness and Beauty Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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MurderRapeLove, you're way wrong. Or at least, you haven't got it all. I think the heart of the song lies in the lines "all i say is a lie sighs/nothing i say is true/all i do is bad she sighs/nothing i do is good/and yeah all i am is ugly/nothing i am is beautiful".
and "think of how the classical flight of the bumble actually sounds like the flight of a bumble bee and you'll get what the cure are all about"?? No, that is not what is at the heart of robert smith's music.
I guess that part is about how a person can be beautiful but still not feel good or understand how they are beautiful. |
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| Iggy Pop – Lust For Life Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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a band called James wrote a song called "johnny yen" all about the very same character. It's a good song and worth checking out. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – I'm on Fire Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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guys, why do you have to draw a distinction between it being a love song and it being a stalker-esque kind of song? Don't you think that love is the kind of feeling that would draw someone to stalk or do bad things to another person?
I think it's somewhere inbetween, and I think sakebox had the right idea.
"I've got a bad desire" |
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| James – Sit Down Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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ok I did a little bit of research: it was a book by Doris Lessing and music by Patti Smith.
(sorry for posting like three comments) |
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| James – Sit Down Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Also: the facts behind this song are that Tim Booth, as a teenager, was feeling awful and depressed and then there were a couple of books (or was it songs? or poems?) that he read that made him feel like he wasn't going crazy, and that at least someone else knew what was going on with him. The song is really about that feeling of empathy, and "you're not alone". |
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| James – Sit Down Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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"Well he is obviously a manic depressive, but i'd guess considering how many great song writers are (were) that could go without saying."
WHAT. |
submissions
| Aphex Twin – Phillip Glass - Heroes Symphony (Aphex Twin Mix) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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philip glass did orchestral versions of all the songs on the Heroes album (by bowie)
then I guess Aphex Twin remixed this one. Philip Glass has done an orchestral arrangement of one of Aphex Twin's songs so I guess they're even (I think it was icct hedral i haven't actually heard it though)
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – People Ain't No Good Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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at the start, I think you'll find it is "People just ain't no good/A THING that's well understood".
or at least, it's fairly clearly that in the version that I've been listening to.
I think this is quite touching. I guess it's more about not being able to connect with people than people being bad as such.
"It ain't that in their hearts they're bad..." |
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| Brian Eno – Under Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think maybe it's "and there... remain".
but I'm glad someone wrote this one up, I like it a lot. the swishy percussion is very strange, very interesting.
I'm not sure what he is getting at here, but I think I've felt it before |
submissions
| Muse – Map of Your Head Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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yes, I think Wolskaje is right, I think "feeding my soul" is, like, singing about emotional things and things that are important, but the "people who'll never know just how purposeless and empty they grow" are people who listen to music but don't really appreciate what he is getting at.
Man, that must be frustrating, from the point of view of being a songwriter |
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| James – Hymn From A Village Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Uh, I guess this is about striving for sincerityand passion in music, and also complaining about widespread insincerity and lack of passion (dispassion?) in music.
I like it a lot. |
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