| The Promise Ring – Is This Thing On? Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
VERSE Delaware, Are you aware of the Air Supply and the television, Delaware Are you still there, is this thing on, am I coming down, Delaware Are you aware of the Air Supply and the television, Delaware Are you aware of the Air Supply CHORUS DelaWhere are you Tonight are you From any town Are you aware are you Tonight are you From any town |
|
| Joanna Newsom – This Side of the Blue Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think this song contains evocations of the boundary between the living and the dead or the heavens, and reflects on ideas of life and meaning when confronted with having to cross these different realms in the act of dying. The concept of 'firmament' is useful here at understanding what the sea is in the song. 'This side of the blue' refers to existing this earthly side of the boundary, the mortal realm, that relies on signifieds and signifiers for meaning. Gabriel, the angel of death appears (in the earthly realm, 'beneath' the firmament), making clothing from Camus, a writer who philosophized about meaning in the face of death. Not knowing 'my own way to the sea' but it '[knowing] its own way to me' is quite a powerful evocation of the unknowingness of when your death may happen, but mortality being a certainty and finding its way to you. Black eyes, returning home, feeling abominable or finding the situation unpleasant (face like sucking lemons), the 'shape of the goneness' of mortal moments after death - it all fits for me. The Tower of Babel and the River Styx myths (and the 'embarcadero') are also useful to get what's going on here I think. | |
| The Thermals – Here's Your Future Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| The line "it's gonna rain", as well as fitting in with the narrative of Noah and the floods, I should imagine is a reference Steve Reich's extremely influential first work. | |
| Jeffrey Lewis – Life Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
"I hate going **months and months** without kissing anyone" Great lyrics, make me smile. My favourite part: "But everyone changes and forever is a myth Friends are just the people that you can talk with A lot of them'll leave but only a few you're gonna Miss" |
|
| Jeffrey Lewis – WILLIAMSBURG WILL OLDHAM HORROR Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
I absolutely love these lyrics - I got this song just after reading them on here. My two favourites are: "I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna piss! I'd rather kill myself, I'd rather just relax or not exist. But you say you wanna do an e-mail interview? Oh what the heck, I can't resist!" "Like I'm sure the thing is probably or Dylan himself too stayed up some nights wishing he was as good as Ginsberg or Camus. And he was like "Dude, I'm such a faker, I'm just a clown who entertains and these fools who pay for my crap, they just have pathetic puny brains and Camus probably wished he was Milton too or whatever, you know what i'm sayin'?!" " |
|
| Low – Murderer Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Totally agree with "cruel". Songmeanings? These are bitter last words in an argument, surely. Perhaps i'm taking the words too much at face-value, but has the recipient of these harsh words written a murder book? And has the narrator seen hirself in this book, and been angry on these grounds? | |
| Animal Collective – Kids on Holiday Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
(From http://www.identitytheory.com/audio/ross_animal.php) "AVEY TARE: Mostly, I focus on what’s in my head and in my heart at the moment. I guess these things are affected by a combination of my dealings and feelings with my friends. What I read and a lot of what I just see around me. “Kids on Holiday,” for instance, is basically just about Noah (Panda Bear) and I getting used to traveling around and playing music and what it’s like to be traveling so much and feeling tired and all the kinds of people you see around you moving. Moving for work, moving for pleasure, moving for nothing." |
|
| Joanna Newsom – Swansea Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
I'm having difficulty with these lyrics. I'm not really sure what they describe. Is it a lonesome journey with a close friend? I mean, the first stanza seems to describe a wonderful scene of inviting someone to come and watch trains at night (trains are beautiful at night, and they don't half pound). Not sure what "pawing" is, or whitenes of bones, although i've heard that phrase in a few folk songs. Stanza three we're into talk of ghost towns (which is an interesting, if opaque, subject in song - the narrator is now with someone, but they are very isolated, watching trains and seeing ghost towns). Loam is a kind of sandy-clay soil, and I think it's used, or maybe was used, in building. Assateague is a marshy (so, "knee deep") coastal island on the East coast of the US, with feral ponies! She then calls out two ghost towns in California (including Swansea - so NOT the one in Wales ;-) ), and one other town, and the Lagunitas river. But how did we get here, in California, from the East Coast? This is a lenghty trip. Nonetheless it is a trip that "they" (who I am assuming is two close people) take alone - they don't 'interact' with anything animate, instead seeing just beautiful, unresponsive places. Now, to California Bungalows, which were a really popular type of housing (and might form a great part of these ghost towns). But hopping down, southward? Is the narrator describing their journey, or the bungalows (in which case i'd think it was talking about the BUILDING of new bungalows - but southward?) Hmm. It's "we" southward blow, so probably the former, but it's a strange transition from describing bungalows that frog hop, then their frog-hopping journey - it doesn't make sense for me. Then, I assume "the wild blue yonder" is the sky that "looms" because it's so huge and stands over them (again, i'm feeling a bit lonely). Being wracked (stricken?) with rheum (like, mucous, from your eyes and nose?) - is this describing what happens when the wind blows in your face? Say, from an open-top car (that they "drive in"?) or from the wind they are bourne by? "Chew and chew"? I'm lost here. Is it to do with "gnawing on your bones"? I'm not sure what this means, although i'm thinking love-biting, of sorts. Kissing can be strange - apart from the sensation, it comes in a way from wanting to put that other person in your mouth, like, eating them. Gnawing at bones seems extremely affectionate in this sense. "Dear one" and "drive on" seems to me to reinforce that this is about a journey with someone close. So, at the end of this song, I am lost (like the narrator?), but get a great deal of sensations: of being with an other, alone, gracefully travelling through some beautiful and striking places. |
|
| Grandaddy – He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's The Pilot Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
I interpret this song in a very literal way - basically it's the story, written from a viewer in the future, about someone who escaped the earth that he believed was in a terrible state (for reasons i'll go into later on). "Adrift again 2000 man" Here we have a man from around the year 2000 who is adrift in space (although, as we later find out, this is an intentional act). "You lost your maps, You lost the plans Did you hear them yell, "Land, damn it land"? You say you can't Well I hope you can I hope you can" The 2000 man has told all the people on earth that he is lost and can't come back to earth, but really he WANTS to be lost and alone. The narrator of the story is nonetheless fooled, and like all the people on earth, has tried to 'help him' and invite him to come back. "How's it going 2000 man Welcome back to solid ground my friend I heard all your controls were jammed Well it's just nice to have you back again" Later on (and following a shift in the song) 2000 man comes back to earth, and the narrator is glad and still trying to pry out of him how he got 'stuck' in space. However ... "But I guess they still don't understand And they can never understand" ... it's still the same old story on earth as before. The people that 2000 man escaped still believe in the same things, and, the narrator believes, they always will. "And they said go find 2000 man And they said tell him we've got new plans" The people of earth want 2000 man - the man who rejected the ways of his culture - back on earth, because they want to tell him they've changed. They want to reincorporate the rebel. But ... "But instead I'm here to tell you, friend I believe they want you to give in" ... they haven't changed at all, and although the narrator wants 2000 man back, he also wants to warn him of this. "Are you giving in 2000 man?" 2000 man has come back to the same culture. The narrator asks: are you ready to give up your struggle now? "Did you love this world and did this world not love you?" 2000 man loved the world, but rejected his culture. "Don't give in 2000 man" The final plea from the narrator. I guess it's up to you what you think that culture could be - so bad that someone would choose to be alone in space rather than face it. Whether it's Parkov's concern of a society "becoming obsessed with complex but ultimately meaningless things", or Nehllah's struggles of civilization or Jean-Baptiste's ecological concerns. However, I have heard Grandaddy speak in interviews and they have regularly put forward these ideas - of the self-destructive decadence of consumerism and over-production, but mainly of over-reliance on technology and the problems that this brings (these themes feature across Grandaddy's work, and lend many to believe that the Sophtware Slump is a concept album). In fact, I remember Jason Lytle saying he was disappointed that the Millenium Bug hadn't, in the end, destroyed all the computers - is this what 2000 man hoped to escape from? |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.