submissions
| Indigo Girls – The Wood Song Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think this is one of Emily's best. Partly for the musical sophistication (modulation and variety in harmony part); but also this lyric. Seems to be about spirituality. |
submissions
| Indigo Girls – Chickenman Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I saw them play this live and Amy explained the song during an instrumental break. It was amazing because it was the first time the song made any sense to me. The chicken man was an old guy selling stuff on the side of the highway. I remember she started her explanation by saying that, when they were first touring, she was driving around in a beat up VW(?) and she was saddened seeing so many dead animals (roadkill: "median" cat(?), dead deer, prairie dogs, rabbit). She said something about the woman who was beaten in Austin; again, another reflection from life on the road at the time, I think. She then said something about how "all the carnage" can upset a person so much that she would end up walking around the street with a loaded gun not knowing what to do but feeling desperate; sounded like something she really did one day ("darkness into darkness/all the carnage of my journey/makes it harder to be living"). But without the explanation, the song would have made no sense. |
submissions
| The Police – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Mrs D.V., I wonder if a guy has ever felt that way about you. The problem is, it's usually the ONE person we're least attracted to! Always seems to be the way. Have you felt this way about a guy before? It always surprises me that a guy as great looking as Sting has a couple songs where he says he's tongue tied and lonely. |
submissions
| The Police – Every Breath You Take Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think Sting did say the song is about surveillance. The idea that he wrote it on the porch/veranda of Ian Flemming's house (true or not; maybe he made that up to spice things up) is cool. I do think it's MISinterpreted as a love song; a lot of proms used it as their theme song, and PDiddy MISused it in his song to the Notorious B.I.G. I think the beauty of the song and lyrics plays COUNTERPOINT to its creepy meaning; it shows the guy is a bit sick, he sees it as a beautiful love and is in a kind of a bubble, he doesn't see how sick he's being. |
submissions
| Indigo Girls – Burn All the Letters Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I wonder if she's talking about Virginia Woolf again? I feel like part of it is that she's finding, that being an artist, what you mean in your lyrics/writing is often misinterpreted "Send it back before the public eye/perverts it in the reading". Part of it must be influenced by their time with Native American rights advocates who have been abused by the government, FBI, etc. But I wonder if the "soldiers..coming to plunder" aren't also the public misinterpreting an artist's writing? hungrily consuming it? Is she kind of apologizing to Virginia Woolf for reading her diary, something she now wishes was never published? perverted by the nature of being made public? |
submissions
| U2 – Where The Streets Have No Name Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Okay, so in the chorus he's maybe switching thoughts: "Where the streets have no name" is the ideal place; then he brings us back to our society, where "We're still building/then burning down love"; then he switches back to utopia "And when I go there...". Again, with "our love turns to rust", I guess he returns to our poisoned society (the impoverished place he and his wife were visiting at the time). So maybe he's switching back and forth, comparing us and utopia? |
submissions
| U2 – I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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narcoplepsy: Well, the last verse is pretty clear. First of all "I believe in the Kingdom Come". In that context, when he says "you", he seems to mean Jesus ("carried the cross of my shame/you know I believe it"). Then he says "but"; though he believes in Jesus, the Kingdom Come, etc., he still hasn't found absolute certainty about God; he believes, but he's still searching. That's what I think the whole song is about: all the ways he's tried to find certainty about God. In the beginning, when he says, "Only to be with you", I think "you" is God (like in George Harrison's song "My Sweet Lord"). He's tried meditative practices ("sealed these city walls"), maybe passionate love? ("kissed honey lips/felt the healing fingertips"), he's "held the hand of the devil"; but he's still searching. I think almost everyone who seeks God feel this way. |
submissions
| U2 – Even Better Than The Real Thing Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always thought this was a simple sex song, in line with virtual reality. How consumerist to say a woman is so hot ("unreal") that she's even better than real love. It seems to me almost a virtual reality/pop/ satirical reply to "ain't nothin' like the real thing baby". What you'd call "tongue in cheek". I don't think he's that serious, he's just kind flicking off love just for fun. |
submissions
| The Go-Gos – Our Lips Are Sealed Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always thought it had the double meaning: they are kissing (our lips) and they are being secretive from gossipy, catty people. Feels like a high school song, like the movie "Heathers", where people will rip you down when they find out that you have feelings for someone. She's saying the gossipers are jealous (Can you see...right through them). She's defending their relationship and saying how sweet it is for it to be secret; their weapon is silence. It's that standing up to social bullies thing: "look right through them/that's when they'll disappear (back down)/that's when we'll be feared". |
submissions
| 'Til Tuesday – Voices Carry Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think it is about Michael Hausman, it's great because she told him she's falling in love with him, and his response is "keep it down, someone (another girl I'm interested in) might find out, keep it a secret", and she made a hit song about it and shouted it all over the radio! Voices do indeed carry! I always thought he was trying to keep her "on the down low" so he could date other women ("she might overhear"). He is abusive in trying to "keep her in line", make her hide her feelings, her tears, etc. "He said shut up." Good art in that she had trouble dealing with this in her life but was able to shout about it in her art. |
submissions
| Aimee Mann – Invisible Ink Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I can't tell if she's singing to a man or to her fans? She may be talking about how her fans sometimes misread her lyrics, similar to the Indigo Girls' song "Burn All the Letters". But the lyric about "magic at first glance/is just sleight of hand depending how much you believe" does sound like a reference to love. |
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| Alice in Chains – Rooster Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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"They spit on my in my home land": people at home (U.S.) protesting the Vietnam War were known to actually spit at soldiers who were returning from the war. People who protest the Iraq war today have learned to oppose the war but honor the U.S. soldier. In "Gloria sent me pictures of my boy", I'm guessing Gloria is Cantrell Sr.'s wife and the pics of the boys (Jerry being one of them) are one of the few things that keep him going.
I always thought the line was "Lawyers send me pictures of my boys" since a lot of soldiers' wives may have divorced them during the war; fortunately for Cantrell Sr. I guess this wasn't the case. |
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| Tool – Forty Six & 2 Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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What in the world is he saying during the parts he whispers (at the beginning of both verses)? |
submissions
| U2 – I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I always thought "I have kissed honey lips..." was about a woman. I can see how a man searching for an answer can end up looking everywhere: God, the devil, sex, drugs, etc., and still not have a concrete answer. God is the best answer but still ends at faith, not something easily tangible. I thought he was saying he's tried multiple avenues: the 1-in-a-million sexual experience ('honey lips', like in the song when he says she's "even better than the real thing"), maybe the devil(?); but neither really gave him an answer. Christ is the answer he continues to pursue; but he still isn't absolutely sure, he has to rely on his faith ("...but yes, I'm still running."). One of the best lines is "then all the colors will bleed into one". A very Martin Luther King, Jr. line if I've ever heard one. I think a lot of people on sincere spiritual journeys, especially those who always have to question everything (as I imagine Bono is), still have questions about their faith. |
submissions
| U2 – Where The Streets Have No Name Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I used to think the lyric was "They're still building them / burning them down" meaning this city is still actively changing. Sort of (but not exactly) like how DiCaprio's character describes New York in "Gangs of New York": 'It wasn't a city; it was a furnace out of which a great city would be forged.' What does "burning down love" mean? Is 'love' the shelters that volunteers have built for the Ethiopians that are getting burned down? Is that what he means by "our love turns to rust", kind of like a shantytown corrogated metal shack kind of a thing? I don't understand what those two lines mean, though I guess real poetry is supposed to sometimes make subconscious sense if not conscious sense. |
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