submissions
| Richard Thompson – I Feel So Good Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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First line is wrong. It's: "I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight." And he means it literally, as evidenced by the second line. I kind of think this is similar to Zevon's "Werewolves of London," farcical and dark. Twisted. Wonderful. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Haitian Divorce Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Here's the part that's odd to me. She goes to Haiti? Who goes to Haiti? I know this song is from the 70s, but I'm not even sure people went to Haiti on such trips even then... |
submissions
| Wilco – Handshake Drugs Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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At first, he's saying he believes he should be "exactly what you want me to be." In the end, though, he's asking "Exactly what did you want me to be?" Seems to me this is a song about the contradiction between intentions and realities. I just love how this song builds on itself and flows. And the "taxicabs were driving me around" is an image that sticks. |
submissions
| The Beatles – Blackbird Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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For what it's worth, AbramGragh, this song was included on the White Album (1968). John Lennon died in 1980, 12 years later. And TigerArmyNeverDie... God help you. |
submissions
| Bodeans – Good Things Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The BoDeans... what a classic American pop sound. It's utterly amazing these guys didn't hit it bigger. |
submissions
| Warren Zevon – Detox Mansion Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Just think these are some brilliant lyrics, especially the lines about "rakin' leaves with Liza/Me and Liz clean up the yard." Also like the part where he shouts "Hot dog!" That Zevon, whatta character! |
submissions
| Foghat – Slow Ride Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song, like some of Peter Frampton's work, features the talking guitar thing. "You know the rhythm is right/We gotta rock all night." This is a true 70s thing, and I love how it segues -- almost like sex -- into different positions. Funky and rockin. Kickass, indeed. |
submissions
| Wilco – I'm the Man Who Loves You Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song has a Beatles-feel to it, though I was thinking more "White Album" with the guitar solo, but it also has a Replacements sound -- the horns. I find myself humming its lyrics from time to time, and I think it's about as catchy a song as Wilco has ever done. Such a universal expression of frustration in love -- All I can be is a busy sea of spinning wheels and hands that feel for stones to throw and feet that run but come back home." |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Kid Charlemagne Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I love the narration: "Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail/Those test tubes and the scale/Just get it all outta here." Also features one of the great guitar solos of all time: Larry Carlton, take a bow. |
submissions
| Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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It think its songcraft is brilliant in that a believer in Jesus could take it straight up and an agnostic could see sarcasm dripping off it. It works either way, and I actually think Depeche Mode's version doesn't really lean either way. It is a great song to hear on a dance floor. |
submissions
| Wilco – Poor Places Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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To answer robopatrolo, yankee, foxtrot and hotel are words associated with shortwave radio transmission. Yankee stands for Y, foxtrot for F and hotel for H. It doesn't really mean anything literally, but is kind of an atmospheric device in a song that I believe is about isolation, the space between us, the America longing for connection in a world where we stand in convenience store lines without so much as looking at one another. The fuzzy transmission of radio is a juxtoposition of the way we behave -- "they cried all over overseas but it makes no difference to me." I'd be interested in hearing theories about this jaws-and-fangs business. |
submissions
| Bruce Springsteen – One Step Up Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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To me this is about compulsive behavior. I know I can relate. We try, but we just don't know how to do the right thing -- somewhere along the way we "slipped off track." I, too, find this a chillingly good song, and while I feel for what fordtrucker has been through, I don't think it's about a guy "being man enough" to get over it. Rather, it's about a guy who cheats and lies for some temporary lovin', and regrets it again and again. |
submissions
| Bruce Springsteen – Brilliant Disguise Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The song "Brilliant Disguise" came out on the "Tunnel of Love" album in fall of 1987. Right before its release, Bruce Springsteen had been newly married to actress Julianne Phillips. Shortly after, the two were divorced and Springsteen took up with Patti Scialfa. He's been with Scialfa ever since. Given these biographical facts, it's hard not to consider what was going on with Bruce while he was writing "Tunnel of Love." Several songs seem to reflect the mindset of a man filled with doubts and regrets. Also, the video for "Brilliant Disguise" is stunning. It simply shows Springsteen singing the song with a guitar as the camera pans closer and closer to his face, revealing things that aren't visible from a distance. Marriages are like that. No one really sees what goes on from the inside, sometimes not even the husband and wife. That's why I feel slightly uncomfortable when I listen to this album. It's like a house of cards, ready to collapse at any moment. |
submissions
| Sting – Sister Moon Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This is one of a series of songs Sting has written that could amount to an theatrical musical of Anne Rice's "Interview With A Vampire." "Nothing like the Sun" is a reference to Shakespeare, he notes in the liner notes of said album, but this is kind of a sequel to "Moon Over Bourbon Street." I'd personally like to see Sting work more in this direction; his devotion to the love song is admirable, but I love most of the songs he's inspired to write in response to art, politics and the human condition. |
submissions
| Wilco – Kingpin Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I dunno what this song means to me, but I like the wordplay. "Dimetapp and Spinal Tap, A-City Maps and hand claps." Kind of like how some of REM's best songs have no real meaning, just a lot of words thrown together that sound good. |
submissions
| The Police – Walking In Your Footsteps Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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It's obviously a relic from the Nuclear Age (see "Russians"). Yet its wisdom carries onward. A somewhat common theme among Sting's songs ("History Will Teach Us Nothing") is how we ignore "lessons in our past." How does this play out in the Terrorism Age? A viewing of Steven Spielberg's "Munich" I think provides some ideas. |
submissions
| The Police – O My God Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Here's an example where Sting gets the "pompous" label misapplied. He's written something here I think most people of faith have felt at one point or another -- a questioning of God and His authority. "How can I turn the other cheek" is angry and the idea that we somehow "take the space between us and fill it up" is a wonderful concept for a song. I really like this one. |
submissions
| The Police – Mother Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Dismal. The worst Police song ever recorded. I guess it somehow plays into the psychological atmosphere of the "Synchronicity" album but really I think it's there to get under the skin. |
submissions
| The Police – Miss Gradenko Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I've always thought of this as some sort of Agatha Christie-meets-the-Golden-Girls song. Although I guess she'd probably be Mrs. Gradenko. Either that or perhaps a kind of "one flew over the cuckoo's nest"-type deal. Hell, I dunno. |
submissions
| The Police – Message In A Bottle Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Sting sure used to like to throw in the stray "yos" a lot, didn't he. "An island lost at sea-yo/Another lonely day/No one here but me-yo" And also a word -- perhaps foreign -- that sounds like "shoque." What's that all about? |
submissions
| The Police – Synchronicity II Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Lines in this song that make me laugh out loud: "Grandmother screaming at the wall," "The factory belches filth into the sky," "The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts," and "Every single meeting with his so-called superiors is a humiliating kick in the crotch." The words are like punches to Stewart Copeland's drum-pummeling. |
submissions
| The Police – Dead End Job Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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"Don't wanna be no millionaire," is kind of like Sting's version of "Hope I Die Before I Get Old." The Police were really just getting started here, and perhaps it's not fair to hang that over Sting's head, but (and I hate to say it) perhaps this kind of hunger is what's missing from a lot of Sting's solo work. He's become a master song craftsman, but perhaps his songs could benefit from a little less comfort in his life. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Free Fallin' Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I think it's just vague enough to see into it whatever the listener wants to. I think it has something to do with loss of innocence and nostalgia and ultimately regaining that sense of freedom one feels in youth, maybe through drugs, maybe by getting in the car with the top down and singing along without abandon, a la Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire." |
submissions
| Wilco – Hotel Arizona Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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I think Hotel Arizona is a kind of ode to Hotel California. It seems to be about getting used to rock-n-roll fame. Then it ends in self-doubt, as not to get too caught up in the trappings. The last line: it sounds good, anyway. |
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