| Bright Eyes – We Are Nowhere and It's Now Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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In my opinion, this song is about dispelling the illusion of modernity. We live in modern times, we have all of this technology and commodities, and we fool ourselves into believing we're so much better off because of it, when in reality, we've gotten nowhere. We've intellectually killed god, but it leaves us feeling empty and alone. We've committed philosophical suicide in abandoning the notion of absolute truth. We try to live in the moment, but we end up feeling trapped in it. "I've been sleeping so strange at night Side effects they don't advertise I've been sleeping so strange With a head full of pesticide" is my favorite line of the song. We live in a world laden with thousands of industrial chemicals, harmful food additives, and pharmaceutical drugs, substances that affect our bodies and minds in untold ways because we don't understand them well enough to use them responsibly (as there's no way to test the millions of possible interactions between various chemicals that end up in our bodies, we don't know really know what we're doing to ourselves). As a result, myriad psychological problems as well as "diseases of civilization" plague the modern world. Or I might just be assuming that because I've always felt "off" in a way I can't quite put my finger on, like I don't quite fit the paradigm of what it means to be a human being, if there even is such a thing. In my mind, at least, there's no other interpretation for those particular lyrics, and they summarize my own feelings perfectly. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – Oh Comely Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Jeff did this entire recording on his first try, in one take. The guy is yelling "holy shit" because he fucking nailed it. Hell yes. |
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| Jack's Mannequin – Rescued Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I'm pretty confident that this song has a rather specific interpretation, and that I understand what it is pretty clearly. Check out my interpretation of "Kill the Messenger", because this is a concept album about Andrew's summer, and everything ties together. This song, of course, is about the end of his summer, hence "this" was "lying at the bottom of her swimming pool some September", like it was bound to happen. This is the clean break attempt to end all clean breaks, in a sense ("I'm Ready" is an attempt to make a clean break after vacation ends in "Bruised". "La La Lie" is about the denial that follows the end of a relationship he really didn't want to lose. "Dark Blue" is about how lonely he felt in the arms of a rebound chick. "Miss Delaney" is about the rebound chick he thought could make him happy, but he was of course mistaken because she was a liar. In "Kill the Messenger", he's reunited with the girl he really wants, but it's so agonizing that he essentially creates an alter-ego to distance himself from her enough to push her away for the last time, which surprisingly doesn't work, as here we are at "Rescued.") Denial isn't the main theme of this song, but at this point the relationship is based on it ("your lips give you away"). And then he introduces the storm analogy; don't think of a thunderstorm, but a hurricane (which interestingly enough is a Something Corporate song). The center of the storm, or the center of this tumultuous relationship, is perfectly quiet (look up the eye of the storm), like a moment of clarity. He's hearing this, like it's a jet engine through the center of the storm, something that's perfectly obvious when everything else quiets down. He's come to realize this, so this is the last time, because he now sees the right thing to do. And he doesn't want to be "rescued", because that means revisiting the denial. He's been rescued many times before, as the two been bouncing back and forth the entire summer, the whole album, and that doesn't work, so he's following himself instead of following her. He was "spun" when he paid attention and heard this jet engine roaring, and she seems to hear it as well. "Or this could take all year" if they both decide to close their ears again. And when it's quiet, she really hears him for once, and he's "jettisoned" to the center of the storm. To "jettison" is to discard something from an aircraft that's in danger of wrecking, lightening its load to imrpove stability. She discards him, and he ends up in the center of the storm, where he finally realizes that he doesn't want to be rescued again. At this point, she's struggling desperately to "keep him cold", to subdue the feelings that will lead them back together again. He's finally numb, so it worked, and during this moment of clarity he feels that he wants it to stay that way. Andrew's so devastated by all of this that he even wonders if this will be his "last song" (thankfully it wasn't). Similar to the way her lips give her away, he can tell she's "raising hell to give to him", as in, she's creating havoc between the two of them because she wants to end it without outrightly rejecting him (ironically, in the same way that Andrew tries to "send a little rain her way" in "Kill the Messenger"). She "got him warm", which is to say she was the one, in the first place, who made him feel the opposite of cold and numb, so he doesn't want her to rescue him and make him feel that way again. He wants her to tell him she'll miss him one last time for closure's sake, and he sees letting her go as the strong thing to do. And he's saying all this because once again, presumably the way he felt every time they bounced back to each other, he's feeling like he might need to be near her. He feels "alright", which is very difficult to do after a breakup like this, and he's desperately grasping that. Happy ending, though. He ended up marrying the chick that this album is about (whom also happens to be the subject of most of Something Corporate's songs, as I understand it). I hope they've found happiness together. Andrew definitely deserves it. |
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| Jack's Mannequin – Swim Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Think "Watch the Sky", if you'll remember that. "It's a deep sea in which I'm floating"--this song is an exploration of that lyric, and it shares the same spirit of his will to subsist against all odds and adversity. You know, Andrew always said that Watch the Sky was his favorite song of his own... It sounds like he has such a hard time going through life--"Just keep your head above" "I will crawl". In Cavanaugh Park, he seemed to have decided that "there was never any place for someone like me to be happy." If he felt like this before cancer, I can't imagine how hard it was for him to make it through that. I'll continue to see Andrew as a person that truly inspires me. I hope true happiness finds him soon enough. | |
| Jack's Mannequin – Kill The Messenger Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I used to find this song, not to mention this entire album, so cryptic, but once I started to realize that the whole work is an ongoing story, everything started to fall into place. Let me give you my personal take. A lot of the album is about the two gravitating back and forth between each other, and this song, as well as Rescued, in my opinion, is about trying to finally make a clean break (I'll tell you, I personally know how hard it can be to do that, even if it's for the best). "I'm gonna send a little rain your way..." Sometimes, it seems like the only way to push away the one you love, the one that loves you, is with something like the overwhelming fury of a storm. Listen to the way he sings this particular line. The melody and delivery sounds about right for somebody reluctantly hurting the one he loves, even if he feels it must be done. "Rain to pour down on you... Rain to make the flowers bloom... Rain to leave you all alone" A markedly different melody and delivery compared to the previous lyric. The piano line seems to sing with promise of renewal and growth. He feels sure that this is what must be done, that finally letting go is what's right. You can take the last line of this bit quite literally... he wants to be able to leave her alone. He wants to push her so far away that she can't come running back anymore. And at the same time, that will allow her flowers to bloom, allow her to move on with a new beginning. Read about the whole eyelash falling/making a wish thing, and that'll make sense, too (I had to look it up to get that line). "Kill the messenger, I swear it's not me, it's just someone I used to know..." As he pushes her away, he's trying to distance himself from who he was, from who she loved, because he doesn't want her to have anyone to come running back to. Look up the lyrics to the John Wesley Harding song "Kill the Messenger". Andrew's lyrics make much more sense as a reference to that song. The messenger who bears bad news, though he is only a mere messenger, is to receive the blame, is to be killed for delivering the message. What's more, if you give the actual song a listen (try seeqpod.com), the chorus melody is almost exactly the same as the chorus in this song, and clearly inspired it. He is no longer who she loved; he is the messenger, and he wants to be dead to her. "And all I need from you could be the thing that leaves us both up here/that leaves me locked up here forever..." That thing is the thing that banishes them, and him ("me" being the person she loved, as opposed to the empty shell of a messenger that he wants to project) to the confines of his thoughts, his mind ("up here"), forever. That thing is what would kill the messenger. He's ready to drop, and only needs for her to let go by delivering the final shove (think of "I'm Ready". Like I said, they've been gravitating back and forth for a while at this point in the story). "It's not so easy caving in... etc." He's struggling to make himself numb. This idea seems to show itself all over the album. Although the colors are dim, although he's ironically warmer outside of her apartment than in it, it's only because he's emotionally suffocating himself. As for the first verse in the song, it should be pretty straightforward in terms of what I've already said. It's extremely painful to do this to yourself. I feel I would know. "And get to church 'cause you're a good girl, and I never told you that..." He wants her to believe in something better than he could ever give her. He wants her to have the faith that might make her happy. As an agnostic who only wishes he had the capacity for that sort of spiritual fulfillment, I can particularly empathize with this lyric. Well, that's about the size of it. For once, I'm quite confident in my understanding of something Andrew McMahon has written. Tell me if you think I've got something here, and maybe I'll spill my beans for the rest of the album or something. |
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| My Chemical Romance – Dead! Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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"If life ain't just a joke Then why are we laughing?" Best lines on the entire album. Life is just so much more tolerable with this mentality. |
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| Emery – The Ponytail Parade Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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The acoustic version is orgasmically amazing... "I never thought that you could say these words, is this really happening? (Don't say that we can still be friends)" I love how the song takes on a major key here, completely contrasting with the rest of the song... It sounds and feels like that moment of hysterical desperation, when you keep telling yourself that it's all just a bad dream, that you'll wake up and everything'll be okay... Personally, when I think of "Ponytail Parades", I imagine a parade, a display, of girls walking away from me (hence, the ponytail). That's the only guess I have as to the title of the song. XD |
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