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| Pink Floyd – A New Machine (Part 2) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Well then, I shall comment here as well! The two halves of the song form a whole any way. So, to reiterate: for me, this is about a mind trapped in a head in cryogenic freeze (a hot topic, ahem, at the time it was written?) – think about it... It's only a lifetime (prolonged)… Tired of waiting (for a cure/release)… Nobody lives forever (despite the promises of crygenic science)… And then there's the instrumental interlude: Terminal Frost. Am I right or wot?! ;-] |
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| Pink Floyd – A New Machine (Part 1) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always thought this was about a mind trapped in a head in cryogenc freeze. Was that topical when the song was written, or just when I first got into the album? (1990 at polytechnic.) Dunno where I got the idea from, but it fits for me. (Check out Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus (TV drama) for a similar idea, but much later.) |
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| Blur – He Thought of Cars Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think it's about the dreadful and worsening state of the (Western) world. Columbia's snow reference is to coke, surely. People trying to escape through other means, but he – lonely he – is doing his escape by daydreaming about sports cars and a possible happy life: "Who to drive them with". Is it possble, though? Great chill-out down song, but you might need some ELO to cheer up with afterwards! |
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| Blur – Battery in Your Leg Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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They're not making up for his absence – that's him playing, surely. Apart from B-sides to its singles, this was the only Think Tank song to have the Coxon's input. Appropriate, therefore, that it speaks of a longing for the past. Damon always says the door is open, but Graham seems to have moved on. |
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| Blur – This Is a Low Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The lyric listing for this one is full of errors.
The Shipping Forecast – a BBC Radio 4 staple – is referenced throughout (the different shipping areas mentioned include Dogger Bank and Cromarty), but the song's a lot deeper, of course. The Forecast is just the thing to listen to when you are in a low – it's totally meaningless (when you're not at sea), yet the comfort of a human voice is there, sounding like there is order and control in the world, if not presently in your life... |
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| Pink Floyd – Bike Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think this song is about how difficult it is to talk to girls. In so far as it's deliberately 'about' anything rather than more a stream of consciousness put to music – see previous comments about the state of Syd's mind. It's like a shy guy's attempts to make conversation with a girl he's mad for. The chorus may even be an internal dialogue while he's actually wittering on trying to talk to her about anything and everything, making a fool of himself. I can relate (without doing acid!). It is to be hoped that she found his efforts endearing :-] Syd RIP. |
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| Pet Shop Boys – Rent Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I have always thought this to be the very best Pet Shop Boys song, but it never occurred to me it was actually about rent boys until reading the comments above! Mind you, I was young and naive enough when I first heard it over 20 years ago to assume that the person he is singing to is necessarily a woman! In fact, of course, it's about a kept man and the nature of all such relationships. Terribly sad and also a comment on 1980s life, as were all the Boys' songs at the time, it remains nevertheless timeless and seminal. The irony in the repeated lline 'It's so easy' is particularly moving. |
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| Eagles – The Last Resort Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song is so very clearly an attack on the Church. It could not be any clearer in the lyrics. (Even if you ignore the tone when it refers to missionaries and the Sunday-morning singers, and the clever double meaning of the exclamation "and Jesus, people bought 'em" – "Jesus' people"? Even "Jesus-people"?) Very interesting, therefore, to hear that the Eagles are now born-again Christians yet still performing the song! Of course, the band were always spiritual and the point is that the faith itself is not their target. It's about the Native Americans' respectful ways with regards to what was a paradise on earth being turned over, and the "white man's" excesses/crimes and greed being outrageously justified in the name of God – they "brought the... burden down" with "bloody deeds", "raped the land" etc. etc. until the paradise was no more. The essential message of Christianty was never the target, but the self-righteous colonial nature of Bible-bashing settlers; the song is a warning to appreciate what we have on earth, whether you believe a God gave it to us or not. |
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| Eagles – Life In The Fast Lane Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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It's about sex, too, of course. They start out physically attracted to each other and the one thing they have in commmon is that they are both good in bed and, we can assume, very active there. Soon, they are losing their looks – there were lines on the mirror = lines on her face – but they just keep going to the parties and staying up doing the lifestyle. Soon they have nothing left of their shallow relationship at all: He is too tired to shag and she's too tired to care. It's a pretty desperate moral message, given that they are both dying of their excesses at the end without even any comfort left in each other. A really great track, of course! |
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| Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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There are two things I want to add to this discussion:
1) The phrase "It's a knock-out!" appears – this was the British title of the (hilarious) Jeux Sans Frontiers TV show/tournament and the all-UK version as teams vied for the right to compete against our European neighbours.
2) In terms of the deeper themes in the song, the political angles are covered by some key moments in the lyrics. All the children have hills to fly their flags on, except one – whom I am guessng from their Oriental name is representative of Taiwain or some other country occupied/repressed by China (likewise Tibet) |
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| Electric Light Orchestra – Rockaria! Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The idea that there is an alusion to sex here is interesting and entirely credible. Don't forget, though, that he finds he doesn't have to teach her about rock'n'roll – she surprises him in the last verse by not only being ready, but teaching him a thing or two and rocking all night!! |
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| Electric Light Orchestra – Mr. Blue Sky Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I have to add that there is a strange recurring obsession with rain throughout ELO's (Jeff Lynne's) body of work – strange, that is, until you realise that the band were all from Birmingham!!! ;-]
This song is of course the fourth and final part of the Concerto for a Rainy Day from the Out of the Blue album (comprising a whole side of the original double LP). The sun comes out at the end, after three other great tracks that I recommend you should listen to as a whole some time. Big Wheels, especially, is another lovely song. |
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| T'pau – Secret Garden Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Believe it or not, this song is about gender realignment. Really! When I first found that out, I was amazed, but it really is written from the point of view of a transexual. (Read it and check out the references.) I suspect Decker was widening the issues and using it as a metaphor for the way many of us have to confront our own natures and realise that those round us might struggle to handle the truth. I can't imagine she has any real experience of a sex-change operation (it was a staggering success if so!!) |
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| David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Another great work from a master songwright. Much of the chat above is reaction to a post that seems to have disappeared (though its content can be guessed at) – so well done for removing the offending 'article', everyone! But back to the song. Am I the only one who gets a lump in my throat / hackles rising at the bridge bit? "I never done good things. I never done bad things. I never did anything out of the blue" – I guess we've all had moments like that when we think about our lives and feel we've not achieved anything at all, never had any sort of impact or even one moment of inspiration... not necessarily because of drug abuse(!), but simply because self-doubt, like regret, is part of being alive. As a wise man once said, you just have to work at keeping it a small part. (I don't care about the 'prestige' of my sources; a good thought is where you find it.) |
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| T'pau – Valentine Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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One of Carol Decker's songs about unrequited love for an unatainable figure who's nevertheless in her life (see also I Will Be With You, Only the Lonely, Between the Lines). She also covers the subject of break-ups and failing relationships a few times (Heart and Soul, Thank You for Goodbye, Walk on Air etc.) but later produces more positive 'moving on' pieces, too, such as A Place in My Heart and Whenever You Need Me. And then there are her extraordinary songs about less conventional pop-song subjects – see China in Your Hand, Secret Garden, You Give Up, Soul Destruction etc. A much underrated / oddly dismissed talent. |
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| T'pau – China In Your Hand Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Well researched and, I reckon (I've not heard Ms Decker's own explanation) spot on. Except that I always thought: 'It was a theme she had on a scheme he had' referred to Mary Shelly's response to the game they were playing. Historically, there was a party held at a remote foreign castle (referenced in the song) and in attendance were the Shelleys, one Dr Polidori and Lord Byron. He challenegd them all to write a horror story to suite the setting. Polidori wrote The Vampyre (worth a read!) and no-one else managed anything good (ironic since the others were famous poets!), except Mary concieved the fabulous Frankenstein story and it also ended up published (I found it hard going, but utlimately worth reading). So the scheme he had was the story-writing and the foreign land refers to where she wrote it, not to the story itself. Just my thoughts... |
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| Pink Floyd – The Fletcher Memorial Home Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I too have been wondering about that final refrain: "Is everyone in?" And "Now the Final Solution [caps?] can be applied." I really don't imagine that Roger Waters would intentionally trivialise the Holocaust, no. But I do not know whether he is suggesting that the Nazis' Final Solution be carried out ironically within the Fletcher Memorial home on the likes of Hitler – advocating the extermination of these "incurable tyrants" and "colonial wasters", which would be an expression of support for the death penalty (albeit in what Waters sees as extreme circumstances, they being beyond redemption). Or whether he is instead appropriating the Nazi's phrase for something else (in the way the 'suffragettes' empowered themselves by taking on this label applied to them by a sneering right-wing press; or the way gay people have adopted words that once demeaned them) – specifically using the phrase to mean some great work to repair the world that can only be undertaken once we've rid ourselves of these hideous people by locking them all up. I assumed the latter originally, the home being (patronisingly) comfortable – I thought that Waters meant let's lock them all away and then we can get on with sorting out the mess. Now I'm older and more cynical, I wonder if he didn't actually mean the former – lure them into the home then, when we've got them all, do unto them what the worst of them intended for the innocents. Either way, it's a powerful song on a great album. |
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