submissions
| My Chemical Romance – Cubicles Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Probably wrong, but I always think this song is about a guy, working in a really crappy office, who falls in love with this girl who is similarly unhappy at the job. He watches her at the office, but later finds out that she committed suicide. I'm disinclined to agree with the hospital interpretation, though I guess it kind of works.
Also reminds me of the video for Disturbed's "Voices."
But whatever it's about, it's definitely one of my favorite songs by MCR (though it's so hard to choose). |
submissions
| My Chemical Romance – Dead! Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I agree with Ms. Chelsea.Lane above me. The Patient is either dead or rapidly moribund, and can't keep back the cynicism. Kind of reminds me of Ippolit's speech in "The Idiot."
I love this song. I'm laughing and grinning like and eejit by the end, almost guaranteed. |
submissions
| My Chemical Romance – Kill All Your Friends Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Oh... And I've listened to this song about 20 times today. I love it a lot.
However, I want to add that I don't think it's necessarily unrelated to the story of the Patient. I'd love to see some interpretations of how could tie in.
Maybe it's the Patient going to a friend's funeral? Or maybe it's his "friends" showing up and raising hell because he's gone. That would be cool. |
submissions
| My Chemical Romance – Kill All Your Friends Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think this is a song about a person killing their old friends from high school, but in a different way...
To me -- and this could just be my sick-o noir obsession talking -- it's from a point of view of a guy, talking about a girl he keeps seeing at his friend's funerals. She knew them in high school, and basically she's been going through and marrying these guys, or going out with them, and then killing them. The guy is afraid that the girl will kill him and he wants to try to stop her. So that's where all the "You'll never take me alive," "I will die in this place," "I will drown in the fear" stuff comes from. He's not going to let her kill him, damn it.
"We're all a bunch of animals that never paid attention in school"... Reminds me of my school. :) |
submissions
| The Decemberists – July, July! Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This was the first song I ever heard by the Decemberists. Thank you, friend-who-still-makes-mixtapes. I love the chickens and their chicken chains, too. I've had chickens. The idea cracks me up every time. |
submissions
| The Cure – Mint Car Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Maybe I'm jaded from too much Pixies, but this song always seems kind of ironic to me. Like they're kind of making fun of happy music rather than actually writing it. "So happy I could scream"? I mean, really, that's got to be ironic or I'm worried.
But I do love that cute little scream Smith throws in there. Heh. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – Lady Midnight Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Beautiful! It seems like a fantasy of someday being able to subjugate the female force -- the White Goddess, the feminine spirit of the night. "You've won me, you've won me, my lord." Or maybe it's a history of early religion, going from terrifying earth venuses to a semi-dominated chivalric maiden.
Damn, too much Golden Bough for me. but it's still beautiful. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – Famous Blue Raincoat Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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In the liner notes for my (much loved/abused) "Best of Leonard Cohen" CD, he talks about having had an old Burberry raincoat, which "hung more heroically when the lining was removed" and "achieved legendary status when it was repaired with some leather." (Excuse me if this is not an exact quotation -- I don't have the box with me and this is from memory.) He goes on to talk about how he left it in a woman's attic and it was lost there, either because she moved or because of a fire (I can't remember which). He then states, with what seems almost like sadness, "I wasn't wearing it much towards the end."
Could it not be that Cohen is, somehow, talking to himself here? The raincoat, quite frankly, reminds me of the kind of youthful, affected clothing one oftens wears in adolescence and early adulthood, then puts off but thinks about later. Perhaps Cohen is, in a broader sense, writing to himself, thinking about how, as an adult, it's so much harder to know what to do and what not to do -- "I thought it was there for good, so I never tried" -- and wondering if, perhaps, he wasn't a better man then.
Just my interpretation of the song. |
submissions
| Rasputina – Crosswalk Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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"Why is my bleeding heart beating?"
God, all I can think of is Ibsen and how over the top some of the lines in his plays are. For example, in "Hedda Gabler," the title character says, as she throws herself backwards onto a sofa, "Why must everything that I touch become ugly?" Gets me every time.
That's not to say that i don't like the song; it just reminds me of Scandinavian melodrama. |
submissions
| Blonde Redhead – Messenger Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I tend to agree with Spirtos. Also, this song reminds me of "The Last Book in the Universe" by Rodman Philbrick, which features a shadowy group of messengers. |
submissions
| Blonde Redhead – Misery Is a Butterfly Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Reading the lyrics, I was reminded more of "Jane Eyre," especially the part right at the end, after Rochester's... incident. He talks about how he never wanted to do anything bad to her, really, et cetera. Then again, I just read the book recently and "Catcher in the Rye" never made that big of an impression on me anyway. (Heresy, I know, but oh well). |
submissions
| Blonde Redhead – Maddening Cloud Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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For some reason this song reminds meof the book "The Cloud of Unknowing," by person or persons unknown. I've never read it, but that's what "maddening cloud" means to me. |
submissions
| Blonde Redhead – Magic Mountain Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Is this song not about the novel "the Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann? I haven't read it, so I don't really know, but I suspect that's what it is. Especially if they're also referencing "Equus" by Peter Schaffer.
Sepulchrave,is your name drawn from Gormenghast at all? |
submissions
| Pixies – Ed Is Dead Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always thought it was a kind of cynical little song about how shallow everything in California is. (But that could just be my problems with California talking.) I'd never heard that story, though, and it makes sense. |
submissions
| Pixies – I Bleed Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'm not sure waht it's about, but I love the use of archaic language in a good rock song. Prithee, my dear.
Also, for the record, I always thought the line was "There's a phallus / In the way out west," which suggests a host of other meanings, but it looks like I was wrong. (Radio sits at the computer, blushing like mad.) |
submissions
| Blonde Redhead – Doll Is Mine Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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For one thing, this song reminds me irresistably of "Fullmetal Alchemist" and I can't think why.
For another, I suspect it may be about "V." by Thomas Pynchon. In "V.," especially the chapter "V In Love," there's lots of stuff with fetishes and at one point a girl masturbates against a mannequin. Also, by the end of the book, V. herself is largely made of false parts, which would explain the "isn't it strange how pain remains?" -- as in, amputees have said that there is sometimes a phantom sensation, like an itch. |
submissions
| Pixies – Nimrod's Son Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Also, the main character in "Flow My Tears..." is being hunted by the incest-practicing guy. "Nimrod's Son." |
submissions
| Pixies – Nimrod's Son Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song reminds me of Philip K. Dick's "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said," which is incredible and features a similarly creepy situation.
I'm wondering if this song doesn't have something to do with the book, since in the book a man and his sister -- not mother -- have relations with produce a child. The child grows up, goes to cop-school and, if I'm not mistaken, gets in a motorcycle accident that leaves him wheel-chair bound. Perhaps the song is about that child? (Incidentally, the kid is barely mentioned in the book. He garners all of one paragraph, right at the end. But it's an awesome book.) |
submissions
| Pixies – Where Is My Mind? Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I love this song. It's the first Pixies song I ever heard (and, for the record, it wasn't in "Fight Club." It was on an honest-to-God mixtape from a good friend) and I love it.
It tends to feel to me like the peace that someone would feel if they were left off of Noah's Ark. |
submissions
| Pixies – The Holiday Song Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I always figured it was about incest, as kind of a double to "Nimrod's Son" -- one is about an incestuous relationship and one is about the consequences. But I'm pretty sure it's "painted her on the sheets." I tend to think that incest in the head like that is just as bad as incest "for real," so to speak.
Also, "painted her on the sheets" reminds me of Fernand Knopff, the late-19th-century Belgian painter. He painted many paintingsof his sister, including one called Memory that features her in six or seven different outfits and poses on a lawn ("Grass and trees" are both present in the painting). In every single one of them, she's buttoned up to the chin and the only skin visible is her face and a little of her neck.
So there's my worthless -- but not counterfeit -- two cents. |
submissions
| Pixies – Mr. Grieves Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I long to hear this song done, not as doo-wop but as a sexy cabaret anthem.
Ahem. Anyway. I tend to equate Mr. Grieves with Baron Samedi in the voodoo tradition. I'm not sure why, entirely. |
submissions
| Pixies – Crackity Jones Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I seem to recall the lyric being "he receives in his head" and "I'm afraid you'll hurt me, boy." I like this song a lot, though. He sounds every bit as insane as his room-mate probably was, and much more scared. |
submissions
| Pixies – River Euphrates Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'm not sure what it means, but I was thinking about this song the entire time I was reading the "Epic of Gilgamesh." Especially the bits with Enkidu the wild man. I love the "Ride, ride, ride" thing.
However, as to the "song is about sex"interpretation -- I don't think it really matters whether he's saying tire or tiger, since both wouldmake sense in that context. Tiger as in, one who is sexy or one of those God-awful innuendoes that are completely un-subtle. Tire as in, a 19th century contraceptive sponge that bore a general resemblance to a tire with a hubcap. Not called it at the time, but I can see how the connection would be made. |
submissions
| Pixies – Caribou Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song always kind of reminds me of the sort of crazed-preacher subgenre of horror. Like, say, Garth Ennis's "Preacher" comic, or the story "Dradin in Love" by jeff VanderMeer. But I like the werewolf thing, too. I just thought "crazy preacher" because of the "REPENT"-shouting and the "give dirt to me" line and all the stuff about being in a huge city. It seems like a preachergoing crazy because he lives in a big, evil sin city and there's nothing he can do about it. He's just so certain that everyone's going to Hell and he's powerless to stop it.
But that's just the impression I got from listening to the song. I never bothered to read the lyrics until now. |
submissions
| Ed Harcourt – Wind Through The Trees Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'm not sure about the actual meaning of the song, but it always puts me in mind of Sojiro from "Rurouni Kenshin" -- the creepy, emotionless kid who killed his family. Which I guess says something about the song. |
submissions
| Augustana – Stars and Boulevards Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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mmmm. I love this song. All I can think of when I hear it is "The House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski, specifically the Johnny Truant parts. |
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