| Elliott Smith – New Monkey Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
This is a heroin song, but more specifically I think this is about the aimless emtpyness of being trying to keep off heroin and being straight. It's that paradoxical existence of being a junky; on the one hand you have the machinistic fix chasing existence of the habit, and the other crushing depression and stark boredom of life without herion. Heroin defines your life, gives it purpose, the purpose of getting the next hit, however twisted and morbid that appears to most of us. For addicts the reality of life without the habit is similar in some respects to living a life without purpose, hence lines like: You've got to settle for something Though it might not be really living Anything is better than nothing Check out Burrough's 'Junky' for a full colour litery version of this song. |
|
| Elliott Smith – Condor Ave. Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
*************************** Looks like he's buried in the sand at the beach I can't think about you driving off to leave, barely awake To take a little nap while the road is straight *If you think about a man half buried at the beach it describes how this drunk is wedged under the wheel of a car (not pretty i know) and you can only see the top half of his body. Goes on to describe how the women fell asleep at the wheel she veers of a perfectly straight road to crash and running over this drunk in the process. I wish that car had never been discovered They took away the bottle and the hat he was under That's the one thing that he could never do And it'll make a whisper out of you *He describes how the drunk was deiscovered with the bottle of beer still between histeeth and his hat still on his head. The people who discover him take the bottle of beer out of his mouth which is a thing he could never do and now he can rest in peace. ************************ I think that is pretty spot on alexsaxon, I think you're right about the girlfriend crashing into a tramp. I've always imagined that the car she was driving was smashed directly into the tramp who was sitting down the tramp in the end leaving just his head visible above the bonnet... like being buried at the beach. Taking away the bottle... something he could never do... That's spot on. I like to think that the tramp/moth in some way describes himself as well. For me the interesting thing about the song is that it written in almost entirely in the act of flashback; I'm sure the exact way you would relive a horrible incident such as that. Remembering the surrealness of the situation with stuff like 'burried at the beach' 'sick shouting' etc and imagining how it occurred 'take a little nap while the road was straight', and regretting the arguments and harsh words that you never realised word be your last to them 'What a shitty thing to say'. There's that very real sense of the now, the act of remembering the whole event 'I can't think about you driving off to leave...' 'I'm lying down, blowing smoke from my cigarette...' Incredible song. He will be much missed. |
|
| Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Craw Song Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
I always thought that line that says "stick that in your craw" was "stick that in your crotch." I never knew the title of the song,but i guess it makes sense either way. Ever get the impression that SM loves to love? |
|
| Radiohead – Airbag Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
I'm pretty sure Thom would be aware of this, but this song is almost exactly the same as the story that Marinetti tells at the beggining of the Futuristic Manifesto written in 1909. Marinetti speak of how he survives a car crash which his car flips into a ditch and he is 'reborn' in the mud and black oil. Futurism has been cited as on of the artistic movements behind the rise of fascism in Italy, I find it interesting that this song envokes and fetishes images of technology and war in the same manner of the Futurist Manifesto to different conclusions. The Futurist Manifesto: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html |
|
| Quasi – Please Do Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
OK so it's Sam Coombes, not Sam Cook. He's someone COMPLETELY different. Wo is me! |
|
| Quasi – Please Do Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
This song has got to be about Eliott Smith. The misery pusher has been served well by suffering 'It's common but it somehow sells'. Obviously Cook has a low opinion of the scope and ambition of Smith's music, and even goes as far as mocking it's sincerity: 'You never cried, you never froze, and yet how well you graden grows'. This song is a direct challenge to Smith to push himself and his music out of it's self absorbed state of misery. 'Please do!' is pleaded at the last, in some way to clear the stench of sour grapes. |
|
| Quasi – The Happy Prole Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
This song, for me, contains the best middle eight of all time: >You need the money so you got to play it dumb, but if you play it long enough it's just what you become. Supoib! |
|
| Death Cab for Cutie – A Lack of Color Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
>good explanation of the song, but his last name is gibbard, not gibbon. Hahaha! Yes good point. Thought I'd just completely undermine my point by calling him a small monkey. Whoops! |
|
| Death Cab for Cutie – A Lack of Color Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
I think that this song is an IDEA song. Infact I wanted to write asong about this IDEA as well, but, as usual, someone else has done it, and done it FAR better than I ever could. Anyways... This whole song stems from a single idea, I think. An idea that gibbon has cleverly weaved it into a beutiful song, as he so often does. I think based around the idea of Lack of Color, i.e. the weird fact that the colour that we SEE in something (say, grass,which is green,for example) is actually just the colour that is REFLECTED from that thing. The REAL colour of that thing is the colour that is ABSORBED. That would make the real colour of grass Magenta, green is only the colour that is reflected from grass. (white light is made up of red,green and blue light; grass reflects the colour that it is not made up with, green, and absorbs the colours that it is made up off, blue and red, which together make magenta) hence: when there is a lack of colour it's really bursting at the seams, absorbing everything, the spectrums a to z... FireStillBurns wrote: So, to me, when he sings about the lack of color, he's talking about the love he showed for her, expressed to her. A lack of color would imply a lack of passion. If someone's grey, they're very inanimate, not much energy there. Imagine being in a relationship with this person, someone who just can't express what they feel. Gibbon has never shied away from emotional reality, ugly or ambigious as it may be, so I agree with FSB, he's used this weird phenonema of colour absorbtion as a meaphor to his brooding lack of animation, of passion, but the truth of how he feels is the complete opposite. Fucking great song. (..and I also love how it starts with the word 'and'...) |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.