| David Wilcox – Chet Baker's Unsung Swan Song Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This song is beautiful. I cry almost every time I hear it. It was written about Chet Baker, the infamous trumpet player who happened to be a heroin addict. The contrast of beautiful, innocent images like "morning song birds" and "flowers toward the Sun" with the heavy and dark theme of addiction is what makes this song so haunting. Clearly this song is sung from Chet's perspective. I always see the "lifeboat" as a very unreliable metaphor for heroin. I think that to Chet, the heroin must have seemed like the lifeboat, keeping him afloat at times, but as an observer I think it's apparent that the heroin is actually the rising water that pulls him under. I'm not a heroin user but I've heard that the feeling it gives you is akin to what it feels like to drift around aimlessly in a swimming pool or on a large body of water. In the movie "Ray" there is a water motif that escalates with his heroin addiction. And heroin itself is often injected as a liquid through a syringe. I sometimes think that all of those connections to the water may explain the flood imagery. I took the "scrawled" page as a suicide note--Chet's swan song. |
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| Aimee Mann – Ghost World Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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sinkstone, Thanks for confirming what I've thought for some time. I've always heard this song from Enid's perspective. This song really got to me--I heard it the fall after I graduated from high school, just as I was starting college. The funny thing is, I actually wrote/delivered the graduation speech at my school but it had nothing to do with grades or anything like that. Anybody could submit a speech and mine got chosen. The night I gave it I felt like that was my last big chance to do something great so the summer that followed was a little bit melancholy. I felt like Enid a lot back then. |
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| Ellis Paul – The Ballad of Chris McCandless Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This song obviously refers to John Krakauer's "Into The Wild" or perhaps simply to Chris McCandless (the character whose journey this book is based on.) McCandless rejected materialism and his somewhat plush lifestyle for a journey through the West. He hitchhiked to Alaska where he died of starvation. |
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| Ellis Paul – Words Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This song reveals the struggle of a person in love who has taken up the daunting task of trying to express this love in words. He seems intent on capturing his sentiment verbally "So take what you've given me/if these words don't voice what this heart just knows." Still, he is unable to pin down feelings that transcend language. The irony here is that Ellis Paul writes perhaps the most simple and profound lyric of love that I've ever heard in my life in a song about being unable to accomplish such a feat: "Your eyes make me humble." It's the most poignant and chilling phrase I've ever heard. |
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| Ellis Paul – River Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I've always understood that this is a song written for River Phoenix. It's really a heartbreaking ballad. I actually used this song for the credits of a short film based on "The Laramie Project" that I made for one of my classes. "his death has made critics of us all" is such a chilling lyric. The blurred lines of truth and fiction are very unsettling in this song. Even the name "River" yields a certain ambiguity. Is it River himself running? Is it just a moving body of water? I think it's both. |
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| Ellis Paul – Conversation with a Ghost Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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In Ellis's book "Notes From The Road" he explains the meaning of this song. I'm hesitant to divulge it because the song is so much more enigmatic before you know what it means--it's almost more enjoyable that way. So if you don't want a "Sixth Sense" style spoiler, don't read on... This song is about literally communicating with ghosts through the use of a Ouija board. "I'll respond to you in letters" is actually referring to the letters as they are laid out on the board. The following verses were written based on the responses that were given by spirits conjured up by the Ouija board during a party that Ellis attended. If you're looking for a more in-depth backstory, I recommend "Notes From The Road." Ellis is a gifted storyteller. |
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