| Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen cover) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I read 1 and 2 Samuel the other night - most of which is about King David - and wanted to add that "Hallelujah" draws from the complex, deeply sympathetic human drama already in the Bible. Even leaving aside the Samson story (which I don't remember as well), the David references are probably enough to demonstrate how Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley appeal to a narrative about love and trial without really manipulating its original intent in a "pro-" or "anti-religion" way. My translation of Bathsheba's introduction begins very similarly to the second verse: "...[One evening], as he got up from his couch and walked about on the roof of the palace, [David] saw from there a woman bathing, and she was very beautiful" (2 Samuel 11:2). I like the ordinary and telling details, King David is unable to rest and pacing the roof when he sees a beautiful naked woman in her bath. David at once accidentally impregnates Bathsheba and, following an unsuccessful attempt to convince her husband to visit home and sleep with her, arranges for the husband's death in battle so he can marry the widow and be a proper father to his child. The prophet Nathan visits David with the damning message, "...[Y]our family will never again have rest from the sword. This is the word of the Lord: I shall bring trouble on you from within your own family." David's child dies shortly after birth despite seven days of fasting and prayer, and David pulls himself together, comforts Bathsheba, and impregnates her with Solomon. Later on, David's eldest son rapes his own half-sister, an act avenged by their brother Absalom through fratricide - which leads to Absalom's expulsion and rebellion against David and the famous lament, "Absalom, oh my son Absalom!" when he dies during his attempted usurpation. Basically, it's highly dramatic, very human stuff, and I sense an atunement to that aspect of the Bible in Leonard Cohen's songs in general. As for "Hallelujah" in particular, I suppose it tells us that we persist in flawed love and faith. Maybe "Love is not a victory march," but it's in all our stories across time, which demonstrates a faith in it - and we do have our moments that are almost worshipful ("...every breath we drew was hallelujah"), maybe even amid pain and failure ("She broke your throne and she cut your hair / And from your lips she drew the hallelujah" - though knowing Leonard Cohen, that might well be part of a BDSM reference). |
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| Sufjan Stevens – All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Others have cited the Isaiah passage, which goes in my translation, "You will go out with joy and be led forth in peace. Before you mountains and hills will break into cries of joy, and all of the trees in the countryside will clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12). It's jubilant and euphoric in a very quirky, weird way - so Sufjan. :-) To answer Raving Lunatic's questions, I think "Mine is about as good this far" refers on one level to Sufjan's commitment to Christ, but in the context of the extended images of musical jubilation, "mine" refers to his voice, which he hopes to add to the "great parade" or "band" or "sound" of rejoicing during the Second Coming. The song demonstrates humble, hopeful resignation before God's plan, as opposed to Sufjan's willful "thoughts" and "bets." I like to play it when I'm unhappy to remind myself that if I orient my thoughts correctly, all else (important) will follow, and that God or the world owes me nothing, but I owe everything. Life itself is tenuous and a blessing, and "If I am alive this time next year..." is a great reminder. That being said, I agree with byebyebirdie58 that most Christian music is unbearable. But I also like U2 and Belle and Sebastian and some other mainstream religious artists. :-) |
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| Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Haha, thanks for being conciliatory, free_brownies. I think the disagreement is a testament to how profoundly people can relate to this song, whatever their backgrounds, especially people who have personal difficulties of their own. I don't listen to it very often anymore, but there was a time when it was like my anthem. :-) | |
| Rilo Kiley – The Execution of All Things Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I get the impression that a man has confessed deception/infidelity, and his (ex-)girlfriend must spend the night with him anyway, reflecting on larger issues of exploitation, guilt, and revenge. She begs soldiers or God or "someone" to kill her or take her away, because she feels too "badly" (shocked, sickened, depressed) to articulate her condemnation or leave immediately. "It's not an attempt at decency," she's just paralyzed. As in "A Better Son/Daughter," I think Rilo Kiley fluidly shifts cases - i.e., sometimes "you" applies to the singer - and ultimately she can't distinguish her guilt - for not leaving or for other errors - from "what [her partner] did." She experiences "the guilt and forever / wakefulness of the weak," concluding hatefully that she and her partner are one and the same, and that everything is a mess. I had to share my bed with an ex-boyfriend once after a late-night breakup, and it's definitely provocative of conflicted empathy and self-loathing. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Chicago Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I've been thinking about "Chicago" lately so I thought I'd weigh in, even though everyone else already has. -First, the nature of Sufjan's "love" and "mistakes" is ambiguous to the point of irrelevancy - or, I think he means that whatever personal meaning we want to give it is appropriate. Since he writes, "I was in love with the place in my mind," I think we can read his love as one for ideas/abstractions instead of (only) a specific person or God. -The song conveys ambivalence or uncertainty about lived Christianity. Sufjan loves life in this world, he falls in love "again" and later is in love with a place (New York), but he also cries "for freedom from myself and from the land" - itself ambiguous about whether he fully wants or doesn't want, or has or doesn't have, such freedom through Christ. What I admire about Sufjan Stevens as a Christian musician is that he sees the Gospel in the (our) world and recognizes that faith is complicated by life (i.e., from "Casimir Pulaski Day," "All the glory that the Lord has made / And the complications when I see his face"). -The refrain still confuses me. It's easy to say that "You came to take us, to recreate us" refers to Christ's incarnation and the atonement. But what about, "We had our mindset, you had to find it"? Maybe the "we" and "you" have changed in those lines, since they seem addressed to Sufjan as he tries to figure out how to live among other people and things and the Holy Spirit. Especially after my first serious breakup (4-year relationship and the guy happens to live in Chicago), but also in general, I like to change the tenses for myself: "I'll fall in love again, I'll make a lot of mistakes, I don't mind." Ultimately I think the song conveys what a blessing from God it is that all things both go and grow. |
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| Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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mockingsmile - Thanks, I didn't see your post 'til now. kaleidoscopeeyes8 - Bipolar disorder is often first misdiagnosed as depression, since bipolar people during depressive episodes present with the same symptoms as depressed people. The suicide rate for bipolar disorder is actually significantly worse than for major depression. You should read the parts about depression in Kay Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind." |
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| Sufjan Stevens – A Good Man Is Hard to Find Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Some evidence from O'Connor's story that Sufjan is writing from the perspective of The Misfit: "[The Misfit] had a long creased face and didn't have on any shirt or undershirt." [i.e., "Someone's left me creased"] I think this song conveys The Misfit's disturbance and incomplete resignation that he must be the instrument of "peace" - in the sense of transcendence following spiritual shock, as opposed to complacency, which "peace" also means at times in the song - for others while remaining unfulfilled himself. In spurning the grandmother's radical Christian gesture, The Misfit also "puts off all his peace" anew. Previously, his lifestyle had challenged his own (and others') complacency; at that moment, he chooses to joylessly transform his victims (or not), rather than allow himself to be transformed into "peace." From O'Connor's story: "She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." "Some fun!" Bobby Lee [his accomplice] said. "Shut up, Bobby Lee," The Misfit said. "It's no real pleasure in life." Sufjan Stevens imagines in this song that, after their encounter, The Misfit continues to be troubled by the double meaning of "peace," the transformative power of violence, and his own proximity to/involvement in (his victim's) salvation. For whatever reason, I empathize with Sufjan's "A Good Man" but not "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." I guess it's easy enough to understand wanting faith but rejecting it because faith is a monumental, complicated burden. O'Connor's characterization is so powerful because The Misfit is struggling with fundamental questions - the meaning of life and Christ's sacrifice - and ultimately with having provided meaning to another that he himself lacks, a kind of self-sacrifice. |
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| Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Also: Even if this song isn't about bipolar disorder, it's anthemic and thoroughly relatable from that perspective. I came across "A Better Son/Daughter" when I was making a "bipolar mix CD" for my boyfriend - a friend recommended this song for my mix. As others have pointed out, the song isn't strictly optimistic. The narrator's hopes for her future are grandiose and unrealistic under the circumstances, and "I'll be happy" as a stretch-goal is heartbreaking. However, I find "A Better Son/Daughter" extremely comforting, just to know that someone has captured the experience so perfectly that many people will relate to it - that I'm far from alone. And like the narrator, I conclude the song thinking, maybe everything will be better tomorrow. My ship could be coming in, you never know. |
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| Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Rilo Kiley provides a number of clues that associate this song with bipolar disorder: -"And the weight is crushing down on my lungs / I know I can’t breathe" Something I haven't experienced (much), fortunately, but overwhelming, immobilizing paranoia and/or anxiety are associated with mixed-state bipolar episodes. Major depression can also feel like physical weight. -"Hope that someone will save me this time" / "Swearing it's different this time" With the repetition of “this time,” Rilo Kiley implies that the narrator has been in this position multiple times, suggesting a cycle of illness (and, later in the song, periodic rejuvenation). Major depression can be a single episode or it can recur, but a pattern of ups and downs is more consistent with bipolar disorder. -"And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her / And that God never blessed her insides" Bipolar disorder has an even stronger reported genetic link than unipolar depression, with 2/3 of bipolar patients reporting a bipolar or depressed relative. Rilo Kiley suggests that, despite the mother’s denial, she too is inflicted with mental illness - "demons... possess her" and "God never blessed her insides." The word "insides" in particular evokes (mental) illness. -"And sometimes when you're on, you're really f*cking on / And your friends, they sing along and they love you" The expletive emphasizes that this is not ordinary cheerfulness or high energy (being “on”) – the narrator is in fact extremely energetic (“really f*cking on”), as well as exuberant, impulsive, and grandiose, all of which are symptoms of hypomania. The narrator “sings” – a stand-in for any fun, self-confident, spontaneous behavior – and her friends not only follow along but also “love” her. The narrator clearly feels self-possessed and the center of attention. Arguably, we all have moments when we feel this way – being a little out of control isn’t pathological – but Rilo Kiley demonstrates a precise knowledge of the symptoms of hypomania, implying all of them within these two lines. -“ But the lows are so extreme / That the good seems f*cking cheap / And it teases you for weeks in its absence” Again Rilo Kiley has an uncanny awareness of how bipolar cycles function. Transitory hypomania precedes and induces “weeks” of depression. Both bipolar I and bipolar II patients experience much longer periods of depression than hypomania, something like 20:1 depression to hypomania in bipolar II disorder. The expletive functions here, as above, to emphasize that these are not ordinary ups and downs. The lows of depression are “so extreme” that they far outweigh the exceptional bliss of hypomania, and in fact render it “f*cking cheap.” Since bipolar patients know that depression typically follows hypomania, that consequence almost completely devalues what was fun about being hypomanic. “Weeks” of “lows” is another clue that Rilo Kiley is referring to mental illness as opposed to normal mood variation. -“Your ship may be coming in / You’re weak but not giving in / To the cries and the wails of the valley below” Further evidence of the tension between bipolar optimism - we’re Always hoping for a permanent end to mood cycling - and the very real possibility that a. we will continue suffering “extreme” highs and lows indefinitely, or b. we might succumb to depression and kill ourselves. The suicide rate among bipolar patients is much higher than among those with unipolar depression, perhaps because the cyclical nature of improvements, followed be even worse setbacks, becomes unbearable. The mingled optimism and despair in this song seems perfectly remnicient of bipolar disorder, to the extent that I have to wonder whether anyone in Rilo Kiley (or their families) is bipolar. I heard a rumor once that Jenny Lewis herself was bipolar, but I can’t find evidence of it. |
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