| Jonathan Coulton – Not About You Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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At first this song seems pretty straightforward. A guy sings about forgetting an ex. However, I've come to think that it's about the exact opposite. The man is in total denial about being over her. This becomes evident throughout the song: "I haven’t thought of you in fifteen days and today I still won’t think of you" He claims that he doesn’t think of her, yet he has kept count of the days of such. One cannot think about not thinking about someone without thinking about someone. “And when I call you up and you’re not home well I might not even care” He misses her and he calls her but he tells himself he doesn’t care that he cant get a hold of her. At the end of the verse he reiterates: "Cause every day I know that I’m fine without you But I don’t think about it" but clearly he does. "Every time I ride past your house I forget it’s you who’s living there Anyway I never see your face cause your window’s up too high" He claims that he forgets she is even living there, yet he was clearly looking to see her if he noticed the windows are up too high to do so. "And I saw you shopping at the grocery store But I was far too busy with my cart to notice You weren’t looking at me" Again, if he knew that she wasn’t looking at him, he must have been. Finally, "I saw that movie where the guy gets dumped when the girl goes off to find herself But I think I may have missed the end - there was something in my eye" Absolute evidence that he is in denial about how the end of the relationship was affecting him. "But it doesn’t matter how it all turns out Cause I know that guy’ll be fine without you" As is throughout the whole song, he tells himself these things because that is what he wants to believe. |
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| Jack Johnson – It's All Understood Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Long read... As for the first few verses concerning popularity, media, and how no one makes up their own minds anymore, I think everyone pretty much struck the mark. However, one thing not many seemed to have caught. "I read somewhere that you've got to beware, you can't believe anything you read" My favorite verse, and possibly the most ironic and paradoxical statement ever. This man is a genius. Most people immediately tie this into the religion verse that follows it, and they are connected, but the statement itself is a huge play-on-words that helps add to the confusion and uncertainty of the entire song: He “Read somewhere that you cannot believe everything you read.” If this statement was valid, then you could not trust it to be valid, because you read it in a book as well. If the statement is invalid, then you CAN believe everything you read, making the statement valid, and contradicting itself. As for the religious part of the statement, I think the biggest message was not in what he said, but that, ironically, the listener’s responses prove his point. “The good book is good and that’s well understood so don’t even question – if you know what I mean” It’s pretty clear that this was spoken ironically, but that’s not the point. Most people who hear this immediately think that this, his point of view, is slightly atheistic. Others think this has spiritual meaning. The responses here prove this point. When, in fact, he has not stated his opinion on the subject at all. “But there you go once again you missed the point, and then you point your fingers at me and you say that I said not to believe. Well I believe.” He contradicts himself here, not due to any flaw in his reasoning, but because that is exactly what he wants to portray. He is not saying to believe or not believe in Religion, but to believe what you want because you believe it, and not because everyone around you does. This goes the same for atheists. The bible, like any other religious book, is interpreted, and so there are many religions following the same book, that see things differently. “Read the book if you want to, and decide for yourself.” Their opinions should not be taken for granted. “I believe… I guess, I guess it’s all relative” More contradiction, and again he turns the tables twice more, leaving us back where we started. Never once has he expressed his belief or non-belief in a god. The point is, his opinion should not effect us, like anyone else’s. |
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