submissions
| Sunset Rubdown – Child-Heart Losers Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Seems pretty clear this song is about the beauty of being young and without much self-awareness. A diamond is only beautiful before its cut. And about the violins, I don't know exactly, but there are several references to there being a lot of violins throughout this album. In "Taming of the Hands" for instance he says "Do you think this part has too many violins?" Its like he's aware of there being something a little artificial in his music making process. Just like life becomes increasingly artificial and self-aware as one grows older. |
submissions
| Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone with You Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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it's a shame that S.S. lyric boards are all so cluttered up with self-important religious or anti-religious rhetoric and therefore it is rather difficult to navigate for any real analysis of the lyrics. |
submissions
| Devon Sproule – Farewell, Seasick Suffering! Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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To me this is about conceding youthful lack of commitments and settling down with someone you love, feeling ambivalent about it but thinking it's right because it is true love. Devon Sproule is a genius. |
submissions
| The National – Fake Empire Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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thenewspirit, I think you're right on about new love, which is really what the song seems to be all about.
About the 'fake empire' interpretation, it seems more like a reference to America as some other people have already said, especially considering The National's tendency to refer to American culture in their lyrics ("I wouldn't go out alone into America" and "You know you have a permanent piece of my medium-sized American heart."). It seems Matt Beringer feels there is something empty or false about America. |
submissions
| Yo La Tengo – Stockholm Syndrome Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The lyrics should be:
Hands need *warming* early in the morning
Also, there are two really ambiguous lines in the song that I can't seem to figure out, but I'm pretty sure what's written above is not right.
Hardly as I've known it's glad - should be Hardly as *alone* as glad - I think. And
Hardly as I've known a surprise - probably should be Hardly as *alone* as surprised. |
submissions
| The National – Baby, We'll Be Fine Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is the most intense song on Alligator. I think it is definitely about ennui and just feeling like life isn't turning out how you thought it would. Disappointment. Feeling false, wanting something beautiful. Feeling like you are trying but failing in life. |
submissions
| Pavement – Embassy Row Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Malkmus said this is his least favorite song on the album. I can see that, I suppose, in the sense that it is the least understated, least in keeping with Pavement's style, and the most likely to be obnoxious if you listen to it too much. But I think it's still a really good song and it's a nice change of style from the rest of the album.. I think the beginning is really pretty and melancholy, plus the lyrics are really interesting, even for SM. A savior-faire is someone who has "knowledge of just what to do in any situation; tact.".
Seems like SM makes a few allusions to liberalism, both in this song and Type Slowly. It's like he is lashing out against liberals. A typical Pavement listener is probably pretty liberal, so I'm guessing SM feels he is often misinterpreted by liberals and that he doesn't always identify with them, perhaps they tend to be too narrow in their views of things. |
submissions
| Fred Thomas – Come Back Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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this is one of my favorites too. I like the part with the key change and the line 'I listen for you talking to yourself from town to town.' |
submissions
| Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Parallel or Together? Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Ted Leo crafts a beautiful atmosphere with this song. The music has a manic quality that really reinforces the unusual combination of desperation and resignation in the lyrics. The narrator is thinking about the futility of being in a relationship with someone with whom he has fallen out of love, and also the emptiness of planning and hurrying without having anything fulfilling to come home to. He at least finds some redemption in writing songs.
This song seems packed with ideas. The idea of hurrying and planning, but having nothing to show for it, is something that I can really relate to. I also understand being in a semi-loveless relationship and feeling trapped, and having to resort to other things to feel fulfilled. The houses he is dreaming of are houses full of people he could have loved and lives he could have led, but didn't. |
submissions
| Metric – Live It Out Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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what's being said at the beginning of the song? sounds like "hope I live it out" but I'm not sure about the "hope I" part. |
submissions
| Saturday Looks Good to Me – Since You Stole My Heart Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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i could provide it to you, i think i have it on my computer. post your email address here i suppose and i'll get in touch with you about it (or if u can think of a better way for us to communicate that would be fine). |
submissions
| Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers – I'm Straight Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Jonathan Richman is hilarious. I like the line (which was mis-transcribed above-- but great job with the lyrics otherwise) "If these guys, if they're really so great,
Tell me why can't they at least take this place and take it straight?" In other words, if these people are really so deep, etc., why do they need drugs? The implication is that life is hard, and its kind of a cop out to use drugs to get through it. Here here! |
submissions
| Morrissey – You Know I Couldn't Last Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Gelignite is "a high explosive consisting of a gelatinous mass of nitroglycerin with cellulose nitrate added."
Clearly this is about the ills of becoming a famous musician. The song is full of familiar rock star complaints--the cruelty and fickleness of critics and fans, marketing and merchandise distractions, feuds over royalties. But they are presented in a fresh and witty way, as is to be expected from Morrissey. I like the lines "the teenagers who love you, they will wake up, yawn, and kill you" and "the critics who can't break you, unwittingly they make you."
Often people criticize stars who make such complaints about their fame, and I could see people dismissing this song in the same way-- "oh, Morrissey's too rich and famous now, boo hoo"-- but I think this is a genuine attempt by Morrissey to talk about the problems that he is dealing with now, just as writing about poverty and ennui in Manchester were genuine reactions to what his life was like at the time he wrote songs for The Smiths. |
submissions
| Belle & Sebastian – Me and the Major Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'm guessing this song is about a father-son relationship-- the Major is the narrator's father, hence the line "But there is too much history, too much biography between us." |
submissions
| Joanna Newsom – Peach, Plum, Pear Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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first of all, quotidian.
I always thought she said, "you've changed so." I think this rhymes better and is a stronger statement, but on the other hand "some" has its own understated charm. |
submissions
| Joanna Newsom – Emily Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Did anyone else have trouble breaking into this album? Emily is a great song and may be her best song yet, but much of the rest of the album seems inaccessible. Too poetic, not blunt enough. Milk-Eyed Mender had very accessible lyrics for a thinking person-- songs like "Sadie" and "En Gallop" are full of lines that hit home with me and from what I can tell, a lot of other people. But not so much with the rest of Ys after track 1. |
submissions
| Belle & Sebastian – It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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At first, I thought they meant "stroke" as in: he had a stroke at 24 and died.
What are Safeways?
Seems to me this song is about artists having edge and talent when they're young, and selling out. Why is it that pretty much every artist (musician at least) is willing to embrace commercial success and thereby lose their edge? I mean, it's a virtual certainty that when you get rich and famous you're music is going to suffer... why don't more artists reject it, give all their money away, live in slummy apartments and continue to challenge themselves?
Ironically, Belle and Sebastian may have done a bit of selling out themselves. Their albums have been on a slow decline since Storytelling. |
submissions
| The Smiths – I Want the One I Can't Have Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The song seems to be about lusting after someone who doesn't want you. Whether or not it's actually autobiographical Morrissey doesn't matter as much to me as the more universal themes of the songs, but one could definitely interpret the song as being Morrissey pining for a tough guy (who "killed a policeman when he was 13" and whose "mentality hasn't caught up to his biology").
To me, the more universal aspects of the song are the lines about a bed and a lover being "the riches of the poor"-- in other words, love and sex are things that transcend economics. I also get a kick out of Morrissey's ambivalence about the tough kid who killed the policeman. When he says "somehow that really impressed me", the word 'somehow' gives the impression that he knows it's wrong to admire it, but that he still does. As always, Morrissey displays a sympathy for the poor and someone who had a rough time growing up. |
submissions
| The Smiths – Nowhere Fast Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Actually, I'm going to completely go back on what I said before. I think this song is a straightforward song about being poor and hopeless and resenting the callous rich (e.g., the Queen) and their unsympathetic attitudes towards the poor. It's also about being deprived of 'natural' feelings because you are too unhappy and preoccupied with poverty. |
submissions
| Destroyer – Strike Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'd say he's a huge cynic and misanthrope, which is one of the main reasons that some people like him so much. How often is genuine and heartfelt advice given out of pure altruism? How often is anything done out of altruism? I don't think bejar postures at all, for which I am grateful. His lyrics are terribly cryptic though, I agree.
This song seems like its a conversation with someone who doesn't allow themself any satisfaction. It could be about someone who really buys into the protestant work ethic and works a grind sort of job-- he is telling them to strike, or quit, or do something different, because they're miserable. Or it could be less literal than that and just be about someone who doesn't allow themself to feel included or to have any fun. They're weighted down by some sort of self-imposed obligation. I can relate to this. |
submissions
| Destroyer – Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (Sea of Tears) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This is one of the best songs on the 'streethawk' album I think, in terms of overall quality of music and lyrics. It is hard to get something very concrete from a Destroyer song, and I think the imagery and sound of the words become paramount when looking Dan Bejar's writing. But if I had to pull a meaning out of this song, I'd say it's clearly a love song, and probably about a young guy who is committed to someone, but has fallen in love with someone else (this person is also committed to someone else). So you get lines like "so close to closing the deal, the steal of the century" "I needed you more back when I was poor... the wealthy dowager, the patroness" and "to be a stone, a stone's throw from your thrown, no man has ever hung at the temporary age of 24, both feet on the floor."
I also think certain lines in the song are brilliant poetry: "The ethos that flew about her mind like swallows in search of a burnt down belltower church" and "It was back amongst the living, your smile was giving me a thrill." |
submissions
| The Smiths – Nowhere Fast Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think there are a lot of things going on in this song, all of which have been mentioned already. I think the song is about indignation, which is clear from the very first line "I'd like to drop my trousers to the queen." The sense of indignation and dissatisfaction in the song is compounded by its angry, driving instrumentation.
I think the narrator is speaking out against the wealthy (symbolized by the Queen) for their lack of sympathy for the poor: "The poor and the needy are selfish and greedy on her terms." But he is simultaneously put off by the lower and middle classes for their bourgeois consumerism: "every household appliance is like a new science in my town." He feels isolated and unable to relate to anyone, and therefore unnatural all the time. |
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