| Joanna Newsom – Sawdust and Diamonds Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I have to say, it astounds me a little that people can say they know what this work of mystery and deeply personal symbol "means", much less that anyone thinks they could sum it up so glibly as to say "yeah, it's about eternity", or "it's about Bill Callahan". This work of oneiric beauty and strangeness will mean something different to everyone who hears it, and what it means to Ms. Newsom is a complete mystery that we wouldn't substantially understand even if she told us. That said, I understand: this is a site made for discussing the meanings of song lyrics, and you're all just giving it your best college try. Expressing what it means to you, or a fragment thereof. It just seems odd, like someone describing in powerful beauty a dream they just woke from, and then a bunch of people go online and talk about what that person's dream means to them, what they think the symbols meant, analyzing folklore, picking apart the words of description. This I think is a bird we cannot capture in a cage of words. |
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| Mumford & Sons – Winter Winds Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'm fairly sure it's "The flesh that lived and loved will be eaten by clay", not "eaten by plague"... | |
| Tom Waits – Such a Scream Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Title should be "Such A Scream" -- mistyped as "Such A Sceam" | |
| Switchfoot – Let That Be Enough Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I'll echo what Icas and all the others said about not having thought of it as connected to Christianity when I heard it (on the radio). I had no idea it had anything to do with religion until my searches for the lyrics and the tablature kept leading me to Christian music sites. It's an amazing, beautiful song, and speaks to the feelings of isolation and yearning that all humans have, the alternating wishes: To find something or someone who will fill that emptiness for us, and to let all we have and all we are and all that is around us soothe the emptiness without filling it. To let that be enough, as it says. Some reach for one of the various religions for either of these wishes, some reach for friends and family, there are as many ways of dealing with it as there are people. Touches right on the core or the pulse of one of the biggest aspects of the human condition. Great stuff. |
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| Rocky Votolato – Streetlights Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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The lyric author's interpretation is just one aspect of the song's meaning... for every person who heard the song but never read or was told that "it's about his son", each one of them has their own thoughts on the song's meaning. Generally there's one or two or three main groups of interpretations, depending on how obvious the song is, but I don't see this song as very obvious at all, so I'd question the idea of diffidently and imperiously proclaiming its meaning to be described completely by the four words "written for his son". I think it could most certainly be for a brother (in fact, that interpretation makes more sense to me than the son interpretation). My own first thoughts on hearing this song (my first time hearing it was a few years ago) is this: It seems to me a song about frustration, hope, striving, uncertainty, the perspective of age versus youth. A man feeling pent-up, driven to extremes, overwhelmed by life, keenly aware of the constant trickling passage of time, emotionally wrought at every turn, reaching for simplicity and a certain purity in life in hopes of finding a way through the chaos... Of course, that's just me. Everyone (including Mr. Votolato himself) will have their own interpretation. |
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| The Tiny – Everything Is Free Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I, too, ended up feeling disappointed after realizing the song was most likely meant to be a sermon against filesharing. For weeks I found myself enchanted by the sound and tone and feel of the song, first when hearing it on the radio, then later at home after I had (ironically, I suppose) downloaded it. After having listened to it and let my mind meander over various meanings, I went out and bought the CD, not having heard much of Gillian Welch and wanting to hear more. It was around this point, driving around listening to the CD, that I realized the likely meaning. As Onechad put it, the song was so heart-wrenching and beautiful, it sounded like it should have been about something bigger than money and the filesharing controversy. My experience also illustrates something largely ignored by the more rabid opponents of filesharing -- overall, it tends to INCREASE the amount of money that goes to the artist. Sure, there may be decreased CD sales (though in many cases, especially for smaller-scale artists, filesharing results in increased CD sales). But the "brand awareness" of the artist skyrockets, concert tickets soar, word of mouth provides free advertising. Wise bands can make themselves by riding the filesharing wave in the right way. And as for any decreased CD sales, does anyone know how much the average artist makes from a CD sale? Last I looked into it, the average ranged between twenty cents and two dollars, while the CDs themselves sell for $10 to $20. Bring recoupment and other factors into it, and most artists get almost nothing from CD sales. It's the greedy parasites known as record labels and record executives that lose money through filesharing, not the artists. Many artists actually benefit from filesharing, and most of the rest aren't much affected. |
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| The Pogues – I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Oh -- and here's another verse that's typically in the song, as well as the non-Pogues version of the dog verse: I'm a roving young blade, I'm a piper by trade, And there's many the tunes I can play; So be easy and free when you're drinking with me, I'm a man you don't meet every day. I go out with my dog And my gun for to shoot, All along by the banks of the Tay; Be easy and free When you're drinking with me, I'm a man you don't meet every day. |
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| The Pogues – I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This is a great song, and one of my favorites; an old traditional one, too. It's only confusing if you don't know the history, which many don't -- but even then, it's clearly a song about a character of a guy, a proud man who thinks a lot of himself but is wildly generous to those around him. It's a rowdy pub song, a drunken Leonine fellow buying rounds. As for the history of it, though: This old folksong probably came over to Ireland with the Scottish settlers, possibly as early as the late 1400s. It's been played and recorded by many artists, including Jeannie Robertson, Archie Fisher, The Dubliners, The McCalmans, The Tannahill Weavers, Big Paddy, and The Pogues. The song is generally thought to be the words of a man who is jokingly claiming to be "Jock" Stewart (or James Stewart since "Jock" was short for James), a famed Scottish King -- or that King's son. The singer is selling himself, claiming to be exceptional, royalty in hiding... enough money to be generous, and with men under his command. He invites his companions to order brandy and wine, heavily-taxed and expensive French imports, rather than the cheaper local whiskey or porter. In the Pogues' version, the man says that he shot his dog while out in county Kildare; the original lyrics, however, mostly just talk about taking the dog out hunting. Also, the Pogues' version of this song is one of the few from that band that was sung by Cait O'Riordan instead of Shane MacGowan, the band's main singer. |
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