submissions
| Peter Gabriel – Digging In The Dirt Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think it's Peter Gabriel's version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart"...rather than keep feelings inside like Ian Curtis' - Gabriel is talking back to the "lover" who makes him angry...but I do agree with mandc that the narrator is talking to himself in a self-accusatory fashion. |
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| Peter Gabriel – Shock The Monkey Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about "the Milligram Experiment"...Stanley Milligram's famous experiment where humans were shocking other humans to death as long as orders came from above...kind of like teacher/jailers/middle-managers and Germany in the 30s and 40s. |
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| Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is my only fave Peter Gabriel song...the line about Adolf and Enrico is too clever...everything else he has done is just riding on his bleeding heart liberal politics...he is more of a do-gooder celeb now than a musician or an artist...Gabriel has turned into another Bob Geldof, like Bono, Sting and Michael Stipe...their music is secondary...sad really!! |
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| David Bowie – Five Years Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's basically a "prologue" to set up the Ziggy/Jesus/Messiah concept...and all of the above interpretations have validity...the gay thing really amazed me the first time I heard the song...there is something going on there with the gender-bending and sexual politics..."I think I saw YOU in an ice-cream parlour"...the YOU is NOT a girl that most listener assume that Ziggy falls in love with but the LISTENER of the song...the same listener that Bowie/Ziggy reaches out to touch hands with in "Rock & Roll Suicide". |
submissions
| The Rolling Stones – Jumpin Jack Flash Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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My fave version of this song is on "Rock & Roll Circus" film...Mick looks sooo cool and hip while performing this song...I think this was the first time they unveiled the song to the public...Keith once said that this song saved their career from turning into The BeatLESS parody...it's a great song no matter what it's about...The Stones FOREVER...fuck the BeatLESS!! |
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| David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is in my Top 5 Bowie songs...it's the apex of his career....it's all downhill after this as far as Bowie's creativity is concerned!! |
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| Suede – We Are The Pigs Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think it's about Western civilization and the complacency and apathy that Westerners embody ..."church bells"..."stay at home in my house"...it sort of reminds me of Nero while Rome burned. |
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| Scissor Sisters – Filthy/Gorgeous Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think this song is soooo funny....I think it could be about any gay person or any person living in a big city anywhere in the world...big city life where "you gotta keep your shit together with your feet on the ground". |
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| Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The word "out" is repeated so many times that it's hard for any gay or lesbian to miss it...and I think the lead singer and BabyDaddy are lovers...there are so many coy/"hidden" refernces in every song on this album, I think. |
submissions
| Queen – Dragon Attack Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think it's about drugs (Freddie was a cokehead) and heroin is substituted for coke so it won't be so obvious..."go find another customer" is obviously meant for the drug-dealer, but I don't understand why Queen or Freedie would write this except that it is a filler to show-off their new found "disco" sound...Queen, like the Stones, were never preachy or regretted any decadance, in fact, Freddie often celebrated decadence...and the drums are definetly drum machines... but it's also about sex..."gonna use my stack"...and everytime Freddie sings the pronoun "she" in a song always gender-bend it. Also, it could be about gay and S/M bars and bath-houses where Freddie was hanging out during this phase of Queen's career..."chained to the rack"?! Anyway, it's agreat song and underappreciated...in my Top 5 Queen songs. |
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| Queen – Stone Cold Crazy Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about a gay guy who can't get enough of sex...read the lyrics..."blow", "rubber tommy gun", "ran outta juice",...he wants sex even after he dies in heaven or hell. I am not surprised that Metallica covered it...I have my theories about members of Metallica. |
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| Queen – Killer Queen Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This is my all-time fave Queen song too...the lyrics are so creative and coy. I don't think Freddie is moarlizing that high-class life is empty, on the contrary, he is celebrating it and camping it up. It's definetly about a transvestite/prostitute who is actually a cold-blooded killer. |
submissions
| Bauhaus – She's In Parties Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I have two interpretations of this song...one it is an homage to Marlene Dietrich and the German Expressionism - the video is filmed in that style: dark shadows and cooly detached.
The other interpretation is that it's about gay sex in film schools..."fall guys tumble on the cutting room floor"...and the "she" is a gender-bender for a he/gay guy - "hot heads under a wig". |
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| Sonic Youth – The Diamond Sea Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The mirror stealing ones soul is an idea borrowed from Islamic culture...in Islam it is believed that the mirror makes you vain and narccisstic and you lose touch with everyday reality and you end up thinking more about yourself and NOT Allah...also, the idea of mirror "stealing" your soul is Lacanian as well...for Lacan "the mirror stage" is when an individual realizes that he/she is seperate from his/her mother and an individual is forever trying to get back to that "mirror stage" and it becomes a futile pursuit like desire. I think it is also Thurston's song for about Sonic Youth's career and the "Grunge movement"..."time takes it's crazy toll...all the kids are dressed in "Sonic Youth's dreams". |
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| Sonic Youth – Kool Thing Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's my all-time fave song too...there is so much going on in the lyrics of the song...I think it's ripping apart the "white corporate maleness" of grunge/white rock and the machoness of rappers like LL Cool J but at the same time Kim is winking at LL Cool J..."we can still be friends"....Chuck D was used because Public Enemy was recording in the studio next to Sonic Youth. |
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| Pet Shop Boys – Domino Dancing Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Svengurk is right on the mark on this one but I think the line: "Do you play to win or are you just a bad loser?" is a rhetorical question Neil adresses to the AIDS virus. |
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| The Jesus and Mary Chain – Blues From a Gun Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It is a very cool song from a great album by a great band...actually, in retrospect the Marychain artistically developed with this album and their material afterwards became well produced and sublime...before this lot of their material and the band itself was regarded as "hype"....afte rthis they had the following and maturity and lot of bands regarded them as an influence..ie: The Pixies and all the "shoegazer" bands...so Major Valor go check out their albums after "Automatic" and I think you will appreciate The Marychain even more. |
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| Joy Division – Interzone Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Yes, thank you "miesvanderrobot" for that great trivia info...that is mind blowing...I knew about "The Interzone" reference...and "Interzone" is short form for "International Zone"...this is what the expats called Tangier in the '50 and '60s because it was a "melting pot" of artists, writers and junkies from all over the world. But I think there are lyrical references to JG Ballard's novels "Crash" and "Vermilion Sands" and the two writers are juxtoposed by Ian Curtis..."The cars screeched..and turned on to knife edged view", etc... |
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| The Rolling Stones – Moonlight Mile Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about anal sex and doing coke (and I don't mean coca-cola either!!) at the same time: "head full of snow"..."riding down your moonlight mile"...the arrangements by Jack Nietzche are mind-blowing...a great song to close out an AMAZING album!! |
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| David Bowie – Queen Bitch Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The difference between the The Killers' song and Bowie's song is the narrator and his subject matter...in Bowie's song the narrator is a transvestite envying another transvestite at his/her profession. And I agree with "smarterthanyou" that this is Bowie's homage to Lou Reed and more specifically Marc Bolan of T. Rex...."Oh God, I can do better than that!"....the 11th floor might be the chart position and he is looking up instead of down from it...he wants to be on top of the charts instead of having T. Rex there....but we all know Bowie does "Glam Rock" better than Lou or Marc!! |
submissions
| David Bowie – Cracked Actor Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Bonehead XL: I think the washed-out star is trying to subdue a young MALE prostitute with his star power..."give me your head"..."because you just got paid"...I always thought it was about Rock Hudson?!
I like the "grunge" intro too!! |
submissions
| Siouxsie and the Banshees – Peek-A-Boo Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I agree with TobySimon...it's about the sex trade and the "sex workers" but I think it's about voyeurism and music business as well...kind of like what Mick Jagger writes in "It's Only Rock & Roll".."strobe lights pump and flicker", etc... |
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| Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about being "gay" and "classless/marginalized" in and by "history" - the "west" is "Greenwich "West" Village" in New York and London's "West End"...2 neighbourhoods linked specifically with "gay culture"...the "girls" is a gender-bender as term applied to "gay men" in gay culture and Neil does a "macrocosm" by stating "built to last in every city and every nation from Lake Geneva to the Finland Station"...reference to Edmund Wilson's history of socialism in Europe...if you listen to the 12-inch version on the cd "DISCO" there is very interesting line: "if they speak they break the law...and no one knows your name no one knows your name"...this is the "marginalization" of gays in history..."turn the pages and watch them play a different game". It's definetly about the "Cold War" as perceived in the '80s. |
submissions
| The Smiths – Panic Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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In my interpretation, this song is about "AIDS" panic/epidemic and a gay man's concern about life during and after the crisis and the "DJ" doesn't seem to address his concerns...subsitiute the word "AIDS" everytime Morrissey sings "Panic" in the song and you get a different prespecive on the song....and the narrator asks: "Could life ever be sane again?" ie: life post-AIDS. Gays and disco music were also closely linked back in the days when AIDS first appeared in the media, hence Morrissey ironically sings "burn down the disco". Interestingly enough, Marr says the song is about "Chernobyl" but Morrissey is always coy when asked to give a "straight" answer to his songs...he never interprets it for the listener. |
submissions
| The Smiths – Hand in Glove Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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If you listen to the song closely Morrissey delibertly blurs the word "luck" and it sounds like "love"...and that "love" is a noun as in his "gay love" and "gay lover"...in my interpretation it is about "promiscuous gays" who aren't into relationships but just "one-night-stands"...the narrator is a gay guy who has finally fallen in love and longing for a relationship with a guy who is not into relationships...he "knows" his "love to well"...because before he was into "relationships" the narrator was also same as his new "love"...and that's why he "knows" his "love to well". This song was, of course, written in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and promiscuity is a big concern in songs written during that period, like Pet Shop Boys' "Domino Dancing" and REM's "Superman". "Panic" by the Smiths has the same concern and tone....subsitute "AIDS" every time he says the word "Panic" and you get the gist of the song. |
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