| Dawes – When My Time Comes Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I just heard this song on The Late Late Show (Craig Ferguson). I like how they incorporated the Nietzsche quote... "When you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you." | |
| The Decemberists – A Bower Scene Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I once read a historical fiction book that took place in the ancient city of Ur. When the women mentruated, they had to lock themselves in a special room for a week or so, and b/c they thought the blood was sacred, they had to sit over basins of water until the water was stained red. That's what I always thought about in regards to the line about the cistern. The "sister" is saying "You haven't had a period... you are pregnant... who's the father?" | |
| Regina Spektor – Man of a Thousand Faces Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Today there was a news article about the comedian and impersonator Fred Travalena dying of cancer. It said he was known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces." I had never heard of him before. It said he was a regular on Johnny Carson. |
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| Regina Spektor – Us Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I haven't read through all of the previous comments yet, but this song makes me think of Mt. Rushmore: --Statue of presidents (who all have a certain amount of mythology surrounding them) on a mountaintop --It's a major tourist attraction --We name cities after presidents --We look back in history and blame presidents for things, but how justified is the blame? We aren't living in their time or culture. We think that the progression of time inherently makes us wiser, and therefore justifies our condemnation of them. You can't accurately judge a person outside of their cultural context. ("and later say it's all our fault, and they'll give us a talking to...b/c they've got years of experience") --And then the "we're living in a den of thieves rummaging for answers in the pages" could be about how we see these people as god-like figures and we rummage through documents and history trying to find what they would have done b/c we think that must be the right thing. OR it could be about how we rummage through the documents and history looking for quotes and actions of these exalted figures that fit our purposes.... even if the quotes are taken completely out of context. |
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| Regina Spektor – Ave Maria Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This might not be what Regina intended, but this song always makes me think of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. "The muscles of the intellectuals are atrophying" ... We might think that we have a broad understanding of the world, but we are really just prisoners in a cave, only seeing shadows of reality. "Nobody's running, nobody's hiding" ... They are chained inside of the cave. They think what they see is reality, so they are conent... they don't try to escape their shackles. "Lit by a light that isn't even the sun, lit by a light that isn't even the moon" ... They are watching shadows on the wall of the cave, projected by a huge fire. |
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| Regina Spektor – 2.99 Cent Blues Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| When she says "He takes good care of my native son"...could this be an allusion to Native Son by Richard Wright? | |
| Regina Spektor – The Soup Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I read that nitroglycerin can be called "soup" and that bank robbers used to use it to destroy the doors of the vaults. | |
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