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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – 2nd Ave, 11 A.M. Lyrics 17 years ago
Well the translation of the french is
Never work, but we won't stop.
It's a reiteration of what he says in the english.
But yeah, the myth story makes sense... Ted is extremely well cultured.
It probably has reference to some political individual somehow. :P

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Squeaky Fingers Lyrics 17 years ago
Second highest skip count on iTunes, then I read the lyrics.
The first verse makes me think of Ted writing songs in motel showers. :P

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Bridges, Squares Lyrics 17 years ago
I knew the last part were Jersey references, but it fits with the whole "life goes on" whether he's in boston or jersey...

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Building Skyscrapers In The Basement Lyrics 17 years ago
This song gives me chills whenever I listen to it. An AMAZING title track that I've ordered my best mate to play at my funeral, because, well, it's such a moving song. So because of that it always reminds me of death, but I think all of you are sort of right. I like the idea that this little girl is traumatized and so Ted's character is trying to protect her by hiding her from the world in a basement (basement being a metaphor of course) where she won't be exposed to all the garbage my generation has to live with--particularly the media and their ideals for women. Ted does, however, indicate that there's no way for the girl to achieve her full potential being hidden from the world her entire life, thus the Building Skyscrapers in the Basement... she won't develop properly if hidden away, so it's really a song about lose-lose situations as much as it is an assault on the media's portrayal of what we "have to be."

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Islands – Pieces of You Lyrics 17 years ago
I always thought that the "cold cold world we swam into" was an intro to "we swim" but then jaime vous voir quitter came on and i'd be like "oh, right."

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Islands – Abominable Snow Lyrics 17 years ago
i always liked the idea of the line being "are you in a rut right there" rather than upright bear... great song, one of my faves off the new album...and it's "we'll be brought back with moon rocks"

as for meanings... yetis ftw

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Wilco – I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Lyrics 17 years ago
also, since when were these lyrics horribly wrong and missing pieces?

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Wilco – I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Lyrics 17 years ago
Some said that American Aquarium drinker, being A.A., is something to do with alcoholics anonymous... Disposable Dixie Cup is DDC... drunk driving crashes or something along those lines. Maybe that has something to do with it?

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Wilco – We're Just Friends Lyrics 17 years ago
this song actually made me cry when I heard it.
no song has ever done that.
for me to sing like that, I would have to like slit my fingers open enough to know there's a cut, but not enough to be like pain... there's so much pain in his voice... it's touching...

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Wilco – Pieholden Suite Lyrics 17 years ago
pie is sweet? holding pie is sweet? I dunno. is it an anagram?

N D L H P S T I E O E U I E
I can't see one. I think it'd be cool if it was an anagram.

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Wilco – She's A Jar Lyrics 17 years ago
I like how it changes from the first verse to the last... little tiny changes that warp the entire story.. adding the "pretty war," the change from "Her feelings hid" to his own... and from missing her to hitting her...

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Wilco – You Are My Face Lyrics 17 years ago
this song was the only one on Sky Blue Sky that reminded me of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot... the rest of it is more folky... I like the randomness... but yeah, this song starts at "I have no idea how this happens." that line loops in my head OVER AND OVER.

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Wilco – Via Chicago Lyrics 17 years ago
so, for anyone who didn't know... Tweedy is from Belleville, IL... and his recording studio is in Chicago... it's not about someone moving away, I think it's about going on tour and then the relief of the wind blowing him home, even if it's only to play a gig and then leave... (like, he's still on tour, so he doesn't really get the comfort of home) idunno.

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Wilco – A Shot in the Arm Lyrics 17 years ago
I was thinking shot in the arm being synonymous with a shot in the foot... people would shoot themselves in the foot to get out of the army without dying... i think the shot in the arm means that he needs to get shot in the arm to get out of it... the bloodier than blood thing brings to mind people who say like "eating pie is in my blood" or "in my veins" and makes me think that the cowardice he feels is thicker than the blood running inside him...

first stanza doesn't make sense all at once though... you were up all night when you went to bed? so person X is just laying in bed with smokes contemplating the worst thoughts in her mind... and it's reinforced.... that means he wants it to have more meaning, or that it happens again in a different context.... i dunno.

great song.

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Wilco – Summer Teeth Lyrics 17 years ago
this song touches me in a really deep level... I think that the whole light catchy melody on top of happy chords with dark lyrics is a reprise of that recurring Wilco theme of "sure I look happy, but I'm dying on the inside." So he smiles and shakes off his depressing lyrics with happy little chord structures... Tweedy is such an artist that sometimes it's unfathomable.

I think that there's gotta be a lot of significance that it's told in third person... I think it's about a guy who loses his partner in some sort of freak accident (or a sudden unexpected death) and then kills himself (hits snooze twice before he dies) and then ends up in some afterlife with her and is really happy to be there together, but then as torture for being so selfish, it's like when Orpheus was in the underworld... he looks at her once and then she's gone... and he still has to go and make his dinner alone... I think the verses are out of order though. maybe. just an idea.

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Wilco – Ashes of American Flags Lyrics 17 years ago
random point to anyone who wants to analyze it.. the structure goes... aa, bb, cc, dd / ee, ff, dd / gg, dd / hh
One less pair of lines in each verse... diminutive lyric-writing could correspond to the feelings of the writer at the time. Maybe. Or, maybe Tweedy just ran out of ideas xD

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Wilco – War On War Lyrics 17 years ago
"You have to learn how to die/If you wanna be alive" says to me that if you want to live to the fullest, don't fear death, cause if you do, you're going to live fearing death, right?

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Wilco – I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Lyrics 17 years ago
okay, so here I go juts spouting random nonsense until it makes some sense. So, bible-black predawn. bible-black, aren't most bibles black on the cover? like the old school bibles and stuff you find in the churches and stuff, those ones. That says to me "no deeper than the cover" right? so in the morning when nothing goes deeper than it actually is, I think it's antithetic to the song, because the whole song runs entirely deeper than just random words and interjections to himself. so keeping with the theory of the bible being the "holy moral book" that you live by for all those religious people, so only going to the black part of the bible is just saying the bible. like saying you're religious but really you follow none of the teachings of the bible, right? So let's interpret that as basically immoral. So, she's the quiet domino, and dominoes are black, right? so if this "quiet domino" also happens to be bible-black, that would make her, as far as my reasoning goes, no deeper than her cover and pretty much immoral, right? So she's been having at him this whole "relationship" or whatever they're up to... so he wants to get back at her for what she's done, hence, trying to break her heart.
BUT HE CAN'T.
The lines like "forgetting tongue-tied lightning" and most importantly "take off your band-aid" because he can't stand the fact they're fighting over his dumb little revenge schemes... "bury me now" shows his remorse for his "master scheme" of the whole thing to hurt. see, he doesn't believe in any of it, he says so himself. No touchdowns. He doesn't want to screw around with it, he's flogging the dead horse, and keeps wondering why he's sucked back into his love hate relationship. That's about as much as I'm in the mood to think about right now. What do you think of how Tweedy's voice changes in the final verse, it gets all like distancey and has the weird synth scratching stuff in the background... that change in vocal style has to have something to do with the meaning of the verse... but yeah. :D

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Wilco – How To Fight Loneliness Lyrics 17 years ago
Manson's beard hit this thing nail on the head.
It's such a satirical song, it's beautiful. Like, people will do anything to stop being lonely, that they actually do this stuff, but out of context, it's so, so wrong.

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Elliott Smith – Looking Over My Shoulder Lyrics 17 years ago
Sonnet : Fourteen line poem where everything follows strict rhythms... I think it's a sarcastic jab at his label.. you know "all I want to do is to write another sonnet--fuck you" would make sense because he'd rather just write for the sake of writing.

I dunno, whatever floats your boat, I guess.

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Elliott Smith – Whatever (Folk Song in C) Lyrics 17 years ago
you know what bothers me about this song ? ITS A LIE. This song is in like, C#, except a little flatter, that really crushed my world xD

I dunno, this pretty much relates to a bunch of things, I think it runs a bit deeper than drugs, mainly because it's titled "folk song in C[#]" and folk music tends to tell a story, and I don't know how much of a story you can get out of using.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Bomb.Repeat.Bomb Lyrics 18 years ago
So when you drop in and out of the white clouds in a blue sky,
Don't worry about them having to see the whites of your blue eyes*

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Chicago – Dialogue Lyrics 18 years ago
i like the
We can make it happen, yeaaaah.
from the It's only the beginning - Greatest hits edit. :D
and i thnk you guys (along with chicago) are spot on.

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Chicago – 25 or 6 to 4 Lyrics 18 years ago
ok,
lets get this much straight.
this is not a song written for the lyrics.
this was a song written for a legendary terry kath guitar solo

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Chicago – Hard to Say I'm Sorry/Get Away Lyrics 18 years ago
i love
"After all that we've been through
I will make it up to you
I promise to"
i use it all the time.

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Mirah – La Familia Lyrics 18 years ago
um... guys... isnt this one more along the lines of incest... ?
"you know i like it being in your family"
"its not forever we can fool around in the dark"
def. incest. :D

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Walking To Do Lyrics 18 years ago
right. he's trying to tell us to quit wasting our time looking for answers in religion... and bribing us, with the enticing concept of new shoes! which serves as a base for the metaphor he sets up next, the lots of walking... well, i think it refers to the fact we need to travel to find our real meaning of life... instead of believing what a book and some radicals tells us.... ?

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Timorous Me Lyrics 18 years ago
its simple.
its telling you to get over the fact youre no good with people by showing you what you can miss.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Angels' Share Lyrics 18 years ago
i like the above theory.... if you combine that with the guy's definition... "You can't escape the Angels' Share." could mean that we're adding global warming to the mix, and evaporating the oceans, our drink... much like the lost booze?

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Six Months In A Leaky Boat Lyrics 18 years ago
its a cover of the band split enz... he used "The tyranny of distance didn't stop the cavalier" to get the title of an album, and he admires the band.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Since U Been Gone/Maps Lyrics 18 years ago
i just love the mockery of poppy chicks who can do whatever with a song and people with be like ITS A HIT. totally targeting mainstream pop. and the chuckle at the end, sells it.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Gold Finch And The Red Oak Tree Lyrics 18 years ago
i think its a nice folky tune about sheer beauty in everything that we cast off as useless or dumb in our ignorance...
the last part, i think, is about parenting. throughout the finch's life, it will see the oak tree grow... but as the tree outlives the finch, they will switch roles hence the "You have learned and oh you have taught" and how you can rely on your friends and family for support in hard times, i guess.

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Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Better Dead Than Lead Lyrics 18 years ago
Much alchemical references. I like to think that Ted is trying to tell the world that he has one of the other alchemical goals--a cure for all disease, or maybe eternal life? my point is, he's got something extraordinary he wants to share (his golden ring, his dream, whatnot) but possibly society or someone he knows is preventing him from voicing his dreams, possibly government stopping him from something. Thus, they try to convince him that his gold is just lead... just thoughts...

submissions
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Better Dead Than Lead Lyrics 18 years ago
Much alchemical references. I like to think that Ted is trying to tell the world that he has one of the other alchemical goals--a cure for all disease, or maybe eternal life? my point is, he's got something extraordinary he wants to share (his golden ring, his dream, whatnot) but possibly society or someone he knows is preventing him from voicing his dreams, possibly government stopping him from something. Thus, they try to convince him that his gold is just lead... just thoughts...

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