| MGMT – Kids Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It's about college life. MGMT wrote the song about their experiences at Wesleyan University, where they went to college and presumably lived a typical college life, that is, they worked their fair share but they also partied on the weekends, had fun, etc. The first stanza purports that college life creates "children with loud voices" out of all of us. In other words, we all the fun of being an adult without any of the responsibilities. Hence the lines "Picking insects off of plants. No time to think of consequences". The chorus (reproduced below) and main message of the song argues that we CAN have fun, but we should not lose sight of the fact that we're living in a bubble in college. It's saying that we should enjoy these years while they last, but we should control ourselves so as not to be overtly egocentric. It's a delicate balance based off of personal moral choices, but one that the song encourages. The "family of trees" line is a simple metaphor for college students, and "wanting to be haunted" can be explained by a desire that I believe is a part of all college students, a desire to be individualistic. This individualism can take the form of listening to music instead of doing homework, going out and partying on the weekends, or other anti-establishment-type activities. These actions are traditionally thought of by society at large as bad; thus they are associated with the word "haunted". "Control yourself Take only what you need from it A family of trees wanted to be haunted Control yourself Take only what you need from it" So basically MGMT is telling us to have fun but don't lose sight of who you really are and where you lie in society at large. Control yourself. Have fun but be responsible. I go to Wesleyan and, at least in this scenario, I think that's what this song means. But that's just me :D |
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| Phish – Punch You In The Eye Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This song is about limitations of life and how abusing those limitations of another man can be a crime worse than death. The expansive oceans represent unlimited possibilities, so when he says "I come from the land where the oceans freeze," he is suggesting that he lives in such a way that he is never truly free; always a slave to the freezing of the oceans or the orders of other men. So when he "paddled until it seemed[he] could take no more," he has effectively tried his hardest to escape the hindrances of his everyday life (drug reference?). But of course, he runs into Wilson, who is this mean old man (there's some allusion here most likely but I don't know what it is.) Wilson proceeds to torture him and control his every action, effectively creating MORE limitations. Once the speaker flees from the situation, he sings "Oh Wilson, someday I'll kill you 'til you die. Oh wilson, punch you in the eye." Kill you 'til you die brings an aura of violence and abuse, rather than just saying "kill you". It sort of makes it seem like he (the speaker) is going to make Wilson experience as much misery and pain as possible so much so that he finally just dies. In essence, he wants revenge. I think he wants to "punch [him] in the eye" because he wants to block out Wilson's visibility, effectively blocking out his options and increasing his limitations as Wilson had done to him. However, "the sea was eager to beat [him] back," which is similar to the sea freezing in the beginning. Interestingly enough, even when the ocean "lets" him escape and he climbs onto the rock, he still wants his revenge against Wilson, most likely because he believes that there is no forgiving what heinous crimes he had committed. The second time the chorus is repeated, it definitely carries a lot more confidence than the first time, as he truly, almost stubbornly wants to get his revenge. |
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| Phish – Golgi Apparatus Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| i don't know about that whole terrorism thing. i always thought this song was about being yourself and not getting bogged down with menial chores and life. the golgi apparatus, as many of us may remember from 9th grade biology, is generally used for receiving, modifying, and shipping materials; never actually dealing with the end products. this is really how many of us go about our lives, doing menial chores and never actually getting out to "see the sea". an example of this would be the person who he sees holding a ticket stub, which denotes that he or she was just waiting in some line or booth just to receive or give some sort of service or product (much like the golgi apparatus). as for the first line, in the version i heard, the song continues after the first line and goes back, and the song goes "Couldn't get it wrong so I had to look into the finance box just to check my status..." etc. this makes it seem like that BECAUSE he saw the person holding the ticket stub, he felt it necessary to check his own status. i don't really know what the lysosome line is about, but if i remember correctly, lysosomes are essentially "suicide sacs" for cells. maybe there's some connection there. | |
| Phish – Run Like an Antelope Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| this song is about being yourself and stomping all over/ignoring rules and regulations of society, (a.k.a. \"run like an antelope out of control\"). dunno what the first lines are about, but i do know that marco esquandolas refers to some guy who they recorded with or something like that. | |
| Grateful Dead – Dark Star Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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As is the case with many concepts we don't understand, it's all too easy just to dismiss this song as drug-induced and therefore nonsensical. I actually did a school project, so I researched this song in a lot of depth. (http://arts.ucsc.edu/Gdead/AGDL/darkstar.html) This song is really more about the patterns of our lives; how most of the time we go about our business doing nothing much in particular, but then there are rare moments of bliss or happiness that make life worth living. A "dark star" is actually a star at the end of its life. It is an oxymoron: the brightest of objects, seen as the absence of brightness. This can represent out dull, "brightless" lives that are illuminated by the crashing of a dark star; again, one of those rare moments that makes life more livable. [feeling rather unmotivated now... to be continued if anyone actually wants to hear it] |
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