| Robert Johnson – Cross Road Blues Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Hahahaha clearly I had pressing matters to attend to that day :-P | |
| Robert Johnson – Cross Road Blues Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Did you even read my post? Because this critique is completely flawed. Allow me to show you the errors in your analysis: 1. You contradict yourself at least twice: Example 1: "Some of the comments above simply say that this song IS about Robert selling his soul. He is correct that the lyrics in no way refer to this." Then you go on to say: "The song, as excellently explained by Dianabol, probably does have to do with some kind of 'sin' being committed, and an attempt at repentence." This is interesting because Dianabol inferred that the first three lines were a reference to the crossroad myth. Huh, how can the lyrics not refer to the myth at all, and Dianabol have an accurate analysis of the song? Example 2: “Declaring that a song definitely means something is incorrect. It is helpful to know about the Devil myth, but not required. You should obviously look for other meanings (inferences) behind the words, but it shouldn't require knowing some set of myths.” Okay firstly, I never stated that the song’s allusion to the crossroad myth was the song’s sole and exhaustive meaning. But I’ll get to that ridiculous notion later. Let’s focus on your own admittance that the “Devil myth,” as you call it, is relevant. You state that one should look for “other meanings” and that knowing the crossroads myth is “helpful,” therefore conceding that the myth is relevant to the song. And that point was exactly MY point in my original comment. If you go back and actually read lzphishhead’s comment, he/she tries to discount the crossroads myth as a potential meaning ENTIRELY. I state that it cannot be discounted. And since your own words imply that it is relevant, I was right and you have no place critiquing my comment at all. 2. You clearly need to look up the definition of the word “infer” because your grasp on its meaning is tenuous at best. You state: “You're not even using the right word! You mean 'allusion'. You cannot 'infer' from the lyrics that it has anything to do with the Devil. However, it probably is an allusion to the myth/legend of selling your soul at a crossroad.” Firstly, I stated in my post that "these lyrics ALLUDE to an old folklore that goes back far beyond the life and death of Robert Johnson” — it was actually the very first thing I said, which makes me question your literacy. Secondly, to “infer” means to draw meaning from through the use of reason. We use our reasoning capacities to pull meaning from the lyrics of any song. Therefore, yes, you DO in fact infer from the lyrics. Your very observation that the crossroads reference is an allusion to a myth is, in and of itself, an inference. Next, let’s look at the content of your comment because it will reveal that you are rather unfamiliar with the myth of which you speak. You state that I cannot “‘infer’ from the lyrics that it has anything to do with the Devil. However, it probably is an allusion the myth/legend of selling your soul at a crossroad.” Who do you think the soul was being sold to in the myth?! The tooth fairy? The myth is that you sell your soul TO THE DEVIL at the crossroads. Given that fact, it’s a little hard to divorce an allusion to the Devil from this song seeing as the Devil is a key character in the myth (arguably even THE key character). Next, you state: “You can interpret the inferences of them yourself.” Okay, if you knew what the word “inferences” meant, you would know this statement makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. You can’t interpret inferences; inferences are interpretations in and of themselves. The two words are synonyms of one another! 3. “Declaring that a song definitely means something is incorrect. It is helpful to know about the Devil myth, but not required. You should obviously look for other meanings (inferences) behind the words, but it shouldn't require knowing some set of myths.” This is actually a point we agree on, assuming that you meant no one can declare that a song definitively means one thing and one thing only. And it’s a point that refutes NOTHING I HAD SAID. Once again, I never once stated that the crossroads myth was the only meaning one could attribute to the song, nor did I even say it was the sole allusion made in the song. What I actually said was that it was AN allusion made in the song, and lzphishhead was wrong for chastising the others for noting the allusion the song was making. He/she was wrong, and he/she still is. So in summary, you completely missed the point of my original post, misconstrued the entire argument, contradicted yourself, and then threw out an incredibly erroneous critique based on an inept bungling of the definition of a word of which you claimed some degree of understanding. Here’s a pro-tip: if you’re going to challenge me, leave that pseudo-intellectual weak sauce at home. |
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| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| You're an idiot. Here are the results of his choice: his private profits went up slightly, Nike's sales off the backs off destitute Vietnamese children continued, and there is no observable, measurable, marked improvement in the civil rights movement which can be linked directly, or indirectly, to the heightened exposure of this song. Judgment based on your proposed consequentialist-based philosophy: selling out to Nike = fail. | |
| Massive Attack – Psyche Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| In the last verse: "And will you call and be assured for life" should be "And if you call I'll be your shield for life"*. I've confirmed this with a number of other online readings of the lyrics and it makes more sense. Plus, to be honest, it sounds a lot more like Martina's saying "shield" than "assured," especially in the original version on Heligoland (the version on the Splitting the Atom EP is a mix). | |
| El-P – Smithereens (Stop Cryin') Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Should be Doomburg* not Doombug. El's takin a shot at Bloomberg, the mayor of New York. | |
| Cage – I Found My Mind In Connecticut Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Alright, the line with the question mark should read: "Life is so strange, so is God with games"* Next, russtrick has the debit card over the eyes reference dead on. However, I'm rather confident the message about laying on the air bed at Sean Martin's is NOT about waking up after a ketamine dose. And ketamine is definitely not his drug of choice. That's the shit they forced on him when he was in a psych ward that illegally drugged him and restrained him in isolation for up to 13 hours at a time. He's given up most drugs, which is what this album is largely about. He has said in a number of interviews now that Movies for the Blind was a drug-induced album, Hell's Winter is the album that set the target for what he wants to become, and this album was about the internal conflicts that stop him from getting there. If you've ever suffered from depression (as he did once he was taken off the SSRI's that were forced on him), this song makes perfect sense immediately. This song is about the depression that is keeping him from connecting with the world. When you're depressed, doing any normal task is like trying to do it with a 50 pound weighted-vest strapped to you. You don't want to get up. You don't want to deal with other people's bullshit. You don't want to deal with the world. Respectively speaking, those sentiments can be seen in the following: "Every morning I just lay in bed cause I don't want to wake up, pick my stupid face up, give my shit away, you'll take it from me anyway, even if I go away, I will never go away"; "you guys should start a band that's called The Four Girls That Lied To Me, you want me in looser jeans less assholes...she said she wouldn't judge me, then the gavel fell from her purse"; "life is so strange, so is God with games, the one wrapped tightly around me like a dog with mange, kick me in the stomach, I shit myself in the damn street, left for dead, want to be knocked out like that but can't sleep." This song, in a nutshell, is about how he is off the drugs and out of the psych ward, but the feelings of depression that the psych ward produced in him still remain, and he's trying to deal with that while trying to better himself, both for his own sake and his daughter's. |
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| Cage – Dr. Strong Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Everything they* write on my chart is a block to** bring me and... Would like to get up but I'm tied* down As far as the meaning of the song, this one's pretty cut and dry. |
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| VAST – You're Too Young Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| This one's real self-explanatory. He's had a tryst with a much younger woman and is coming to the realization that he did something wrong by doing so. The girl comes to him unsatisfied with the younger guy she's with and is probably attracted by his being older and more experienced, more knowledgeable, etc. -- all the usual reasons why younger people hook up with people just a little too old for them. Now he's regretting what seems like an impulsive decision. This seems like it is more of a cathartic song for him, and that experience can probably be shared by anyone that's been with someone they shouldn't have been with. | |
| M.I.A. – Bingo Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Swing and a miss Tania322. This is an indictment of the upper class, specifically in England where she spent time growing up. "Hitting a 6" is a cricket term. "Ra ra" is a term for the bourgeoisie England upper class men who claim to have some link to the royal family. "I don't be running at all / I got my own goal." This is like her Terminal Preppy (see Dead Kennedys). This fits with her socialist mentality. Please don't make her support of Palestinians' rights seem ridiculous by claiming that she's writing songs from the perspective of suicide bombers. Even if that wasn't the intent, it's what comes off after MTV does something stupid like ban her and make her seem like a terrorist sympathizer. | |
| Saul Williams – Fearless Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Couple of corrections: "my sense finally tune the instruments of-of-of" should be "my senses* finely* tune the instruments of-of-of" "out of my mind, 'cause no lovin fair" should be "out of my mind, there's no love in there" -- it's the chorus, it's the same every time. It doesn't change on the last two. and lastly, "I watch my toenails blacken and walk a deadened trance" I believe should be "I watch my toenails blacken and waltz* a deadened trance" but I'm not entirely about this one. The first two corrections I am entirely positive about, though. |
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| Saul Williams – Fearless Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Couple of corrections: "my sense finally tune the instruments of-of-of" should be "my senses* finely* tune the instruments of-of-of" "out of my mind, 'cause no lovin fair" should be "out of my mind, there's no love in there" -- it's the chorus, it's the same every time. It doesn't change on the last two. and lastly, "I watch my toenails blacken and walk a deadened trance" I believe should be "I watch my toenails blacken and waltz* a deadened trance" but I'm not entirely about this one. The first two corrections I am entirely positive about, though. |
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| Saul Williams – Fearless Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| No that's correct. He's saying the world is a constant narrative, like prose, which he relates to and relays back through poetry. | |
| Overseer – Never Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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In the third stanza, should be: To all my kids who was used and abused To my teenage mothers who was young and confused* Otherwise, it all seems correct :-D |
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| KMFDM – Professional Killer Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Jenovasson and Cool Coz are both right. That's the point of the song: that it seems like it's talking about an executioner AND it seems like it's talking about a hitman. This song is denouncing the practice of capital punishment by casting the executioner in a comparable light to a hitman, thus showing the incredibly thin, grey line we walk when we appoint somebody to pull the plug on another person because we don't like them or what they've done. The fact that the subject of the song (a hitman or an executioner) is indistinct is supposed to be a reflection on the indistinct nature of supposed distinctions between the two. To better illustrate the point, allow me to offer this: The MacManus brothers from Boondock Saints -- are they executioners or hitmen? I'm not so sure about the military following politicians. I mean, that's certainly a message that one could see KMFDM attempting to portray in a song, I just don't see where it comes into this. Actually, I don't see any reference to politicians specifically at all here. |
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| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| What have you bought into? How much will it cost to buy you out? | |
| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Ok, I know I said I was done talking about this song, but Lollipopoman has forced me to break my word and reemerge for one last comment. You idiot. The first lines are not about prostitutes. It's about reparations. 40 acres and a mule. Ringin any motherfuckin bells? And before you open your mouth with a retort consider the title of the fuckin song. Here's a hint, check the parentheses. |
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| Nine Inch Nails – Discipline Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Ok I'm about 90% certain this is NOT about Trent. This is all sarcastic. Tongue-in-cheek, people. He's saying this stuff from the role of the quintessential neo-con fascist running the country. Sort of like what he did with Capital G. He's playing out this role as though the person is finally questioning their war-mongering, oil-grubbing, bull economics methods ("Am I still tough enough? Feels like I'm wearing down. Is my viciousness losing ground, ground, ground?"). There should be a recognizable theme here since With Teeth (I definitely agree that this song is picking up on that aesthetic), which is that Trent is becoming less focused on social revolution and more focused on political revolution, less focused on introversion and more on extroversion. Thus his recent camaraderie with Saul Williams and the use of Year Zero in its entirety as a concept album poised against the Bush regime and its results. While most of his songs still hold some evidence that he is still questioning himself (i.e. Right Where it Belongs), he has spent far less time with the self moralizing and more time to the cause of the struggle. Questions, comments? | |
| Skinny Puppy – Worlock Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Just throwing this out there as complete conjecture, so feel free to refute liberally: Is it possible that when they say Worlock, they actually mean a worlock? My thought he was Aleister Crowley. His Thelemic religion is tied with symbols from Egypt and Greece, symbols that the Free Masons adopted, like say the all-seeing eye, which is still featured on the back of the dollar ("cyclops overlooks"). Additionally, it is an occult religion, and as Callinite pointed out, blue has occult references. Additionally, Crowley is often referred to as the "Wickedest Man in the World," which may have a tie in to "a view so cruel." There are obvious ties to Charles Manson here, which I attribute to Skinny Puppy much in the same way that Marilyn Manson is attributed to him; as a study of the possible failings of society and the inherent potential for evil and destruction within man. But I'm also beginning to think that this may also indirectly reference Crowley. Thoughts? |
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| Skinny Puppy – Pro Test Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I agree that this, as with all the songs on this album, are about the political climate and specifically catered to what was the upcoming 2004 election at the time. However, this song is definitely NOT about prostitution. This song is about the title, the "Greater Wrong of the Right" (the right wing that is). This song is calling for a grass roots rebellion, a revolution from the streets. Ohgr is pointing out in his typically poetic stylings all the faults of this government. If this song is about any one specific issue being faced in that election, it would be the Patriot Acts and AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force), giving the President unprecedented authority to erode our freedoms, particularly our right to privacy, all so that he and his fat-cat, oil-hording friends can turn some extra profit ("Be a politician, eroding all your freedoms, down the rabbit hole cracks, money markets fall, through a looking glass, time becomes too fast, all to benefit the rich") | |
| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| ^^rationalizations** | |
| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I'm really tired of arguing over this. This is the last thing I'm going to say, and it will either convince you or it won't. After this, flame me and mock my argument all you want, but it is what it is. If you are trying to make a change by promoting the message of change through your art, you have a responsibility to stay true to that message, especially in your art since it is the very pragmatic manifestation of your message. To use that message, more to the point that art, to promote the things that the art itself and the message itself chastises is to betray your responsibility. Period. No excuses. No marginalizing. No compromise. If you stand for something, you don't stand for it UNLESS someone offers you something like money to ease off of it. Excuses can be made up and down to try to rationalize putting List of Demands on a Nike commercial; to take a specifically anti-corporate-America song and put it on a commercial promoting the practices of corporate America. But in the end, that's all they are: excuses and rationalizes. They won't persuade or assuage me. I hope that is true for the majority of his fans as well, so that in the very least he can still be held to a higher standard. But in the end this is about personal interpretation to a considerable degree. This is mine, and you all have yours. |
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| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Well said, Anarchitect | |
| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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A scathing retort from the philistine. Well, if I'm voicing the "wah, wah, wah, wah" part, then I feel pretty fuckin good. At least SOMEBODY is speaking up for the abused and oppressed indigent workers and children in the third world countries that Saul is now helping Nike exploit. You may consider their cries to be worth less than your ability to purchase Nike shoes, but then again your clearly an idiot. |
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| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Right, cause an artist isn't truly an artist until he's well advertised by corrupt corporations. Good point. | |
| Saul Williams – List of Demands (Reparations) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This song doesn't mean shit anymore. He sold it to Nike. He has now used it to help propogate the profligate practices of Nike. I'm sure the children in the sweatshops in Cambodia thank him. Here's how the world works: You either get to be down with the struggle, or you get to promote Nike. You can't do both. |
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| Robert Johnson – Cross Road Blues Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Thank you :D | |
| Robert Johnson – Cross Road Blues Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Lzphishhead - Firstly, these lyrics allude to an old folklore that goes back far beyond the life and death of Robert Johnson; the belief that one could sell one's soul at a crossroad to the devil in return for something. Any artist or appreciator of art would tell you that most of understanding art is being able to read into inferences. Just because Johnson doesn't spell it out word for word, doesn't mean that it wasn't one of many intended meanings. Secondly, if you had bothered to look into the myths, legends, and other songs of Johnson, you might have held your tongue before posting that admonishing reply. The myth (and I say myth instead of rumor intentionally, which I will get to later) was around even during Johnson's life time. It was most likely instigated by Son House's comment at the time that Johnson must have "sold his soul to the devil to play so good." It is not entirely presumptuous to say that Johnson fed off of this comment and turned it into a legend. This is why I say it is more than simple rumor. If you bother to look at some of his other songs, there is ample reference to the occult (i.e. "Hell Hound on My Trail" and "Me and the Devil Blues"). On top of further songs suggesting this deal with the Devil, there was the fact that he took up an acquaintance with Ike Zinnerman, a guitarist who was known at the time for practicing in graveyards, sitting atop tombstones. Guess what kind of stories became associated with that particular habit. Then, last but not least, there was the story of his death. The most prevelant theory about his death is that he was poisoned by the jealous husband of a woman with whom he was having an affair. It is believed that while he was able to live through the poisoning, his body, weakened from fighting off the poison, gave way to pneumonia. During his death, which was believed to have been preventable had a doctor been present, he sustained a high fever. There are stories that he talked about big black dogs attacking him as he died, and some stories even say that he began to howl like a dog himself, all of which, if true, were most likely due to fever induced hallucinations. However, when one hallucinates, much like when one dreams, the subconcious often plays puppetmaster to your hallucinations as much as outside stimuli, thus suggesting that he held some belief or fascination with the idea of having sold his soul to the devil. In conclusion, with everything that went on both during Johnson's lifetime and after, it is far from idiotic to believe that his music at least had some iota of inference to the occult. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is entirely reasonable to believe that he had intentionally played upon these metaphors and allusions. However, what is short-sighted is to believe a man that was dubbed the "Grandfather of Rock 'N' Roll," inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, and cited as one of the greatest artists and guitar players of all time by many reputable sources, took no part in, if not entirely incapable of, instilling metaphors and indirect references into his lyrics. |
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