submissions
| Lou Reed – Wild Child Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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Maybe her name was Lola but she told you she had been picked up by Clapton when actually it was Ray Davies. |
submissions
| Pet Shop Boys – My October Symphony Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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"Change the dedication / From revolution to revelation" is a nice anticipation of how religion has been enrolled to fill the gap left in the collective mind by the discarding of socialism. |
submissions
| Siouxsie and the Banshees – I Could Be Again Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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The quote "those wonderful people out there in the dark" makes it clear that the song is inspired by the movie Sunset Boulevard, where a has-been actress is desperate to be again. |
submissions
| Siouxsie and the Banshees – Sunless Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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I imagine that this track came about from the band jamming on a beat derived from "El dia de los muertos", whose gothic feel made them think of Miles Davis's "X Rated", which in turn influenced the guitar part and inspired them to graft an organ part onto it. |
submissions
| Depeche Mode – Walking In My Shoes Lyrics
| 7 years ago
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A song about evasion, rationalisation, and self-pity. A song about the cheapest way out: calling it "what's happened to me" rather than "what I've done", and about the second cheapest way out: throwing back "you'd have done the same" as if it were equivalent to "it was right". |
submissions
| Joy Division – A Means To An End Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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You can't tell if "I always looked to you" (when heard as opposed to read) and "I put my trust in you" are in the past or present tense. The interesting thing is not the answer but the fact that when you hear the song you ask yourself the question, which is at the core of the song: is love still real or over, how long does love last? |
submissions
| Depeche Mode – I Feel You Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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Based on the assumption that DM songs fall into two categories: those about sex and those about drugs, and that they're sometimes tricky to tell apart because they use sex and drugs as metaphors for each other, I'm not quite sure which this one is. |
submissions
| Depeche Mode – Never Let Me Down Again Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I find it impossibly funny that you quote the line "we're flying high" to prove that the song is not about drugs, when it's the most explicit drug reference in the song, the line that nails it for good in case you were still not quite 100% certain. But you were only joking, right? |
submissions
| Connie Stevens – Sixteen Reasons Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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Not really about the song itself but its inclusion in Mulholland Dr:
"Your secret sighs" might be misunderstood as the bawdy "your secret size". But it might also be misunderstood as "your secret's size": a bit far-fetched, I admit, but that would fit the movie just perfectly as one of the myriad relevant tiny details which give the film its texture. |
submissions
| Rufus Wainwright – Slideshow Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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"You treat me so indifferently" does not sound to me as if the song is addressed to Kate. Supposing the slideshow rumour is true, that may be where he got the slideshow idea and transferred it to another sort of relationship. |
submissions
| John Cale – Guts Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Denouement does not to be translated as it entered the English language long ago. Possiby the use of this word sparked what follows it, which is a funny, very poor translation of "isn't it". Possibly a jibe at Kevin Ayers, who has spent quite a lot of time in France (you'll find two songs with French titles on Shooting at the Moon). If it is the case, it might also be a jibe at Ayers's command of French not being quite up to what he would like others to think it is. Or the adultery situation seems French (i.e. promiscuous) to the cuckold. Or a bit of all that. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – The Boston Rag Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I agree with your interpretation.
I think you can understand "Bring back the Boston rag" in two ways but they boil down to the same feeling: "Bring back that dance tune from the happy days" or "When you return from Boston bring me the local paper". In both cases it's about feeling a long way from home (in either time or space). |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Rikki Don't Lose That Number Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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And even if this story were true, the only thing it would prove would be a factual similarity, which is not the same as saying that the song is about pops. That would require Walt sharing with Don his cruisin'-for-boys-in-the-desert experience in detail(an unlikely premise), since Don wrote and sang the song. Like a novel, a poem, a picture or a film, a song has a life of its own. For its creator it may be about something or someone but when it is experienced by somebody who does not know the creator it can be about somebody or something else. What I'm driving at is, as is the case with any song and any anecdote, the anecdote involving pops (if it is true) was at most an inspiration for the song. It cannot encompass the whole meaning of the song. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Haitian Divorce Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think thedurable1 has a point. "Babs" and "Clean Willie" both sound very British. In a US context wouldn't they sound New England posh?
By the way, is "willy" used a lot for "penis" in the US? |
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