| They Might Be Giants – Stormy Pinkness Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Stormy Pinkness is about jerking off in order to relieve sexual tension. He was waiting on this girl for a long time (forty days) and trying to hold it in, but in his "human weakness" he couldn't wait anymore, and he's like, a man has needs, you know? "johnny cup" is a word for jock strap, i.e., the cup where you put your johnny, and he's just filled it with his "glue" (not gloom, the lyrics are wrong.) It's "stormy pinkness" because jerking off is making a sort of storm with your pink thing. It's a very insignificant activity (small indeed), a kind of digression from what we should be doing, but something that many guys cherish. Now that he's done it, he feels relieved: "thanklessly free." |
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| They Might Be Giants – Turn Around Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I think "Turn Around" is about no matter how you try to be "in control", carefree, or easy-going, there's always something coming up behind you to haunt you...especially death, which is indicated by the skull. | |
| They Might Be Giants – Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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The most meaningful TMBG song! I think it's not random at all like some of their other ones where it's impossible to know what they were *actually* thinking when they wrote it...anyway.... It's a protest against the status quo: people just doing their duties without questioning, working just to please their boss, and generally being fake. It makes people like mindless puppets. Putting your hand inside the puppet head means conformity. The song is saying that if we could "bust in the puppet head", that is, throw all this fakeness away and start fresh, we'd be free. We could deal with each other honestly and sincerely. The first verse is also attacking nostalgia and sappy sentimentality. Maybe TMBG thinks these are also empty and fake and used to keep people in line by manipulating their emotions. People are told (especially by pop songs) that all they need is some romantic love to make their life complete, when actually the problem is much deeper. In the last verse, he decides to quit his job, which is at a carwash. It's important that the job is at a carwash. A carwash is where people wash the outside of their cars so they will look good to other people...another way of keeping up the status quo. Clean the inside of the cup, man! |
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| Counting Crows – Einstein On The Beach Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I pretty much agree with the Albert Einstein/a-bomb/regret interpretation above, and I want to add some observations: "Einstein's down on the beach staring into the sand Cause everything he believes in is shattered" See how the word "shattered" follows after "sand"? It's well known that a nuclear bomb explosion generates so much heat it turns sand into glass...which can then be shattered, like one's life is shattered. Einstein is thinking about this as he's looking at the sand. "Blooming uncontrolled": the mushroom cloud "blooms" out when an a-bomb explodes. "All his wings are slowly sinking" The wings are his mental abilities, which have allowed him to fly above mundane life and peer into the mysteries of the universe. But they are sinking and can't carry him up high anymore because he can't get away from the consequences. "All king's men reappear for an eggman" - Normally "eggheads" or nerdy scientists are not appreciated by the kings and generals of the world. But all the politicians were very interested in Einstein's science because it could give them the bomb, so he was highly honored. Einstein wrote a famous letter to President FDR to encourage the US to build the bomb to protect them from the Nazis. Surely the US gov't was very thankful for this. Did Einstein do it because he was "sensitive" and "wanted to be well-liked"? That may be what the song is implying. But the king's men can't put Humpty Dumpty together again...now Einstein realizes that people's approval can't give him a sense of personal worth after what he's done. Whoa. Deep. |
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