submissions
| The American Analog Set – Aaron And Maria Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[slacker7667:44578] Gonna be that guy: it's not free verse if it's got a recognizable accentual pattern (which it does: three stresses per line in the chorus, four in the verse). And it's got rhymes both within the lines and at the ends. I'd agree that it's good songwriting, though. |
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| Die Antwoord – Enter the Ninja Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I think it's probably "don't ask for kak," not "don't ask for cock." Vulgar either way, but kind of an important distinction. |
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| Steely Dan – Kid Charlemagne Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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My parents listened to Steely Dan a lot all through my childhood, but I had to turn thirty before I really started to get it. So much regret... |
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| Steely Dan – Deacon Blues Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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FWIW, my parents went to Bard with Fagan and Becker and report that this song is about an actual guy they knew, who crashed his car and died. |
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| The Decemberists – Billy Liar Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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"Walter Mitty" is not a character in _Billy Liar_. He's a character in _."The Secret Life of Walter Mitty_. Tom Courtenay's character in _Billy Liar_ is named Billy Fisher. The two characters are similar in many ways, but they're not the same. |
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| Spoon – I Summon You Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think richie345 is pretty close to getting it right. Nice job! But I'd like to add that there's a great double bind in the first line:
On the one hand, when you get older you start to feel like your teenage years were the time when you were happy. In a long relationship that's going down the tubes, you start to feel like the early days were when you were happy. When you were younger, you listened to sad music because you weren't actually sad. You paid money for the thrill of pretending to be sad. As a grownup, you know about real sadness. Being a grownup sucks.
But on the other hand, when you were younger you actually _did_ feel sadness more intensely. Music really mattered. When your long relationship started, you felt those emotions really intensely, and music was crucial to you. But then you get older and nothing seems to matter as much. Your relationship gets boring. Everything gets dull, and you wish for some real sadness. You don't bother to keep up with new music anymore. Being a grownup sucks.
Both meanings operate at the same time. |
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| Yo La Tengo – Tom Courtenay Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I'm gonna take a wild stab, here...I think the song is mostly about "Billy Liar," which stars Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie. It's about being the kind of guy Tom Courtenay plays in the film: a dreamer and a fan, alone in your room, watching movies and reading magazines, imagining a glamorous, exciting world where you're a hero, but not really doing anything. When Billy finally gets a chance to break away from his boring job and his boring life in his boring town and head off to adventures in London with a gorgeous, exciting woman (Julie Christie), he's too timid to go for it. Gonna take it slow...it's all about regret, missed opportunities, and the accompanying self-loathing that you'll do anything to numb.
I'm not sure why the object of fandom here is "Help!," but it certainly fits with the whole U.K. early-'60s thing. |
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| The Cure – Play for Today Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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"Play for Today" was a British TV program in the '70s, which featured new original stage plays filmed for television. I don't think Smith took anything specific from it though -- just the general idea of fakery and deception. Which is too bad, really, because (I'm told) that the plays were usually pretty good. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – It's the End of the World as We Know It Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I'm pretty sure it's "Watch O'Neil crush rush, uh-oh this means no beer, Cavalier," not "Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh This means no fear, cavalier."
Robert O'Neil was President of the University of Virginia (mascot: Cavaliers) from 1985 to 1990. He tried to ban alcohol on campus (including fraternity houses). It was unsuccessful, and in 1988 he had to back down.
I don't know exactly what connection REM had to UVA, but Charlottesville was definitely on the same Southern college-town tour circuit with Athens and Chapel Hill. |
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| Morrissey – Bengali In Platforms Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Gotta agree here: this song is pretty sympathetic to the "Bengali in Platforms," actually. Moz's narrator sees this guy who's trying really hard to fit in and failing miserably at it. Drawing on his own experience, he wants to tell the guy to give up, because there's no point -- you'll never "fit in," you'll never "make it," you'll never make your life better by trying to be something else, so just live with the fact that you are what you are. Or even, "yes, I'm from this England that you're trying to embrace, and let me tell you, not only is it kind of a shithole, but it will never accept you. It won't even accept me."
That said, I don't quite understand the silver-studded rim, ankle star, and lemon sole references. The last is a bad pun on the "high soles" of platform shoes and the fish (maybe something you'd order in a restaurant where the Bengali guy, stereotypically in the '80s, is a waiter?), but I don't understand why or to what purpose. Any ideas? |
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| The Mountain Goats – Maize Stalk Drinking Blood Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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"one of the most beautiful songs he's ever written."
Agreed. However, I don't really think it's about nature, as such; it's about being ridiculously in love and how that state of mind makes you feel simultaneously all-powerful and alienated from the rest of the world -- like you've suddenly got this magic, Midas-like power that's altogether too intense for the regular life going on around you. "Letting the sky fall" could be either positive (overwhelming happiness) or negative (overwhelming sadness), but either way his emotional state is profoundly changing the world around him. |
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| Bowerbirds – In Our Talons Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think it's more complicated than y'all're making it. Consider the metaphor of "in our talons": that is, humans are like birds of prey and the rest of the world is our quarry. But the irony is that there's nothing unnatural about what birds of prey do, and there's nothing unnatural about the way humans are treating their environment, either. What's unnatural, in fact, is the figurative imposition of human thoughts and emotions ("wondering," "they know they're drowning") on non-human species. But that's the rub: being "only human" means behaving like every other species on earth (working only for itself, without concern for others). It would actually be better if we were to be more than human (i.e., more than natural), and hold ourselves to some kind of environmental ethics. So, paradoxically, what "takes a lot of nerve" is to accept that the human takeover of the earth is just nature being nature after all. |
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| The Magnetic Fields – Acoustic Guitar Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It's an old song idea -- cf. Thomas Wyatt's "Blame Not My Lute," from the 16th century. I'm pretty sure Merritt is working self-consciously in that tradition. Which is what he does. |
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| The Mountain Goats – No Children Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I think what everyone's trying to get at here -- and what makes this song so great -- is that it's about the very fine line between love and hate. The opposite of love isn't hate; it's indifference, and our narrator certainly isn't indifferent. You don't have murder/suicide fantasies about someone you don't care about. But then, you can only hate someone, really hate them, if you've let them close enough to feel like an inseparable part of you. The irony here is that this song is all about "hope" -- almost every line starts with that word. It's just that hope isn't necessarily a pleasant thing. The narrator literally can't imagine a future without his wife -- that's love -- but then the future he _can_ imagine is pretty horrible. If you've ever put all your emotional eggs in one basket, you'll know what he means. |
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| The Mr. T Experience – Sackcloth And Ashes Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I think you guys are missing the point. It's not about materialism; it's about self-confidence. Sackcloth and ashes are traditional symbols of penance (in the past, monks would actually wear deliberately chafing garments to punish themselves for their worldly sins and prepare themselves for God). This is the joke of that line about "the silly habit you've put on" -- both a figurative monk's habit (clothes) and a behavioral/psychological habit (relentless self-accusation and despair). It's also the joke behind the line about "she's not sorry for her sins / as long as she looks good" -- the girl is not in the same self-punishing mindset as the boy here.
So here's the setup: boy, after a breakup, is going around feeling like he's totally worthless: "sullen and regretful, querulous and fretful, carrying a head full of evil thoughts." He meets a new girl, and it's the right girl, in the right place, and she's totally hot and fun, but he's too messed up to be able to go for it; he could only be "someone to feel sorry for," and she's not into that. So until he comes out of his depression, he's not getting any. (Corollary: it's easy to get another girlfriend when you already have one and you're feeling confident, but really hard when you're feeling lonely and rejected). |
submissions
| The Mr. T Experience – Sackcloth And Ashes Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I think you guys are missing the point. It's not about materialism; it's about self-confidence. Sackcloth and ashes are traditional symbols of penance (in the past, monks would actually wear deliberately chafing garments to punish themselves for their worldly sins and prepare themselves for God). This is the joke of that line about "the silly habit you've put on" -- both a figurative monk's habit (clothes) and a behavioral/psychological habit (relentless self-accusation and despair). It's also the joke behind the line about "she's not sorry for her sins / as long as she looks good" -- the girl is not in the same self-punishing mindset as the boy here.
So here's the setup: boy, after a breakup, is going around feeling like he's totally worthless: "sullen and regretful, querulous and fretful, carrying a head full of evil thoughts." He meets a new girl, and it's the right girl, in the right place, and she's totally hot and fun, but he's too messed up to be able to go for it; he could only be "someone to feel sorry for," and she's not into that. So until he comes out of his depression, he's not getting any. (Corollary: it's easy to get another girlfriend when you already have one and you're feeling confident, but really hard when you're feeling lonely and rejected). |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Idylls of the King Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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1. _Idylls of the King_ is a long, contemplative cycle of poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, built around the legend of King Arthur. I'm not totally sure I see the exact connection, but Tennyson is always about loss, regret, and elegy, and so is Darnielle.
2. "Your face like a vision straight out of Holly Hobby" -- who else could put Tennyson and Holly Hobby together? I always thought this was one of Darnielle's best lines, because you usually can't see Holly Hobby's face at all. It's hidden under her bonnet. Who knows what she's thinking, that deep and brooding country lass. |
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| The Decemberists – The Sporting Life Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Should be mentioned that the main allusion here is the 1963 film "This Sporting Life" -- I haven't seen it myself, but, like "Billy Liar," it's one of those classic British kitchen-sink dramas beloved by Morrissey and therefore in beloved in imitation by Colin Meloy. What's kind of amazing about Meloy is that he does such good work with such unoriginal material.
'Course, I grew up as a small-town USA Smiths fan too, so I can relate. |
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| Belle & Sebastian – Sleep the Clock Around Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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"There's a lot to be done while your head is still young"
Man, that line stuck with me all through that crisis that people hung up on indie rock get when they turn 30. The memories do shine, though... |
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| Vic Chesnutt – Independence Day Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I can't believe I'm the first person to comment on Vic Chesnutt, who's got to be one of the top five American lyricists alive today.
Anyway, what I love about this one, among other things, is the self-reflexive last line, where Vic acknowledges that the analogy of national to personal independence is pretty cheesy -- it's that kind of self-consciousness that endears him to me. And it runs through the whole song -- the whole legend of Hemingway as the macho, self-absorbed, isolated, doomed literary hero is kind of ridiculous and Vic knows it, but it's still a big deal to him. And ultimately the emotional stance he's interested in here -- the rugged emotional individualist -- _is_ bound up in America's history of itself, political and otherwise. Vic Chesnutt for President! |
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| The Decemberists – Billy Liar Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Y'all should see the film "Billy Liar," with Tom Courtenay and Julie Christie. It's a classic and will help you with not just this song, but a bunch of Smiths songs as well |
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| The Mountain Goats – Commandante Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I've always taken it as a pretty earnest celebration of giddy teenage (or neo-teenage) love -- not so much a swipe at the people who wear Che Guevara T-shirts (although you're right, they're morons), but a total endorsement of that feeling of being in love when you think you and your special someone can take on the world, overthow governments, do anything because you're just so goddamn happy. A zillion pop songs have failed to get that feeling right, but this one does it, 'sfaras I'm concerned. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Cubs in Five Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Given that A) John D. wears his record-collector geekdom on his sleeve and B) it was still the early-mid '90s, I've always thought that the Phillips Corporation's awful mistake was developing and marketing the compact disc. At that point in history (young 'uns take note) many people were pissed at the record companies for switching from vinyl and cassettes to CDs and then charging way more money for them (cf. the Big Black CD compilation "The Rich Man's Eight-Track Tape").
I used this song to teach English to high school kids in Hungary, circa 1996. The cultural references were tough for them, but once they got it, they totally loved it. |
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