submissions
| Elliott Smith – Coast to Coast Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I want to go back and agree with the evangelist comment. i think the whole song is actually about evangelism and going to hell. I think "circuit rider" refers to a traveling preacher that goes from town to town, and comes "every fifth Sunday" and goes coast to coast. I think he uses evangelism as a metaphor for people constantly trying to help him and tell him what is right "if you can't help it, leave it alone". None of that has any meaning to Elliott. I think the "that's why" at the end is referring to why he doesn't believe, religiously- that is all blather and nonsense. And I always thought that the part about feathers out your cap referred to the concept of something being a feather in your cap-accomplishing something. Every televangelist might feel a convert was a feather in his cap. And that when you get converted, you are an animal in the zoo. |
submissions
| Elliott Smith – Pitseleh Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think this song is sung to Elliott from both his mother and stepfather, who apparently abused both of them. He is the silent kid looking down the barrel, watching his mom getting hurt. She doesn't want to know where he is because then he is ia witness or a victim. And she has been trying not to cry, to not show him how bad it is, but Elliott/Pitseleh is crying, he knows exactly what is going on. But then later, when he sings the last verse, he is addressing it to someone he wants to love, but knowing what he has lived through, he will be bad news for her. He often spoke about being abused and started a foundation for abused kids, and left his mother's house to go live with his father because of his stepfather. Really, I guess, it is about self-awareness, and understanding, as an adult, what the repercussions of a bad childhood are. |
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