| Nine Inch Nails – Discipline Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| This seems strange that there are so many interpretations of this song, related to drugs and fame and society. Maybe I'm just a sex fiend, but to me this song absolutely SCREAMS SEX! The beat and melody are so upbeat and sexy too. My lady loves to scratch me real hard during sex, and at first I wasn't into it. But then I got lost in the ridiculous pleasure/pain like I had never experienced, and kind of like having red marks on my skin on as a reminder. | |
| Pixies – Hey Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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No one else seems to have this interpretation: I don't take "chained" to mean that two people are chained together. I take it to mean that two people are chained to their own personal worlds and networks, and as a result they are separated. I think the song is about a man and a woman are in love, but life comes in between them. The man becomes chained to fulfilling his sexual and intimate fantasies with this woman, and this makes him empty because the one woman he loves is not available to him. He turns to replicates of his woman and engages in empty sex. The woman has become chained to her domestic life, she has a husband and a baby, and feels forever separated from the man she truly loves because of how chained she is to her current life. I think ultimately this is about the forces of society separating two lovers. Instead of somehow chained to each other, they are chained to their separate lives, or personal demons. |
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| Radiohead – Videotape Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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"Thom helps in interviews by suggesting that, for him, the album came from moments where he couldn't avoid dwelling on the fact that he will have to die one day, and in the face of the scarcity and the preciousness of live, and the undeniable need to live life well that follows... I stopped thinking of Videotape as song describing a family watching a dying person's postmortem proclamation of a life well lived, and I started thinking of it as portraying some unfulfilled guy who's run out on his family--the one in the backseat on the way back from the grocery store--to live out his fantasies, mid-life-crisis style, and is too cowardly to let his loved ones know face to face because, deep down, he knows it's the wrong decision and he's just rationalizing. At least that would explain why the song is so profoundly sad... Again, it's possible, but I think I see it differently. For me, because neither Reckoner nor Videotape lays out the kind of gruesome, obsessive end that awaits in All I Need, because they're both left open-ended, I can't help but see the songs as a real and heartrending glimmer of hope. Hope for a genuine way out. If you follow Radiohead, you know just how rarely this sort of real hope is made so beautifully explicit on a record, just how rare and truly epiphanal a moment like Reckoner is, or could be. If I convinced you that you just can't take the way the song sounds as gospel for what it means, then just look at the lyrics. It's all there: a recognition of mortality that renders life inestimably valuable, an explicit understanding that we're not necessarily at fault for what tempts us--that we're only human, in other words--but even if we are imperfect, there is a beauty in that, a beauty as natural as the visual images of nature in Scotch Mist, a beauty that reminds us that we have responsibilities to each other...and that means we have to leave behind the empty lives we used to lead and learn to live in ways that uplift and fulfill each other, while we're here. Videotape, then, is a somber moment of departure made glorious in having fulfilled that responsibility, perhaps only once. But once is all that matters." |
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| Deer Tick – Ashamed Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song's about approaching a relationship with a sort of religious devotion and fantasy, only to have it crumble and destroy your faith in love. There are a lot of allusions to religion (halos, angel, purest light, kneel and weep, visions, heaven). The narrator at first seems redeemed by the relationship, he imagines it to complete his life and perfect him. Yet the relationship is ultimately flawed because the narrator is ultimately flawed. He is stuck between being miserable because he is too troubled to make his girl complete, yet he is miserable without her. Verse 1: The narrator has found love, and has been purified through it, although he was not pure to begin with. A beautiful future of love, trust, and loyalty is imagined. "Oh, If your eyes water, you've got your favorite number to spin" = Call me when you're down? Verse 2: The narrator is too troubled by his own demons to create the bliss he once imagined. Instead he only destroys the relationship with his own inner violence. "I'm caught in a whirlwind I'm going to heaven" - Remembering the nameless wish he called bliss once? "I'm standing on trial and it's painted on canvas An eternal testament to how we are so animalistic" - Only to find that he was not judged worthy of bliss? This line is my favorite, yet I feel I understand it the least. Verse 3: The narrator decided to pick himself up instead of wallow in shame, and start anew. Only, the thought of new life without love causes him to metaphorically die. Sorry if this is a shitty interpretation. But I listen to this song over and over and still have trouble understanding it. I guess that's what makes it so great. |
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| Nine Inch Nails – Eraser Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Whoa... I think everyone is looking way too deep into this. Like the first comment says, "Pain." Pure, and simple: Pain. | |
| Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I really like what owennnnnnnnnn (on page 4 - go read it) has to say about this song, and (s)he has changed the way I think of it now. Imagine that this is the voice of the cosmos, the voice of the earth, the song of the earth, Gaia speaking to us, and sending us a message To me, I think this is the earth's perspective, as the earth has houses bearing down on it, cannot communicate with machines, and the only advice it can give us is to form a circle and love each other, as inevitable the earth is dying along with all of us and we have to swallow all this death and madness together, since it is a part of us. Also - nobody has mentioned anything about the title. I want to know what people make of the title Street Spirit. The song was originally entitled Three Headed Street Spirit (I don't know what that is a reference to - help anyone?). I take it as the earth spirit vs. the street spirit. The dirt and shit of humanity, and the creation of human landscapes in lieu of natural landscapes - could this possibly be the street spirit? The spirit of modern times that is destroying our precious earth? The spirit of the street is what the spirit of the earth is telling us about, that the spirit of the street is going to win this fight? |
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| Radiohead – Lift Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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actually - i don't know if the lyrics i posted above are necessarily correct - but it definitely does sound like "air conditioning" but i'm a little skeptical of the "fishes belly up" line also - maybe air conditioning could add to the stagnant theme - in considering that a real cool natural breeze is much more refreshing than artificial air conditioning - but it's hard to say either way |
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| Radiohead – Faust Arp Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I hate to interpret this in a very typical manner, but this song seems to me to be about drug use - or in a more general sense - overindulgence. Squeeze the tubes (syringe?) empty bottles (drinking alcohol?) - take a bow (feel proud of it). It seems kinda like people's obsession with drinking, and drugs, and eating, and shopping... what have you. And how overindulgence is so often encouraged, so that people don't know how to enjoy things within a reasonable limit - which makes you jaded and dead from the neck up. Head full of feathers, melt down to butter - reminds me of someone burning out. I don't know though, this is a tough one, and it could mean a lot of things. Perhaps the tubes and bags and bottles have something more to do with pollution and the environment though. The elephant in the room could be about ignoring this habit of overindulgence, or else ignoring how badly the world is being polluted so we can have so many useless luxuries. |
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| Radiohead – All I Need Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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So, without really reading any of the previous comments - here's my take on this song. It's about this crazy came we call love. The narrator so desperately needs to be loved, but at the same time, this game is killing him (trapped in your hot car). It seems about how selfish love can be, and how it's more like an escape from the self, or a way to gratify the self rather than truly caring about someone else, or making it your purpose to please and love someone else. (I am a moth - just wants to share your light. I'm and insect - trying to get out of the night) Realizing that you need someone to hold on to and attach yourself to to make YOURSELF feel better, rather than the other person (I only stick with you because there are no others / I'M in the middle of your picture) Ultimately, I just think it's about wanting to fulfill the self, wanting to have something to offer (I am all the days you choose to ignore), but realizing that it's just your selfish need. Realizing that you're kind of a parasite (moth/insect/animal), and the other person knows this, and chooses to ignore you, even if you wish you were the next act, or all the days someone chooses to ignore. It's all wrong, yet it's all right. That's the way selfish love goes. What can I say? Absolutely BEAUTIFUL song, no doubt about it! |
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| Radiohead – Videotape Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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So many people have commented on this, and I have no time to read all the comments to compare. But here's my take on Videotape: This song represents a peak experience, in fact, THE peak experience in life. Although the narrator realizes that someday he will die (when i'm at the pearly gates / this is my way of saying goodbye), and that he will inevitably lose control of his life again (mephistopheles is just beneath / you are my center when i spin away), he still has that one peak experience (today has been the most perfect day i've ever seen), as well as many other good memories (this is one for the good days)- so that now he can face the rest of his life without fear (i shouldn't be afraid - because i know...). I think the saying goodbye part isn't so much about death or suicide - I think it's about realizing that you've experienced a peak moment, and your life can only decline from there. You will never experience a moment so profound ever again, and you have to deal with that fact. You have to say goodbye to the good days, you have to say goodbye to your youth, to the memories you hold so dear. It's realizing that you have to come to grips with your own mortality, and with the mortality of all those you hold so dear, because soon all of this misery and beauty will fade away. I also notice that the life version has a lot more buildup, and a lot more intensity, as compared to the more subdued and stripped down studio version. It is really fascinating that Thom says "I won't be afraid" in the live version, which seems so much more confident. In the studio version, Thom sounds a lot less confident and says "I shouldn't be afraid" - showing a tinge of doubt. What can I say?? BEAUTIFUL!!! Definitely some of the best lyrics and piano I have ever heard from Thom Yorke. |
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| Radiohead – Lift Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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There's a version of this, a slower 2002 Spain version, as opposed to the faster 1996 Pinkpop version. The slower version is far superior (in my humble opinion). And the lyrics go something like this: this is the place remember me I'm the face you always see you've been stuck in a lift we've been trying to reach you this is the place it won't hurt ever again the smell of air conditioning the fish are belly up empty all your pockets 'cause it's time to come home only one, only one only one, only one you've been stuck in a lift in the belly of a whale at the bottom of the ocean the smell of air conditioning the fish are belly up empty all your pockets 'cause it's time to come home today is the first day of the rest of your days of your days so lighten up, squirt I think the line about air conditioning must have to do with a refreshing feeling - after spending so much time stagnating in a metaphorical elavator. This fish belly up seem to possibly represent this stagnation. I'd say this song totally reminds me of the voice of reason - that safe place inside of everyone that can never be touched. It's like finally finding relief and hope after years of being alone and miserable and stuck. Realizing that there's still hope - a new birth - letting go of the weights that keep you in that stagnant elevator box of the mind. |
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