| Vampire Weekend – Unbelievers Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Girl, you and I will die unbelievers Bound to the tracks of the train -I hear this as a response to the claim that there are 'no atheists in a foxhole' -- meaning that if you know you are about to die you will quickly accept god. But here the singer is refuting that claim. Being bound to the tracks means you know your death is imminent and yet, they'd still die as unbelievers. It's interesting that the song is overtly about religion, possibly the biggest philosophical subject matter there is, and yet Ezra uses this huge subject as a metaphor for something smaller and more personal - specifically a relationship. |
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| The Shins – Port of Morrow Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The song is haunting. As an atheist, I find death to be a terrifying thought. The oblivion that follows is sort of comforting, but not really. But this song speaks to that. "Life is death is life." It's as though he's saying that when we are alive we are just this collection of stardust, and we are no different in death. The delineation between life and death is imaginary. As are all the lines that society draws, right/wrong, good/evil, particularly the line which separates humanity from any other brutal animal (the buzzard for example). I love his songs when they take these journeys. He starts out in fear for the pigeon, the victim of the brutal cycle of life. He wants to shield his daughters from this harsh reality. But over the course of the song he comes to terms with death, and it's necessity, it being essentially a part of life. Even the atrocities of war he considers as part of... existence. He accepts the cycle of life and death, and realizes he should impress it on his daughters. The lines are all imagined. |
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| Cat Stevens – Tea for the Tillerman Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Last track of the album is crucial. The album cover is crucial. It is all for the tillerman (the farmer who tills the field all day--a long arduous task). Bring him tea, steak (hearty food: for he worked/will work out in the sun) and finally bring him wine, to drown his sorrows, when he thinks of the women who made the rain come (brought him sadness). Although the album art shows among other things, a woman (silhouetted) performing a rain dance that is bringing in the literal clouds, I think it's a double meaning, bringing the rain meaning tears of sadness but also the water of life. I think the song is a farewell to the heavy contemplations of the album, a sunset on that hard day's work. It puts all that stuff behind it, even though all that stuff is... Everything! Work. Love. Play. Music. Sinning. It is saying finally that after all this earthliness, even after the sun has set on life itself, there is still spirituality. That's why the song is infused with double meaning. The tillerman is not only the ploughman but also the steersman of the vessel. Or God directing the fate of men. The homophone son/sun is obviously referencing 'The Son', while wine is considered the blood of Christ in the same theology. Seagulls (who track boats and ploughs alike) are followers who sing their hearts out: disciples perhaps. Sin and innocence in the last couplet goes without saying. O Lord! For that happy day. The last words of the album are 'that happy day', that is without doubt referring to a rapture or day of salvation. The alpha and omega. The song begins with a command. (in the beginning there was the word). And it ends with that happy day. Salvation. The song never overtly says it is about spirituality, but it creates a room and fills it with all kinds of life, except for one elephant shaped hole in the middle. That elephant in the room is religion. It's nonsense, imo, you get one chance and wasting it toiling away in the field under the hot sun in anticipation of a paradise in the next life is the way to miss out. Nevertheless, that's what the song is about. |
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| The Shins – A Comet Appears Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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It sucks that LadyBug nailed this so long ago leaving little to add, since I came to this song so late, but her it is, plagiarizing her a little: The protagonist awakes to birds chirping, and reflects on what he has learned while 'wincing the night away.' He has realized that for all our attempts (as a human race) to raise ourselves above the status of simple animals, we will all grow old and die and then there’ll be nothing. The ‘worst part’ isn’t a final judgment or hell it is nothingness, a complete lack of both meaning and existence. He uses the metaphor of weight throughout the song. “Take a drink just to give me some weight”. It is a way to keep himself held down (on this wily comet) by being heavier – not physically but philosophically – he wants his view of life to have some meaning, some weight behind it. But he finds it futile (I’m barely a vapor), he can’t embrace atheism and be optimistic about a world without meaning, and he can’t lie to himself that there is meaning. “They shone a chlorine light on/ A host of individual sins” This is clever as it reads as both multiple sins and an embodiment of sins (host/host), perhaps another reference to Jesus as the barer of sins. ”We can blow on our thumbs and posture” I like the reading that this is how we separate ourselves as a race. Our opposable thumbs and upright posture – two things that elevated us as humans. The growing numbness is the apathy that results from a lack of meaning. ”With burnt sage and a forest of bygones” seems to be about so called ‘ancient wisdom’ that has fallen by the wayside. Things that could give meaning and “Might give me a way out” ”But” every proposed meaning is just “a pie in the sky/ A tool we devise” and if we can’t just close our eyes to the truth and fool ourselves what are we left with? He has no answer. A true tragedy – inevitable. |
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| The Shins – Girl Sailor Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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that'd be "one TOO many fights" Its just two easy to type one two. Its clever writing "won one" "one too" |
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| The Shins – Girl Sailor Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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the gutter may profess its love (he is singing from the gutter. ie beneath her) and follow it with hesitation (change his mind about her) for there are just so many of you out there for rent (plenty more fish...) a stronger girl would shake this off in flight (if the gutter signifies beneath, in flight signifies above. A stronger girl wouldn't let someone breaking up with her bring her down) and never give it more than a frowning hour but you have let your heart decide (she's been irrational) Loss has conquered you (she's let this breakup affect her) You've won one two many fights wearing many hats every time but you won't win here tonight (he's not going to back down with a breakup he wants but she's against) Anyway. Its about a guy who's broken up with a girl he used to idolize but now knows better. She's not used to that maybe she does the breaking up usually and she's taken it badly but he's telling her to keep on and soon she'll forget the things he said even though they were things he knew would hurt her and struggled to tell. |
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| Dirty Pretty Things – Truth Begins Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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One of my favourites from the new album. I think this is simply about coming of age and losing sight of who you really are, becoming disillusioned, but the narrator is telling his friend that he can be nostalgic about the future as well as the past. That you have a chance to be whoever you want. Its kinds soppy when I think about it. |
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| The Shins – Mine's Not A High Horse Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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LOL @ ^^^^^ I was reading these post wanting to make a similar point. What a hotly contested line! I'm adamant HE is flipping someone off. Chelsea: you are right that its difficult to define what is parallel to the sky, but a round finger would be at best concentric, not parallel, a pointed finger would be parallel to the horizon. A raised middle finger is the only thing that could even be considered! If you think of the sky as stretching upwards from the surface of the earth out to space, anything vertical is parallel. He's flipping someone off. |
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| The Shins – Turn On Me Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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turn on me. That alone is a request, an incitement, an invitation, a threat. Who is it directed at though? I like the argument for a former friend, but there are lines that give me a distinct feeling that he is signing to an ex lover. You had to know that I was fond of you / fond of Y O U This both spells it out, literally, passive-aggressively, but also puns on 'why, oh, you?' like why did it have to be you I was fond of? Those old pious sisters were right (and it's definitely pious) as in: those nuns who could resist the temptation of sex had it figured out. This tells me it's sung at a lover (not necessarily a woman - there's precedent for homosexual characters in this album). However another reading of this line could sway me to the broken friendship story. There's lots about the inflexibility of both parties causing the end of the relationship, break before bend, change was just too hard. |
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| Bob Dylan – Talkin' World War III Blues Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This song is really funny. Seems every verse is a joke, with a punchline (I guess like a lot of talking blues) Not that get all of it - suppose some of them are appropriate to the time. If anyone knows the references in some of the verses please post. 'Nurse, get your pad, the boy's insane.' -- I like this double meaning of 'pad' like padded cell. He grabbed my arm, I said, 'Ouch!' As we landed on the psychiatric couch, He said, 'Tell me about it.' -- and the double meaning of 'tell me about it', like a standard opening from a psychiatrist, but also a declaration of agreement. I was down in the sewer with some little lover When I peeked out from a manhole cover Wonderin' who turned the lights on. -- what does this last line mean? I stood a-wondering which way to go, I lit a cigarette on a parking meter And walked on down the road. It was a normal day. -- i guess the parking meter is on fire. sounds like a reference to riots of some kind, rather than just an image of WWIII. like WWIII is the normal state of the world anyway, so its just a normal day. 'Give me a string bean, I'm a hungry man.' -- why does he use 'string bean' in his songs? does this have a double meaning? Well, I seen me a Cadillac window uptown There was nobody aroun'. I got into the driver's seat And I drove down 42nd Street In my Cadillac. Good car to drive after a war. -- is this just a reference to it being an American car? Like America is a good side to be on. You might be around after a war? I dunno. Well, I remember seein' some ad, So I turned on my Conelrad. But I didn't pay the Con Ed bill, So the radio didn't work so well. Turned on my record player - It was Rock-A-Day Johnny singin', 'Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa, Our Loves Are Gonna Grow Ooh-wah, Ooh-wah.' -- dont really get this verse, but the rhyming is funny. 'When you hear the beep It will be three o'clock.' -- second time he says 3 o'clock, is that a significant time. 'I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.' I said that. -- one of my favourite lyrics ever. |
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