| The Warning – S!ck Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| The first verse about self-care and the mention of bleeding just to feel alive makes me think this song is about cutting. I think it's using cutting as a metaphor for having different kinds of trauma scars, goading other people towards abusing her because the scars will just make her stronger and society will call them sick, because that's how they want to be seen in the world. I think there's a bit of irony going on that she wants to live in regret and break the silence with violence. That's a voice in her head, put there by her abuser, telling her what she wants. But I also think she's attempting to internalize that abuse and take control of it by becoming her own abuser. She wins because she's doing the metaphorical cutting instead of letting someone else do it. | |
| Lana Del Rey – Aviation Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The Naval Aviation Schools Command (NAVAVSCOLSCOM or NASC), is located at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. This girl has gone to college in New York for a little while, possibly which was close to home, and has pursued a liberal arts degree up until now. But now she's going to Pensacola to learn how to fly fighter planes for the Navy regardless of what her family things. |
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| Republica – Ready To Go Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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The woman in an abusive relationship who's been told she's weird, strange, and insane by her boyfriend runs away in tears, but then gathers her strength and courage and comes back and tells him she's about to give him some kind of ass-whooping. "Ready to go" means she's ready to face him down. This absolutely killer song only strikes me this way when I read the lyrics, not when I'm listening it. |
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| The Beatles – Get Back Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I swear when I first saw the liner notes for this song, her name was was "Sweet Loretta Modern" | |
| Camper Van Beethoven – (Don't You Go To) Goleta Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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This cheeky song is about Southern California coastal University of California schools. Goleta is where UC Santa Barbara is located. At the time, it was the biggest party school in the system. So they are fascist rich kids drinking Westwood is where UCLA is located. The stereotype of LA types is that they are image-conscious instead of intelligent. La Jolla is where UC San Diego is located. Not really sure where this is headed. UC San Diego was mostly known as an engineering and Biotechnology school at the time. Most students were dorks not snobs. CVB played at all these schools, so maybe they had interactions with students there. |
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| Bauhaus – Kick In The Eye Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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I believe this song is about alcohol-fueled creativity (addiction) vs. sober creativity -- or the related idea of searching for satori (abduction) drunk/sober. "Kick in the Eye" appears to be a direct reference to Jack Kerouac's "Satori in Paris" (1966). “Somewhere during my ten days in Paris (and Brittany) I received an illumination of some kind that seems to’ve changed me again, towards what I suppose’ll be my pattern for another seven years or more: in effect, a satori: the Japanese word for ‘sudden illumination,’ ‘sudden awakening’ or simply ‘kick in the eye.'” The book is a more-or-less nonfiction account of Kerouac's travels in Northwest France attempting to trace his French-Canadian genealogy. If the title of this book sounds familiar, it's also the name of a Bauhaus EP, containing two songs that are more-or-less about getting drunk. The book is about Kerouac getting drunk on the way to a satori moment, a moment which it's debatable if he actually achieves. If this interpretation is valid, then the song is a sardonic lament about how increasingly difficult it is to maintain the comfortable masks of your identity if you're not drinking. If you're drunk, you don't need to care if you reach satori (rejection) -- it provides the comfortable illusion of having done so. But if you're sober, every care is taken (protection). |
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| Suburban Lawns – Janitor Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[choad76:21588]. It is indeed "irrelative" because it's a portmanteau of the nuclear motif irradiate and relative. |
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| Suburban Lawns – Baby Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Just like with language poetry, which is also associated with California in the 60s and 70s, the expressive performance of speaking or singing the words appears to be just as important as the meaning. The cryptic "B on K" works in this way, as when Su sings "B on" it sounds both like "Beyond" and "Be on". The letters B and K should obviously stand for something starting with those letters, but they don't need to. Saying "K" is an understood term of agreement in normal speech and it's also a silent first letter to many words. In other songs, such as Janitor, she affects her voice to be childlike -- babylike, you might say -- and the singsong nature of her performance here calls to mind the babblings of a baby. I don't mean to imply that the lyrics are babbles necessarily, that would be too easy. But there is a "misheard" lyrics quality to their music in general, and this song in particular, that makes you think about what else those sounds might be linguistically translated into. What, for example, is the sound difference between "I'm like a sponge" and "unlike a sponge" or even "unlucky sponge"? The key line for me is "Popular cig is really just on cringe." I mean, taken literally wtf is going on in that sentence? I don't have all the answers here, but because I'm also familiar with other bands that use nonsense or fictitious languages in their music I have to suspect that something of that nature is going on. Look at Talking Heads "I Zimbra" for example, a contemporary song with this one. Or look at the later use of the speaking in tongues style language sounds from a band like Ekova or Sigur Ros. Even better, go back to scat singing and compare what happens when you use English words out of context instead of "accepted" musical vocalizations. |
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| Suzi Quatro – Can the Can Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I just discovered Suzi Quatro, so I might totally misinterpreting this. But every single song off the EP where this song came from gives off the vibe of being a description of a certain kind of sexual position. I won't describe it here, but the word "can" might give you a clue of what I'm talking about. If the number "69" connotes something to you, just think for a moment what the number "48" looks like since the song "48 crash" appears on this EP also. The research I've seen about the songwriters of these songs shows that they are very cagey with their explanations, and I suspect that my mind is not the only dirty one. So on the surface, this song appears to be about not letting your man mess around with other women, but really how do you do that? You put him in the can, baby. Both literally and metaphorically. |
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| Led Zeppelin – Travelling Riverside Blues Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[lzphishhead:7769] "Ripped off" is kind of strong, but the main problem was that they didn't credit the people they covered. There were several lawsuits about this, and there are still a couple going on right now. They weren't ex shy about saying who their influences were and who they borrowed and covered music from, but when it came to official acknowledgement, like with rights and album credits, they didn't really do all the right things they should have. | |
| R.E.M. – Radio Song Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This song is about how teenagers tend to use pop culture, specifically radio songs, as tools to deal with other people. The music industry promotes the idea that pop songs actually reflect how life is lived by most people, but the kicker is that the kids who listen to this stuff are supposed to believe that this is how life should be lived. I remember there was a George Michael song about how he was never going to love again because of a bad breakup, and critics of the song at the time pointed to the idea that this was a bad message to be sending to our youth -- that it was OK to shut yourself off if things go bad. The weird part is that this kind of pop music message COULD get through to youths as actual life lessons. The narrator of the song is listening to the radio and is hearing all the emotions of his life in every song (much like you can see a bit of yourself in the horoscope for every zodiac sign), so naturally he assumes that the radio will provide him with everything he needs to know. Even if the world is collapsing around him, the radio songs say that it isn't, so it must not be real. He's also trying to relate to his girlfriend in terms of songs he hears on the radio. "Children grow up prisoners All their lives radio listeners" People are tied to how pop-culture tells them what they should think and feel. |
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| R.E.M. – It's the End of the World as We Know It Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| This song is about all those cranks who proclaim "It's the end of the world as we know it", and it makes fun of them (specifically those on the Right, right?). The truth is, it's always the end of the world as we know it because things are always changing. There is always going to be a conflict somewhere, there are always going to be birthday parties, etc. TV reporters are always going to be reporting on any little prurient thing that points to the decline of our society, but the truth is that we're already there -- and the world hasn't ended. Despite the opinion of the Reagan era's Right-wing wack-jobs like the Moral Majority and the 700 Club nutso's, we are not a nation whose morality is going down the tubes. We're already in the tubes... we always were... and everything's pretty much OK anyway. | |
| Yes – Leave It Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Propblast is almost right in that it's about a band on the road. But it's not about them, it's about another nameless band, one that wastes its time doing pointless gigs ("MacArthur Park in the driving snow" -- "MacArthur Park" the song, by the way), and gets back to the hotel to do some blow ("Goodbye bad, hello heaven"). They even count off the number of dates remaining on their tour because its become just an exercise. "Leave It" is also a reference to the last line in the Beatles' "Lovely Rita". | |
| They Might Be Giants – Pencil Rain Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This has always sounded like a song about critics. About how critics can make or break certain artists with good or bad reviews. Or at least, they think they can. The "lives that are claimed" are artistic careers, and "perishing" in the rain of all that critical writing is a noble cause because the critics don't understand you, which is a badge of honor. But your career still perishes. |
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| Beck – E-Pro Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| This song is a throwdown to all those other music artists who use hate as a theme for their music. He's talking about entering the biz and finding it's awash in people who don't have a soul, the garbage talking trash to each other. The biz makes them fake, makes them cynical and hollow. But that won't happen to him. He won't give up that ghost. | |
| The B-52's – The Girl from Ipanema Goes to Greenland Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This song seems to have two meanings. First, it's about the Girl from Ipanema, who keeps walking past all the guys. She hasn't found anyone worth staying for, so she leaves for the opposite of Ipanema, which is Greenland, But she can't escape her own pickiness in men. It also speaks to how much the world has opened up. That you can be in Greenland and listen to "Girl from Ipanema" because of technology means you can have an experience that doesn't necessarily coincide with your location. It also means that you can't escape songs like this no matter where you go. |
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| Nirvana – On a Plain Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song is about someone who is being confronted -- at the prodding of someone else -- with a part of himself that he doesn't want others to see or even to see himself. That other person is trying to get him to bring that part of himself to the surface as some kind of therapeutic cure for him, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with that part of himself. It scares him. "I love myself better than you" because I don't want that part of myself to be exposed -- it was ruin everything he had been trying to hide his whole life. But for some reason, YOU is trying to bring it to the surface. So the narrator is hemming and hawing, trying to say things that the other person will accept and stop attempting to get him to confront himself. He mentions his mother dying and him reliving the experience every night, but then backs away from that "don't quote me on that" as a defense mechanism because he knows it will only prolong the therapy. "The black sheep got blackmailed again Forgot to put on the zip code" This is a pun on "mail" - you're trying to blackmail me with your emotional appeals to open up, but you forgot to put on the zip code on that mail, so I'll be unaffected by your attempts (ha ha ha :( ). "Somewhere I have heard this before In a dream my memory has stored As a defense I'm neutered and spayed What the hell am I trying to say" That part of him is locked away in his mind, he's convinced that he's neutered it so it can't hurt him any more, but he can't find the words to convince the other person to leave him and that dark part of his soul alone. "One more special message to go And then I'm done then I can go home" He's desperately searching for the right thing to say to allow the people trying the therapy on him to let him get out of there (since crying on command doesn't work anymore, he needs to find the right combination of words to tell them that will convince them to stop). It's possible he's in an asylum or feels like he is. But "I'm on a plain/I can't complain" is him saying that everything's cool as long as that dark part of his soul stays where it is -- stop trying to bring it out. |
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| The White Stripes – The Hardest Button to Button Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| This song is all about trying to get other people to shut up. First the baby, then the family keeps fighting, then everyone else won't shut up about them (put it in a short letter). The guy has opinions that don't matter because no one else will shut up long enough to listen. All he's got is his pancake batter and his backyard. The "Hardest Button to Button" is your lip. | |
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