| Vienna Teng – Recessional Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I adore this song so, so much. Because it's a "reverse strip tease", I tried rearranging some of the lines/verses (I took some lines in isolation, sometimes couplets, sometimes entire verses) with the ones at the end of the song put toward the beginning, and this is what I came up with which I think makes the most sense: "Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around..." Oh words, like rain, how sweet the sound And the words, they're everything and nothing I want to search for her in the offhand remarks Who are you, taking coffee, no sugar? Who are you, echoing street signs? Who are you, the stranger in the shell of a lover, dark curtains drawn by the passage of time? In the terminal she sleeps on my shoulder, hair falling forward, mouth all askew Fluorescent announcements beat their wings overhead: passengers missing, we're looking for you And she dreams through the noise, her weight against me, face pressed into the corduroy grooves Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing Maybe it means nothing, but I'm afraid to move And I know I don't want this Oh, I swear I don't want this There's a reason not to want this but I forgot But she's looking at me, straight to center No room at all for any other thought And I never thought I would find her here: flannel and satin, my four walls transformed "It's so beautiful here," she says, "this moment now, And this moment, now" --- For me, then, taking those set of rearranged lyrics, the story moves from a person meeting an ex-lover (or, in the context of the film she based the song off of, a lover who was wiped from his mind), and they strike up a conversation again, basically get to know each other anew. "Well anyway," she says, "I'll see you around" - so the relationship has a future. And then slowly they get closer, and he "searches for her", the "stranger in the shell of a lover" (the future lover, with the dark curtains to the lover she's going to be "drawn by the passage of time" - the time which hasn't *passed yet*). And then - now this is very much my loose interpretation, I'm not sure why exactly I think this, it's just the images the song conjures for me personally - she ends up sleeping over with him at his house/apartment. "Flannel and satin" = pajamas, "my four walls transformed" = the place he lives - the physical representation of his entire life - is transformed entirely by her presence. Because she says it's "so beautiful here"... and then the song "ends" with this wonderful feeling of how time, life, really is, a string of "now"s passing us by and we can never live in the future or in the past. Just "this moment now". I don't know. It's just such a gorgeous, brilliant song, the way the lyrics play with the idea of time and intimacy. ... yeah, I don't know. I ramble too much. |
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| Voxtrot – Wrecking Force Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I've always heard the lyrics as: --- Get dirty, get clean Get some new scene to wipe the dirt from everything That touches you and takes you far from faith In body, in deep, I saw you creep In little footsteps through my sleep And colour me with images of faith And you can be anyone Or just some mother's wasted son Oh, you can be your own guy if you want to Come over, come quick, come laugh, get sick Come battle two swords with a stick And when you've gone, I'll put it through my chest Because listen, kid, everybody knows You can fit good company up your nose And we fall hardest, better worst than best And you can love anyone You will believe me when I'm gone Oh, you can be your own guy if you want to Come on to my side You will defy me with a knife Spare me all the miseries I tear apart your life Oh, you can lose yourself in hours Oh, you can break somebody's heart in two Jump on in, the water's fine for swimming Look over, look fast, look in the past The motley kids and ugly cast That smother you, all radiant with joy 'cause somebody said when I was young Oh, playing dead was just like fun But these days I am a man, I'm not a boy And you can be anyone Or just some mother's wasted son Oh, you can be your own guy if you want to Come on to my side You will defy me with a knife Spare me all your miseries I'll tear apart your life Oh, you can lose yourself in art Oh, you can break somebody's heart in two Jump on in, the water's fine for swimming [aaaand then I can't make this bit out] You are the wrecking force, you are the wrecking force In me, in me 'cause [something~] when I was sixteen You are the wrecking force, you are the wrecking force In me, in me --- I'm not sure how correct those are, though, so i'm posting them here rather than in the Report Thread. So -- yeah. As for what I think it's about... honestly, I'm not sure. The strongest impression I get is that it's about someone who's being held back from his whole potential by his own behaviour. And possibly dragging the narrator of the song into his dysfunction? Well, I'm not sure. |
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