| Fleetwood Mac – Landslide Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Well I don't really know much about Nicks' life and if this would make sense, but the song has always sounded to me like it's about the decision to get a divorce late in life. "I've been afraid of changing cuz I built my life around you" - self explanatory "Time makes you bolder, children get older and I'm getting older too" - after thinking about it for a long time, she eventually realizes that the idea isn't preposterous. The kids are grown and out of the house. And she's getting older, wasting her life in a loveless marriage. The line that supports this the most for me is, "Climbed a mountain and turned around." She's spent most of her life building up her relationship with her current husband - like climbing a mountain - and to give up that relationship now makes the effort she put in feel wasted - like getting 90% of the way up a mountain and then deciding to go back down. |
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| Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra – Massachusetts Avenue Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| A song about how mundane things can constantly remind you of your ex, and sometimes there's no escaping it. A familiar theme to listeners of The Jeep Song. I like this one considerably more. | |
| Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra – Melody Dean Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| It's about a girl who finds a female fuckbuddy to deal with having a long distance relationship with her boyfriend. And he's not happy about it. | |
| They Might Be Giants – Hearing Aid Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I've always had the impression that this song was about a guy with an asshole boss. He starts out by referring to him as "Frosty the Supervisor" (frosty referring to a cold personality), says he "lives by himself" (reinforcing the coldness) and says usually he can't find it in him to feel sorry for him. The boss is always berating the narrator, saying things like "even the electric chair isn't good enough for a lazy bones like yourself." He turns off his hearing aid at work so he doesn't have to hear his boss's constant criticism. Made all the better by the fact that the following song on Flood is Minimum Wage. |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Delilah Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The gist of this song is, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Delilah is a friend who has allowed herself to be fooled twice, three times, a hundred times by some asshole guy. Despite Amanda's harsh words, I think Delilah is her friend and she is just frustrated that she won't wise up and leave the guy because Amanda doesn't want to see her get hurt (worse than she already is). There are several lines referencing Delilah drinking (it's last call/and you're the last one leaving; for a quick hand of gin). It seems the implication is that she's drinking away her sorrow, but she won't even acknowledge that there's a problem. She's depressed but she won't admit it, not even to herself, because to do so would show that her relationship with this guy is harming her, and she's so in denial about it. Then there's a few lines about still being alive "you may be flat but you're breathing; you're still alive Delilah" - I think Amanda is saying, get out before he kills you, Delilah. "Let's see how fast this thing can go" - to me this is Amanda's summary of Delilah's attitude/mindset in one succinct phrase. Foolish, reckless, self-destructive. An accident waiting to happen, asking for trouble. Like somebody else said, some of the lines of this song bother me a bit. They don't seem "Amandaish" to me (not that I know her or anything to make that assessment). "You schizos never learn/And if you take him back/You get what you deserve" I think Amanda airs some pretty personal thoughts in her songs, personal enough to paint a picture of what kind of person she is, and she doesn't seem to me like somebody who would make generalizations about people with mental illnesses, or say that a victim of abuse deserves what they got, no matter how foolish the victim may have been. Every time I hear the line "Oh God, Delilah, why?" I picture this, haha: http://www.ragemaker.net/images/?img=Stupidity/OhGodWhy.png |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Sex Changes Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The way I hear it, this song is about various different kinds of "sex changes," and how you can never go back after you've changed. The first verse is about a literal sex change; sex reassignment surgery, that is. The references to surgery are obvious: "you get your choice of anesthetic," "we have to chop your (clock? sounds like cock to me) off." She finishes by reminding how permanent the change is: "don't forget you're stuck with it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." The next verse is about a pregnancy: a kind of "sex change" because it is a way in which sex can change your body. "You'll start to really show it in a week or so, "you get more than you're asking for without the right protection." And again, she reminds that this is a change that goes on forever: "you'll have to keep on feeding it tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Good Day Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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It's about a girl who is depressed after a breakup, finally being able to move on with her life. She starts out barely able to complete routine tasks; her idea of "on fire" is taking out the trash. "Success is in the eye of the beholder" - most people wouldn't consider taking out the trash an accomplishment, but to her just being able to get out of bed feels like success. Then after a while she's able to go out and try new things - "I picked up croquet today and I'm on fire" Finally she's able to have fun again: "I had so much fun today, and I'm on fire" - she may not be completely over him yet, but she's back to functioning again. "You'd rather be a bitch than be an ordinary broken heart" - to me, this is about how sometimes it's easier to get mad than to be sad. Her ex has decided to do so. She decides that the best way to get back at him is to be fine without him - "I'd like to do more than survive, I'd like to rub it in your face." |
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| Amanda Palmer – The Point of It All Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| What do you mean you'll bite your tongue? | |
| The Dresden Dolls – Half Jack Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I love this song. I know it's meant to be about her parents, but I honestly think sometimes she writes songs that purposefully have double meanings. Like Bad Habit is supposed to be about her habit of biting her finger nails, but the lyrics obviously appeal towards people who self harm by cutting, too. Whether it was purposeful or not, I think these lyrics can definitely be interpreted as a story about a transgender or possibly intersex person. So the interpretation about her parents: "I'm half my mother's daughter; a fraction's left up to dispute" - the first time I heard this line my first thought was a nasty divorce that gets taken to divorce court, where the judge decides the "fraction" of time that the child will spend at each parents' house. Other than that, a lot of the other lyrics can be interpreted as her regret that her father is a part of her, in her genes, how she feels like she's therefore sort of fated to be like him, and how she regrets that because she wants to have nothing to do with him (I try to wash him out, but like they say, 'the blood is thicker'/it might destroy me, but I'd sacrifice my body, if it meant I'd get the Jack part out). It's a similar theme as Runs in the Family, actually! She can physically distance herself from her father, but she'll never really be apart from him completely because he's a part of her. The transgender interpretation is more fun to think about, to me. I think of it as a male-to-female transgender person who tries to have surgery, and it goes wrong for some reason. I think maybe she reacted badly to the anesthesia or something like that, something that prevents her from being able to have surgery at all. "I'm half Jill and half Jack" - mentally female, physically male. "It's half biology and half corrective surgery gone wrong" - I interpret this line with the "gone wrong" applying both to "biology" and "corrective surgery." That is, it's biology gone wrong (biology screwed up by putting a woman in a man's body) and corrective surgery gone wrong (something went wrong with the surgery). "You'll notice something funny if you hang around here for too long" - it's crude, but guys talk sometimes about the fear that someday they'll be getting hot and heavy with a girl only to find out she's "really" (and by "really" I mean biologically) a man. They especially fear they won't realize until she's naked. That's what the line could mean by "if you hang around here for too long." "Long ago in some black hole before they had these pills to take" - because she can't get surgery, the closest she can get to realizing her dream is to take hormone pills. She's glad that she can at least do that - she thinks how awful it would be if she lived during a time before those pills were around. "It might destroy me/But I'd sacrifice my body/If it meant I'd get the Jack part out" - these are her thoughts on surgery. The doctors have told her she should never try again, it's too dangerous. But she's so miserable living as a man that that's a risk she'd like to take. She'd rather be destroyed - rather sacrifice her body - than continue living as a Jack. |
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| Amanda Palmer – The Point of It All Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I can definitely see how the drug addict interpretation makes sense. I feel differently about this song though. I think might be about a friend who's very physically ill and has resigned herself to staying inside all day sewing. I get the sense that she's ill because of the lines about how they "propped" her up - no able bodied person needs her friends to prop her up on her deck. Soon after falling ill most of her friends abandoned her, proving they were only "fair weather" friends (just cause they call themselves friends/doesn't mean they'll call). The narrator, however, has stuck with her. She comes over often and tries to muster some enthusiasm in her friend and remind her that life is good (a beautiful view of the sea). But the friend is depressed and has lost interest in everything except her sewing. The narrator is getting increasingly frustrated at how the friend seems to have given up, hence the sarcastic tone of many of the lines (no one can stare at the wall as good as you/i guess that's the point of it all). I think the friend has a terminal diagnosis and that is why she has given up. The narrator tries to instill hope in her friend, maybe the doctors are wrong (just cause they call themselves experts doesn't mean sweet fuck all), but the friend writes it off as naive optimism (which it probably is). Now that I think of it, though, this interpretation works just as well even if the sewing imagery IS in fact a metaphor for drug use. It makes sense, too, that maybe the ill woman got hooked on drugs to cope with the pain of her disease. As somebody who has been very seriously ill and has felt that sense of resignation, the feeling that it's just too hard and I don't have the energy to do anything or go anywhere outside the walls of my house, this song strikes a major chord with me. |
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| Amanda Palmer – Have to Drive Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I have a pretty distinct image in my mind of what is happening in this song. I think what happened is the narrator was driving one day and hit a deer; the deer gets horribly mangled but isn't dead right away. The narrator is so shocked and disturbed she can't bear to run over it again to put it out of its misery. She calls the cops and then walks onto the shoulder of the road and starts digging a grave for the deer. After a few minutes she sees a cop car coming and goes back in her car. There is a sense of relief with the cop's arrival because they will shoot the deer to put it out of its misery (they're getting closer/just get inside/it's almost over). The majority of the song is talking about the aftermath and its effects on the narrator. She feels awful about killing an innocent animal and allowing it to suffer for so long. She starts thinking a lot about mankind's detrimental effects on wildlife, and starts wondering if she should change her lifestyle to do her part to minimize those effects. But she justifies her continued use of a vehicle by saying she "has to drive." In this day and age, how does one survive without driving? It's not possible, she tells herself (I have to drive/I have my reasons, deer; you learn to drive/it's only natural, deer). The truth is that it is possible, it's just inconvenient, and she knows this deep down and the selfishness of it is eating her up (fighting the jury in my head). Finally she acknowledges that the choice to drive IS a choice, not a necessity, and that it is a selfish choice but she's going to choose it anyway, because in the end she values her lifestyle more than the lives of a few animals (it is a delicate position/spin the bottle/pick the victim - she could volunteer to be the "victim" by giving up her lifestyle, or she could continue to drive and pick wildlife and nature to be the "victim"). Finally she is tired of agonizing over the issue and feeling anxious every time she's behind the wheel, so she decides to simply put it out of her mind (forgetting everything we saw). The last lines (meet me in an hour/at the car) are important because it shows how the narrator is moving on with her life; she didn't want to give up the ability to just hop in the car and meet up with someone in an hour's time, so she shoves her guilt to the back of her mind and continues to drive. |
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| Ben Folds Five – For Those Of Ya'll Who Wear Fannie Packs Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Always thought he was saying "I been around your mother, I seen things happen," which I still think is hilarious. | |
| Ben Folds – Password Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I actually never thought of the narrator and the girl being a couple. I always thought the narrator was kind of a stalker. The narrator is, for some reason, obsessed with this girl and has been watching her, listening, learning as much as he can about her ("I've been listening and I don't forget"). That's the feeling I got because the things he knows about her are such superficial things, not the kind of stuff he should know if they had an actual relationship. She knows about his obsession and (rightfully) thinks he's a creep ("you think it's weird but it's not"), but he thinks collecting all this information is some kind of "sign" of his "love" for her ("it actually means I really love you"). Anthony is the boyfriend. The narrator has convinced himself out of desperation and desire that Anthony is an asshole and isn't treating her right. He believes she's bored with him and that she will be leaving him any day now. His observations on their relationship are very biased - he WANTS their relationship to fail - so it's hard to know, via this unreliable narrator, whether their relationship really is unstable at all. As a user above said, it appears her password was Anthony (as that seems to be the last thing he guessed) so that could be a clue that their relationship is in fact plenty happy. He seems to be trying to break into her computer, perhaps after breaking into her house. He's trying to guess her password by typing in all the things he knows about her. He looks at it as a test ("I can pass the test") of his knowledge of her, to prove - to himself more than anyone else - that he loves her. He is successful and he learns a secret about her - that, when she claimed to be in Tulsa visiting Jane, she was actually elsewhere doing who knows what - which shocks the narrator into realizing that you can't really "know" somebody just by listening in on their life...there's a whole other side to her that he couldn't possibly have known about via his observations. This is just what I always thought. The idea that the narrator is the girl's boyfriend seems likely as well. It did puzzle me that the revelation about Tulsa comes off as a betrayal - you can't betray someone you don't have a relationship with, so that's a clue that maybe the girl and the narrator are closer than I originally thought. Maybe this is the couple from "You Don't Know Me" :P |
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| Gomez – Old China Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I submitted this one because I noticed it wasn't here, and I'm dying to know what it's all about. It's obvious that it's about a plane crash. The "black box" is a device that collects information on planes and can usually explain why crashes occur (though not this time), and the line "did we land or were we shot down?" is pretty transparent. The main line that make me think there's more to the song is the very first one: "Our first and last remaining" - what could that mean? And I wonder what the narrator and the target of the song are arguing about... It's a very beautiful, yet melancholy song. I'm trying to transcribe it by ear to learn on the piano. It sounds pretty easy. |
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| Vanessa Carlton – White Houses Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I don't even normally like this kind of music, but for some reason I've always loved this song, and the lyrics have a great meaning to me. Most of these lyrics are not meant to be taken literally. I believe a lot of the meaning that can be derived from this song is just in the mood that the lyrics imply. Crashed on the floor when I moved in This little bungalow with some strange new friends Stay up too late, and I'm too thin We promise each other it's till the end This stanza is reminiscent of first moving into some place that you will live temporarily, with roommates you’ve never met. To her, it’s like starting a new life, but one that will end soon and carry over no consequence when you return to “real life”. A lot of people have suggested it may have been a summer ballet camp, which sounds plausible. Basically this is just setting the scene: She’s just met four girls who she’ll be living with for the summer, they have fun and maybe act a little recklessly, and they form a “strong” bond. However this bond is not as strong as they think it will be – they have a great time together, but they still just met, and they don’t fully trust or know each other. It’s a fun friendship, but more shallow than they realize; it was only made to last through the summer, because they will be parting ways. A big, BIG message in this song is the things that happen when you get too devoted to things that were only meant to be temporary – temporary friends at camp, temporary boyfriend. This camp is like entering another universe for a summer – she thinks nothing she does there will matter or have a consequence, so she does some crazy things she wouldn’t normally do. What she doesn’t realize is the emotional impact they’ll have on her. Now we're spinning empty bottles It's the five of us With pretty eyed boys girls die to trust I can't resist the day No, I can't resist the day Drunken fun with her four new friends and a few boys they’ve invited over to their place. This shows the growing relationships between these people. The boys are obviously attractive and the girls would “die to trust” them, but again this is just a temporary summer thing. They won’t have the time to come to trust these boys, so they pursue them without developing any foundation, a decision that comes around to hurt them in the end. Jenny screams out and it's no pose 'Cause when she dances she goes and goes Beer through the nose on an inside joke I'm so excited, I haven't spoken And she's so pretty, and she's so sure Maybe I'm more clever than a girl like her The summer's all in bloom The summer is ending soon It’s midsummer now. This is the first hint at the fact that her “strong” relationship with these girls isn’t as strong as they thought it was. Basically, she’s getting jealous, and it’s obvious now that she would betray her new friends in favor of a boy. They’re still having fun, but Jenny is the center of attention, perhaps she was the one who told the joke. Jenny is maybe the most attractive and confident girl in the house, and since the boys have come to visit this has started to bother our narrator. She feels that the boys will be more drawn to a girl like Jenny than a girl like herself. She thinks to herself, “Well, at least I’m smarter”, she’s searching for favorable attributes within herself as she holds onto hope that the boys will choose her over Jenny. The narrator is more shy and introverted: When Jenny’s having fun, she “screams out”, when the narrator is having fun, she doesn’t speak. She probably sees in Jenny what she wants out of the summer: Jenny is perhaps the type who acts on her impulses and doesn’t worry about the consequences too much. The narrator is more reflecting, but this summer, she thinks she’s in an alternate universe that won’t affect her real life, and she wants to try being like Jenny. She reminds herself that the summer’s ending soon, which means two things: her alternate life will soon be over, she’ll come down off this high, and have to go back to real life. Therefore, she has to hurry up and do what it is she wants to do. It's alright and it's nice not to be so alone But I hold on to your secrets in white houses She’s not living her usual lifestyle, which feels strange to her. But she says that it’s alright, and it’s nice to have these new friends and be crazy for a while, and not think so much. But again, everything that happens will be contained in this alternate universe that the summer represents: This is what the white houses symbolize. White houses are literally the place where she is staying for this summer, but they symbolize the alternate universe state of mind, the delusion that the things that one does while away from home on a vacation will not affect your life afterwards. The white houses will hold all the crazy things she does during her stay, all of the secret things that she does without thinking about the consequence, that she doesn’t want to carry over into her real life. She plans to leave these things behind her in the white houses when she goes. Maybe I'm a little bit over my head I come undone at the things he said And he's so funny in his bright red shirt We were all in love and we all got hurt She’s starting to fall for a boy here, too quickly. She feels over her head, taking on things that she is not ready for, because she is used to taking things slowly and making well thought out decisions. But here she is just tempted to do everything on a whim, she allows herself to fall for the boy even though she wouldn’t normally. I get the feeling from the last line that it means two things: Her four new friends are going through a similar “summer fling” type ordeal, they’re allowing themselves to fall for boys (perhaps the same boy that the narrator is falling for) even though they know it will be over when the summer ends, and it will hurt them then. It also may refer to the love that the friends have for each other – they’ve grown very close, and as the end of the summer draws near, they realize that they will have to leave each other soon and never see each other again, outside of this alternate universe. And that hurts. I sneak into his car's black leather seat The smell of gasoline in the summer heat Boy, we're going way too fast It's all too sweet to last There’s all sorts of hints here that she doesn’t like what she’s doing: she sneaks, she says they’re going way too fast. This usually cautious girl is allowing herself to be seduced by a boy she barely knows, and she wants to like it – she’s trying to have unattached fun, in her alternate universe. But her rationality has carried over from real life – she cannot make herself believe that this is a good thing. However, she is possessed by the mood of the summer, and she allows it to happen. It's alright And I put myself in his hands But I hold on to your secrets in white houses Love, or something ignites in my veins And I pray it never fades, in white houses Again she convinces herself that it’s alright, even though she normally would never do something like this. And she gives herself up to him. Again she hopes that her secrets will remain in the house when she leaves, that she’ll be able to put them behind her, that they won’t hurt her in hindsight. In the moment, she is filled with a passion that she thinks may be love, but realizes later was not – she barely knew the guy. It was lust. My first time, hard to explain Rush of blood, oh, and a little bit of pain On a cloudy day, it's more common than you think He's my first mistake This is just describing the bittersweetness of the loss of her virginity. It was a moment that she always believed was going to be so special, she idealized it like most girls will. She probably pictured herself falling madly in love with a man before allowing this to happen, and of course it was supposed to happen in a perfect situation. But this situation was far from perfect. They’re in a car, of all places, she barely knows him… this is what she means by a cloudy day. People lose their virginity on a “cloudy day”, in imperfect situations, even though they always imagine that everything will be perfect and sunny. But it never is perfect, “it’s more common than you think”. Maybe you were all faster than me We gave each other up so easily These silly little wounds will never mend I feel so far from where I've been I believe the first line is referring to the narrator’s personality. She’s been one to take things slowly, to think long and hard before she makes decisions. Her friends were more spur-of-the-moment type girls, so they were able to cope with the alternate universe feeling that they got at this camp better than the narrator was. The narrator got severely hurt by allowing herself to be drawn into the mood of consequence-lessness that the summer brought. After the summer ended, they went back to real life and left each other, which was surprisingly easy, showing the girls that they weren’t really as close as they thought they were. The narrator now feels hurt beyond repair, but she thinks the hurt is silly, that it came about for a trivial reason, that she was acting stupidly during the summer. And now she feels deep regret for having acted that way – she’s not the innocent girl she used to be because of it. She left that innocence behind in the white houses. She had no idea what kind of impact her actions were really going to have on her real life, she had allowed herself to get wrapped up in the idea that she was in a different universe, that nothing that happened at camp would matter once she left. So I go, and I will not be back here again I'm gone as the day is fading on white houses I lie, put my injuries all in the dust In my heart it’s the five of us In white houses She tries to leave behind what has happened, and tries to make herself believe that it doesn’t matter anymore, but such a big chunk of who she is now was formed by her experiences that summer. She will never, ever forget what happened. And you, maybe you'll remember me What I gave is yours to keep In white houses In white houses In white houses She hopes that the boy she lost her virginity to feels the same way. She’s afraid that he was just wrapped up in the summer lust, that it was a one-night thing to him, and that it rolled off of him more easily than it did her. Their fling has impacted her greatly, and she hopes that she left some sort of impact on him, too, that he remembers her. She probably wasn’t his first, and he probably doesn’t realize that the incident was very significant to her, even if it wasn’t to him. She hopes that he’ll value what she gave him, rather than forgetting about it. This is basically a one-night stand drawn out over a whole summer. But the narrator isn’t a one-night stand kind of girl. She gets too attached, and she is unable to keep herself from feeling regret. She wanted to be in love with the boy she lost her virginity to. The music video goes beautifully with the song. It doesn’t show much at all, in fact I was at first disappointed by its apparent lack of meaning. It’s just Vanessa playing the piano, and Vanessa dancing. But then I realized that perhaps Vanessa dancing represents the narrator during the summer at the camp, while Vanessa playing the piano represents the narrator afterwards as she reflects on her experience. You can just tell by her facial expressions during certain parts of the song as she plays the piano – disapproving, pained, wishing she could change what happened in the story as she tells it. But she can’t, and the dancing Vanessa just continues to dance, unnoticing, uncaring. It works very well with the song. |
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