| Okkervil River – Listening To Otis Redding At Home During Christmas Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I don't find it depressing at all, this is a wonderful song about what home is, and how growing up we have one view of it, while growing up means having to change that definition. In the song he's recalling his dreams of home as a kid, the final line isn't necessarily "depressing" or "brutal" but simply very real, and beautiful in it's simplicity. This is a song everyone can relate to (unless you still live with parents) which is probably the most beautiful thing about it. | |
| Okkervil River – Seas Too Far to Reach Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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it's simply about a man who relies on women for a feeling of normalcy, and uses them for sex. Gorgeous imagery, especially "and just push and pull ourselves untill we're deep inside a sleep." That line is the most alluring of all the lines on the album. He is clearly using these women, however, for inspite everything he loves about them and the sex he has with them, he always feels the urge to leave after he's used them. And when I wake just as their eyes are crying, I see that bed and I just want to climb back in. is the perfect example of this. The only thing stopping him from climbing back into the bed is himself and this need to flee. The last lines offer hope to the man's situation, because this time he decides to stay and "try again," either sexually or on some emotional level, but the very fact he decides to stay at all shows growth in his character throughout the song. |
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| Okkervil River – (Shannon Wilsey on the) Starry Stairs Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| *but a different kind of alive, then the way I used to be. | |
| Okkervil River – A Girl In Port Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Well, I agree. I'll just add that it could also be seen that in saying "these urgent lives press against me" he could be implying that these women till this point have been the wind in his sails. and that being the wind in someone else's sail left him feeling deflated and hollow. 'Pour yourself into me' could refer to him wanting someone to fill his ship with water, sinking it and effectively anchoring him. Just some thoughts to add to "jessen's" spot on analysis. | |
| Okkervil River – A King and a Queen Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Genius, pure an simple. | |
| Okkervil River – Red Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| no! it's pathetic if you DON'T cry every time you hear it... this is easily among their top 5 songs, and among my top 10 favorite of all time ( which goes to show just how much Okkervil is on that list too.) It's the perfect way to start what has been so far, for them, a perfect career. | |
| Okkervil River – Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed on the Roof of the Chelsea Hotel, 1979 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Bruce Wayne Campbell (stage name: Jobriath) was a pop star in the 70's who is credited for being the first massively marketed pop star, as well as the first one to be openly homosexual. However, he came at the end of the glam rock era, and despite his large contract and generally good reviews, he was overall ignored by the public. He died of AIDS in 1983, still under contract from his label though long since "retired," and unknown to all but a few select fans. Pretty much the song is describing a fictional interview with this man. It's very beautifully written and composed, and I think it's the perfect way to end the album which since The Stage Names has been focused with stories about artists and the people who make up the ranks of people who fall into that category. It's a very sad song, and the verse "Old times, hello, hey, I've missed you Old life, hey now, let me in Because you win on every issue Now, can I kiss you? Don't you care how long it's been? It has been so many years, I lived my yearning But in every bed, it led me through They only bloom on what was burning And it grew, the fire grew And now with nothing to consume It's turned on me in my glass room Where I'll burn, Think I'm not winning Well, go on, assume" Is just perfect. It's imagery is beautiful too. When you think about how this was a man who was supposed to be the next Bowie, but ended up leaving virtually nothing but his bones behind him, everything else vanished in the "fire" that was the build up behind his work which eventually swallowed him whole. I'll stop now as I already assume the length of this post will scare anyone away from reading it... but I could go on forever about it, and it's not even my favorite song!!!! |
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| Okkervil River – Singer Songwriter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Defiantly about pretentious people. More to the point about the kind of people you find in Hollywood; people who are surrounded by art and artists but don't absorb any of the art they surround themselves with. They "have taste" in that they know what's good, but they only make what they think people want to hear/see, and so they end up nothing but walking cleches rather than the artists that were genuine, and became everlasting because of it. | |
| Okkervil River – Calling and Not Calling My Ex Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Absolutely! I don't think there is a person on the planet who should go through life without knowing the bliss that is Okkervil River's first 3 albums. However, between The Stand Ins and The Stage Names, I actually think The Stand Ins is the better album of the two, It just flows better. In The Stage Names you have Savannah Smiles and then A Girl In Port that break the rest of the album in two halves with extremely slow tempos that conflict with the rest of the album. I mean, you can have slow songs in an more rock oriented album, but don't but it right before one of the most rock oriented songs on the album! It just doesn't fit.. in this there is much better flow. there is more, but whatever, that is the main thing. OVERALL.... 1. Black Sheep Boy 2.Down the River of Golden Dreams 3.The Stand Ins 4.Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See 5. The Stage Names |
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