| MGMT – Indie Rokkers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Getting in the last word doesn't count, jaybird, if you fail to actually say anything. All the same, I guess I'll just tippity-tap on this keyboard for a bit, chewing on my lightly seasoned salmon fillet, then I'm off to bed. I've not really got much that I can say because, well, you didn't give me much to respond to. We're dueling with pool noodles here, but whatever. As a real-life drug user, one who's used most of the drugs that you're likely now learning about in your tenth grade health class as well as a dozen or more that you've never heard of, I can tell you that not all real-life drug users see psychedelics as a waste of time. The users who do, frankly, are a waste of time in their right. Psychedelics get the brain firing in ways that it does not normally fire and, while they don't necessarily give you anything that you couldn't have gotten without them, they make it much easier to arrive at new ideas and new ways of thinking. No amount of LSD can fire-up a soggy mind, though, and for the soggy-minded acid likely is a waste of time. LSD cannot raise thought in the unthinking but I'd hesitate to blame the drug for that. It is, after all, a useful tool for most people who've got something sitting on their shoulders. It's a chemical skeleton key for all those brain-doors that you'd otherwise have to wail at with fists and feet until they finally open. As Wikipedia can tell you, Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computers) considers acid-eating to be "one of the two or three most important things [he has] done in [his] life". And it's recently become semi-common knowledge that Crick was using LSD around the time he discovered the double-helix structure of DNA. Psychedelic drugs don't automatically turn everyone into Nobel Prize winning molecular biologists, of course, but they do make it easier to escape the confines of normal thinking. And normal thoughts don't win Nobel Prizes, do they? For most people, these drugs are useful in personal and probably not academic ways. They offer insight into relationships, priorities, morals and other things. Other people just stare at their hands and say spew nonsense about the eternal oneness of this or the perfect imperfection of that or, God forbid, they say something like “lol, I'm SO high right now”. But those people suck and they're deluding themselves if they think their own idiocy is the fault of the drugs. There's more to drugs than empty-headed hedonism, mate, and I think that people would do well to realize that. You may think that I'm wasted my time defending drug use but I think that the time I spend championing the things that are important to me is time well spent. I think that's you're wasting your time copying and pasting the same poorly thought rant across a couple dozen lyrics discussions, but to each his own. Neither of us have much an audience here and, ultimately, our dialectical efforts are futile. Seriously, we'd might as well buy a couple blow-up dolls see if we can't gain entry into fatherhood. But I enjoy repeating my platitudes and, who knows, maybe I'd enjoy a blow-up doll. Yes, an air-headed little thing that never gives me any sort of challenge. I'll call her J. |
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| MGMT – Indie Rokkers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Shucks. I'm always doing this thing where I comment, then recomment then comment again. I posted this bit as a reply to jaybird2 but I don't want it hidden under a '1 reply' link. What I say is always so very important, you understand. Jaybird, my friend, you've missed the point completely. The problem here is that MGMT assumes that their listeners, and critics, are endowed with the mental faculties to understand what they're listening to or criticizing. You have proven them wrong. You seem like someone who's struggling to assert whatever notion of self-worth he can muster; trying desperately to let it be known that someone else is wrong and you are right. Your notion of self-worth seems more like misguided feeling of superiority, delusions of grandeur. Well, sir, you may not be right but atleast you've proven MGMT wrong in one respect. You were overestimated, congratulations. Bask in that consolation, if you must. And I do see the hypocrisy of what I just wrote. I don't care. MGMT does not endorse cocaine, heroin or other ''hard' drugs. They do, however, try to expose the failings that they see in the world around them. Choking on vomit at the end of Time To Pretend, that's where they say that these things take you. Drugs aren't the central theme in Time To Pretend, but never mind that. They do seem to endorse psychedelic drugs, as do I. It's hard to explain why, exactly, but I'll say that thought is too important a thing to be tied down by homeostasis. We must explore our dogmas, ideas and interpretations from every angle possible, and psychedelics offer angles that are otherwise difficult to reach. Not to mention the fun. I've not seen MGMT endorse liver-wrecking binge drink sessions. I'm not sure where you got that from. One thing that you absolutely have to understand, and I'm not sure how you missed it, is that Indie Rokkers is not a celebration of easy sex and smoky breath. It's a retrospective and sentimental lament. There's also some excitement to it, right or wrong. The song is an exposition of the protagonist's past. It doesn't explicitly pass judgment on the kid in the song, but it's easily understood that there is some regret, a bit of a bitter taste. Notice the sound of the song. Does the music seem to be celebrating? The repetition of "Rollin' on" suggests to me that the protagonist is, well, rollin' on. Two ways that I can think to take that. Perhaps he was not really thinking at the time, he was just rolling on. Perhaps he was young and foolish and now he's not. He's rolled on, grown up. The car rolls too, obviously, which offers a nice parallel. If the car stayed in the driveway then it would be rollin' on, would it? And I told you it was love But you won't know the truth I'm a young man in my prime With my heart still filled with fear And it goes on clear That's a pretty key stretch of words. Is the young man proud to be lying to this girl? What might it mean that he's young, and strong, but also filled with fear and perhaps a little unsure or confused? Might that offer some explanation of his actions? It goes on clear? Like a coat of paint that you can't see? What's the point of that? There's a reason that they're driving a Chevy to a levy. That reason is American Pie by Don McLean, a great song with a similar theme. They both sing, in a way, about the loss of adolescent hope and excitement, a lost love and the realization that they've grown up since then. From American Pie: Bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee But the levee was dry. And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whisky and rye Singin' "this'll be the day that I die." "This'll be the day that I die." Rest assured that MGMT writes some thought into their songs. As a listener it is your obligation to examine them, figure them out, before deriding them for some imagined evil. Failing to do so makes you a fool. |
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| MGMT – Indie Rokkers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Also, something that I forgot to say. MGMT are intelligent, grown men. They spelled the title, Indie Rokkers, like a couple of barely pubescent, hard-rocking 'tards on purpose. It's a barely pubescent, hard-rocking thing that the boy in the song was doing, and the title reflects that. The song itself, as I said, documents the actions and the mood, reflecting on them without guilt or shame but with adult understanding. "I found blood and I saw stars", I don't think that that line refers to nothing more than a broken hymen and and a bit of gas burning in the sky. Take it as a metaphor. | |
| MGMT – Indie Rokkers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Jaybird, my friend, you've missed the point completely. The problem here is that MGMT assumes that their listeners, and critics, are endowed with the mental faculties to understand what they're listening to or critisizing. You have proven them wrong. You seem like someone who's struggling to assert whatever notion of self-worth he can muster; trying desperately to let it be known that someone else is wrong and you are right. Your notion of self-worth seems more like misguided feeling of superiority, delusions of granduer. Well, sir, you may not be right but atleast you've proven MGMT wrong in one respect. You were overestimated, congratualations. Bask in that consolation, if you must. And I do see the hypocracy of what I just wrote. I don't care. MGMT does not endorse cocaine, heroin or other ''hard' drugs. They do, however, try to expose the failings that they see in the world around them. Choking on vomit at the end of Time To Pretend, that's where they say that these things take you. Drugs aren't the central theme in Time To Pretend, but never mind that. They do seem to endorse psychedelic drugs, as do I. It's hard to explain why, exactly, but I'll say that thought is too important a thing to be tied down by homeostasis. We must explore our dogmas, ideas and interpretations from every angle possible, and psychedelics offer angles that are otherwise difficult to reach. Not to mention the fun. I've not seen MGMT endorse liver-wrecking binge drink sessions. I'm not sure where you got that from. One thing that you absolutely have to understand, and I'm not sure how you missed it, is that Indie Rokkers is not a celebration of easy sex and smoky breath. It's a retrospective and sentimental lament. There's also some excitement to it, right or wrong. The song is an exposition of the protagonist's past. It doesn't explicitly pass judgement on the kid in the song, but it's easily understood that there is some regret, a bit of a bitter taste. Notice the sound of the song. Does the music seem to be celebrating? The repition of "Rollin' on" suggests to me that the protagonist is, well, rollin' on. Two ways that I can think to take that. Perhaps he was not really thinking at the time, he was just rolling on. Perhaps he was young and foolish and now he's not. He's rolled on, grown up. The car rolls too, obviously, which offers a nice parallel. If the car stayed in the driveway then it would be rollin' on, would it? And I told you it was love But you won't know the truth I'm a young man in my prime With my heart still filled with fear And it goes on clear That's a pretty key stretch of words. Is the young man proud to be lying to this girl? What might it mean that he's young, and strong, but also filled with fear and perhaps a little unsure or confused? Might that offer some explanation of his actions? It goes on clear? Like a coat of paint that you can't see? What's the point of that? There's a reason that they're driving a chevy to a levy. That reason is American Pie by Don McLean, a great song with a similar theme. They both sing, in a way, about the loss of adolescent hope and excitement, a lost love and the realization that they've grown up since then. From American Pie: Bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levee But the levee was dry. And them good ol' boys were drinkin' whisky and rye Singin' "this'll be the day that I die." "This'll be the day that I die." Rest assured that MGMT put more thought into this song than you did. |
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| CocoRosie – K-Hole Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I should also say that as ketamine comes on there are auditory hallucinations. Like mechanical crickets, or the sound of fanblades but slowed way down, or nintendo music stripped of all the flashiness and somehow made sad. The noises in the song, and to a lesser extent the music, emulate that. | |
| CocoRosie – K-Hole Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Tiny spirits in a k-hole Bloated like soggy cereal She's in the k-hole. She's lost inside her head, just a tiny spirit drifting through imaginary worlds. ---------------------------------------- God will come and wash away Our tattoos and all the cocaine And all of the aborted babies Will turn into little bambies Optimism. ------------------------------ Wounded river push along Searching for that desert song And Mozart's requiem will play On tiny speakers made of clay Well, it's abstract. I get a feeling of her as the river, flowing clear and aimless, or maybe according to a destined course. She's wet and she's surrounded by dry dirt, but might find a song in the splish-splash as she bounces off dead rocks and clay. --------------------------------------------- Tell my mother that I love her Martin Luther you're an angel 'music meaning' got that one. ------------------------------------------- Charming monkey saunter swagger Drunken donkey limbs disjointed Your chest is a petting zoo Mexican pony fucked up shoes Walking with a face full of ketamine is strange. Ketamine reduces you to just a mind, and it's absurd having it controlling this marrionette of a body. There's more in those lines than just that, of course, but I don't get it. ------------------------------------------------------- I dreamt one thousand basketball courts Nothing holier than sports I don't get it. Other than that sports might be holy because they're so morally unambiguous. They're really all fun and games. You can screw things up and you always get a chance to try again. When you hurt someone it's just by scoring a goal against them, and they can always try to make up for it. If you beat them, well, they knew going in that they might not win, and they can always play again later. |
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| CocoRosie – K-Hole Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I have sniffed A LOT of ketamine. The beauty of it is that it attaches a sense of real meaning, importance and clarity to ideas that aren't especially meaningful, important or clear. It allows you to examine them much more closely than you would normally, and with almost divine insight. It also makes you detached from yourself and problems, giving you a sort of unbiased optimism, or at least a lack of fear, doubt and guilt. Of course, there can be some confusion, or lack of precision. Things that I've written on ketamine, and that I've seen other ket-heads write, are sometimes so abstract that no-one reading them, even the ket-head when he sobers up, can understand what they mean. | |
| MGMT – Weekend Wars Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Damn it, reformatting that. The lyrics are a bit confusing, though, and I can’t claim to understand all the lines. ‘Evil S I yes to find a shore, A [beast] that doesn't quiver anymore, [And] we could crush some plants to paint my walls, And I won't try to fight in the weekend wars’ I think the lyrics on here are wrong. ‘Beast’ for ‘beach’ and ‘and’ for where. I’m not sure what ‘evil s’ means but the rest could be a summary of the song. Kill a boar and it doesn’t quiver, make a little house with painted walls, no need for weekend wars. ‘Evil S I yes’ could be ‘Evil S.O.S.’, but then I still don’t get it. The working guy was in trouble, not knowing what he wanted and not enjoying what he did, so he put out and S.O.S.? Why is it evil? Hmm. Meh, and it doesn’t really sound like S.O.S. Scratch that. Could be Spanish, es, but that still doesn’t work. ‘Mental mystics in a twisted metal car’, I don’t think the car is actually twisted, I think our mystic is simply tripping. He doesn’t like the car because it’s such an unnatural thing, all weird shapes and metal twisted around him. The mystic ‘Tried to amplify the sound of light and love’. He was tripping, he was trying to get that oneness with other people and the natural world, he was put off by all the mechanical bullshit. Christ is curst of [fathers] and [martyrs] Might even take a knife to split a hair Or even scare the children off my lawn Giving us time to make the makeshift bombs Every mess invested was a score We couldn't use computers anymore It's difficult to win unless you're bored, And you might have to plan for the weekend wars I think the lyrics are wrong here. ‘Faders’ MIGHT be ‘fathers’ ‘Maders ‘ IS be martyrs’. I’m not willing to hazard an explanation regardless of what the words are. The bit about using a knife to split a hair, it’s like saying that it might take a sledge hammer to drive in a thumbtack. LSD to bring about the need for REAL life. The bit about scaring children off your lawn and making bombs, I’m not really sure. It could be the contri, wait, it is the contradiction between goals and means with things like acid. LSD-users look for oneness, love, to be like children playing on lawns. They are criminals, though, and need privacy. They need to push away the people that they’d like to connect with. Bombs are metaphorical. What they’re blowing up are the conventions of, and their allegiance to, all the social conventions have left them wanting more. With that in mind, you can see how every mess invested is a score and how it’s difficult to win unless you’re bored; why you might have to plan for the weekend wars. Thinking and typing are taking too long and I have things to do with my day. I'll leave the rest alone and go to the grocery store. |
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| MGMT – Weekend Wars Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The lyrics are a bit confusing, though, and I can’t claim to understand all the lines. ‘Evil S I yes to find a shore, A [beast] that doesn't quiver anymore, [And] we could crush some plants to paint my walls, And I won't try to fight in the weekend wars’ I think the lyrics on here are wrong. ‘Beast’ for ‘beach’ and ‘and’ for where. I’m not sure what ‘evil s’ means but the rest could be a summary of the song. Kill a boar and it doesn’t quiver, make a little house with painted walls, no need for weekend wars. ‘Evil S I yes’ could be ‘Evil S.O.S.’, but then I still don’t get it. The working guy was in trouble, not knowing what he wanted and not enjoying what he did, so he put out and S.O.S.? Why is it evil? Hmm. Meh, and it doesn’t really sound like S.O.S. Scratch that. Could be Spanish, es, but that still doesn’t work. ‘Mental mystics in a twisted metal car’, I don’t think the car is actually twisted, I think our mystic is simply tripping. He doesn’t like the car because it’s such an unnatural thing, all weird shapes and metal twisted around him. The mystic ‘Tried to amplify the sound of light and love’. He was tripping, he was trying to get that oneness with other people and the natural world, he was put off by all the mechanical bullshit. Christ is curst of [fathers] and [martyrs] Might even take a knife to split a hair Or even scare the children off my lawn Giving us time to make the makeshift bombs Every mess invested was a score We couldn't use computers anymore It's difficult to win unless you're bored, And you might have to plan for the weekend wars I think the lyrics are wrong here. ‘Faders’ MIGHT be ‘fathers’ ‘Maders ‘ IS be martyrs’. I’m not willing to hazard an explanation regardless of what the words are. The bit about using a knife to split a hair, it’s like saying that it might take a sledge hammer to drive in a thumbtack. LSD to bring about the need for REAL life. The bit about scaring children off your lawn and making bombs, I’m not really sure. It could be the contri, wait, it is the contradiction between goals and means with things like acid. LSD-users look for oneness, love, to be like children playing on lawns. They are criminals, though, and need privacy. They need to push away the people that they’d like to connect with. Bombs are metaphorical. What they’re blowing up are the conventions of, and their allegiance to, all the social conventions have left them wanting more. With that in mind, you can see how every mess invested is a score and how it’s difficult to win unless you’re bored; why you might have to plan for the weekend wars. Thinking and typing are taking too long and I have things to do with my day. I'll leave the rest alone and go to the grocery store. |
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| MGMT – Weekend Wars Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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First, I’m looking at this with some assumptions that I have from the Time to Pretend video. I don’t think that MGMT’s ideas on drugs are a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Time to Pretend isn’t an absolute parody, these are things that the band would actually like to pretend, at least half way. ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be nice to move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars?’ It wouldn’t work, in the end, because he’d lose track of himself, he’d miss his mother and his friends, digging up worms, the time spent alone. It wasn’t the drugs that did him in, it was the loneliness, the loss of childish joy, the loss of thinking time and the loss of self. Then he choked on his vomit. I still think, though, that even this is supposed to be understood as being better than a job in an office and the daily commute. Weekend Wars touches again on the emptiness of working life. It’s easy, and soul-crushing, to wake up every morning and go to work. When you don’t have to try to survive there’s a tendency to lose interest in survival, and life. Life is taken for granted when it can be earned by something as silly as office work. If you’re not acquainted with material means, if you don’t have to shoot a gun to get your lunch or crush some plants to paint your walls, then you don’t understand or appreciate what it means to have a lunch and some walls. Working life is long, slow, pointless and empty. Our protagonist is a weekend warrior; a weekend drug-user. The drugs used are not the heroin and cocaine talked about in Time to Pretend but LSD, mushrooms and other psychedelics. Psychedelics are very different from other drugs and have almost no negatives. They aren’t addictive and aren’t toxic. They lend ACTUAL meaning to an otherwise boring life. They force the user to think, and think hard, and have fun. Through the weekend wars he’s begun to realize what he actually wants from life. He wants the same things that he needed in Time to Pretend, he wants the childish joy and honesty of a primitive existence. Before this new perspective he was ‘too lazy to bathe / or paint or write or try to make a change’, ‘now [he] can shoot a gun to kill [his] lunch / and [he doesn’t] have to love or think too much’. By escaping the daily grind of working life, by abandoning the working world, he won’t need to be a weekend warrior. Everyday life, because of the simplicity and struggle, will be as meaningful as an acid trip. I wouldn't say that the song's about drugs, but it does deal with drugs. It's more about the writer's primative-utopian ideals. |
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