| Bruce Springsteen – The Rising Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Yes, "wheels of fire" is the fire truck. The "cross of my calling" is the burden the firefighter must bear, risking/giving his own life to save others. | |
| Bruce Springsteen – The Rising Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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It's literally about the firefighters on 9/11. This thread really nails it. It's about that morning - the firefighter headed downtown on "wheels of fire", climbing the tower, and "rising" to heaven. And looking back at his life and his family and what they'll both miss. And it's also metaphorically about NYC and the US and the world "rising" from that attack. And hats off to Bruce, 11 years on. It sounds strange to say it now, but *everyone* was looking to Bruce to write THE 9/11 song. And he called his shot and he exceeded all of the expectations that anyone ever placed on him. Wow. |
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| fun. – Some Nights Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The lyric about the nephew is paired with the lyric about his sister. She had a bad relationship - the "con that she called love". But she did get a great son out of that relationship - some "amazing things" come from some terrible nights. | |
| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Just a wonderful comment. Well done. I love the notion that you spend your youth waiting to get away from your "present", but even then, your "present" is already becoming the past. And like you said, there comes a point in your late 20s or your 30s when you recognize that you can't really go home anymore, because you've changed, and your town has changed too. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I like to think that the "war" is metaphor. The album is about the things we lose as we move from youth to adolescence to adulthood, and the transitions between those phases: occasionally violent, often so subtle you don't even notice what's (and who) has been lost. | |
| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Both songs are on the same album, and "The Suburbs" is Track 1. Like most AF albums, there are certain themes repeated throughout. "Suburban War" definitely hits on most of the same themes, but it's less focused on nostalgia for youth, and more focused on the final transition from adolescence to adulthood, and all of the gains and losses associated with that transition. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Nailed it! I think there's a tendency to look at this song far too literally (i.e., that there's a literal WAR taking place), or not literally enough (i.e., "it can't JUST be about nostalgia for a lost youth".) But the song resonates, because it's about youth, and inevitably, about death. The 1970s neighborhoods have decayed and been replaced. But the memories of running and screaming through the yard with your friends still seem so real you can practically see it. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| There's a recognition of the suburbs as boring and monotonous on this album, but there's also a very fond nostalgia for suburban youth. | |
| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I think that's what Win means when he says he wants to have a child "and show her some beauty / before all this damage is done". He's not talking about having a child before the *world* changes for the worse - he's saying that he wants to have a child before *he* changes.... before he loses the ability to see beauty in the same way a child does. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Sure, it may mean "I want to have a child before the world loses its beauty" But I think it's more along the lines of "I want to have a child before I lose the ability to see the world as a child does.... before I 'move past the feeling' of youth and become an adult inside." |
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| The XX – Crystalised Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Pretty sure this song is about sex. Frankly, that applies to the entire album. Also, this isn't the first song that has used themes and implications of addiction when describing the initial "rush" stages of a relationship. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It's not an allegory. In this case, AF are *literally* talking about the rows and rows of suburban ranch houses built in the 1970s. For millions in our generation, those rows of houses and yards made up the backdrop for every memory in our entire youth. As we grew up, most of our neighborhoods have changed - first metaphorically, as all of our friends moved on, and then physically, as the houses were finally torn down and new houses went up. The song is about how you can't ever go back to your youth, you can never truly go home again. And how that's not always a bad thing... but how it hurts like hell sometimes to remember yourself as a kid playing games, and to know those days are over for you and your generation. We can only hope our kids have such good memories. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This is obviously what the song is about - nostalgia for youth. What boy growing up in the '80s never imagined that eventually their whole town would be consumed in a huge war between the subdivisions? And now, like Zed says above, we can only look back. We can never GO back, because even when we visit, it's a different place now, with different kids. Half the houses they built in the seventies are already gone, and in 20 years, the other half will be gone, too. And then we'll be gone. But did it all really mean nothing? Or are our memories of growing up on dirt bikes, wasting time in the suburbs, valuable in their own right? I can't answer, and neither can the Arcade Fire... but it sure hurts your soul to think that those times are gone and will never return. Unless, maybe, you are able to watch your own child live through their own youth... and the world still holds the same beauty that it did for us. MAN, this song hurts to listen to. It's like getting kicked in the soul. And still I love it. |
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| The Hold Steady – Joke About Jamaica Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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That's certainly my interpretation. Unreliable narrator, visions of an uncertain (and changeable) future. Wasn't it easier when Sapphire and Charlemagne just used her visions to bet on the horses - and spent the whole next week gettin' high? |
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| The Hold Steady – Joke About Jamaica Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| We have an unreliable narrator or two throughout "Stay Positive", and the narrative is further complicated by the dual timelines -- Sapphire is seeing visions of the future with Charlemagne getting killed, but based on the coda to "Yeah Sapphire", she may actually have been able to warn him in time. So, now it's only 1 kid getting killed that summer. | |
| The Hold Steady – Stuck Between Stations Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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You probably think that "Born to Run" is the 3rd best song on "Born to Run", too! This song perfectly encapsulates everything that is wonderful and true about "Boys & Girls In America" into three minutes of perfection. It's all about getting older and realizing that all of the mistakes you've made have consequences, but that all of the compromises you've made have consequences too. On the one hand, you have Charlemagne and Holly partying it up, indulging in every vice, and winding up addicted and destitute. On the other, we have John Berryman waking up one night and realizing that for all of his success, all those doctors and deep thinkers he's surrounded himself with make for lousy lovers - and throwing himself off the Washington Street bridge. For all the fun we're having, we have such a sad time together. And Holly may never get as high as she got on that first night, but she still looks incredible, doesn't she? This song speaks to eternal truths. |
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| The Hold Steady – Cattle and the Creeping Things Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| All THS roads lead back to Ybor City eventually. I don't know if this is the first meeting between Holly and Gideon in Ybor City - but the last one (secretly visiting the supposedly-dead Charlemagne on the run) is referenced in "Slapped Actress". | |
| The Hold Steady – First Night Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It's "when they kiss they spit white noise" - meaning, there's no feeling there. Works on two levels - the literal, actual kissing, and metaphorically about electronic music "spitting white noise". Holly is, of course, regretting how she's allowed herself to be used by so many boys who didn't truly feel anything for her. |
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| Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Bridges, Squares Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It's about 9/11. The first verse is about Boston - Kendall Square, crossing the Charles River on a new bridge, looking at the same Boston skyline - the "view was old, the bridge was new". The last verse is about NYC/NJ on 9/11 - now he mentions the Passaic, and while the bridge is old, the view of Manhattan is sadly new. The remainder of the lyrics are Ted's reflection on 9/11 - (from that point where I did stand / I wondered at the Builder's plan / I wondered how this walk will end) -- what caused the hate, how to react, how to process it. Ted concludes that it's not time to "ossify" and harden your beliefs - it's not about Christians vs. Muslims, not about your faith, or your lack of faith. It's not the end of history. The "Don't Overreact!" message seems obvious now, but it was kind of shocking to hear anyone say these sorts of things in the wake of 9/11. The entire album is pretty much spot-on for how things were going to play out - we were headed for "a war for Babylon - the perfect storm in a teacup", and no matter what we thought or did about it, we were going to have to "drink it down." |
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| The Hold Steady – Slapped Actress Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Long story long - It's the aftermath of the entire Separation Sunday/Charlemagne "murder" story. Craig Finn intentionally left out all of the proper names for his characters on "Stay Positive", but it's the same overall story -- Charlemagne is a small-time dealer who owes 7 grand to the Cityscape Skins, which is Gideon's former gang. Holly and Charlemagne hook up, and then break up, because that night that she got born again, he was getting with her little hoodrat friend. That friend is Mary/Sapphire, who has the visions of the future. At first, those visions come in handy for betting on the ponies ("Chips Ahoy"). Meanwhile, Holly falls in with Gideon ("I heard Gideon did you in Denver.") At first, Holly doesn't say where Charlemagne is hiding out -- (if they ask, "just be polite, say something vague.") But at some point, out of jealousy or drug-fueled weakness, she probably tips off Gideon's friends, and the trap is set. Throughout Stay Positive, we alternately hear about 1 or 2 townies getting killed in the woods. In "Both Crosses" and "Yeah Sapphire", we learn that Mary has been having visions of Charlemagne's murder. ("She saw the footage right before it got cut/she saw 'em stick a body in a bag in the trunk/she saw the guys comin in from the sides/baby that's how we get sanctified".) Charlemagne doesn't even blame Holly - saying "hey, I still love you, Judas." Anyway, based on "Slapped Actress" and visions came in handy, and it's hinted that while Charlemagne got stabbed, he doesn't get killed after all. He's back to hiding out in Ybor City, where the story all began. The first verses are Holly or Gideon saying -- don't tell anyone *anything* about Ybor City and Charlemagne. Don't even mention Tampa. Don't mention bloodshed. Don't mention the Skins. Don't say you saw "angels" -- they'll take you straight to the church. The second half of the song is more generalized -- Craig Finn using the film "Opening Night" and some Shakespeare "All the World's a Stage"-esque lyrics to address the larger themes or life and making your own destiny, with a little religious imagery crossed with rock-n-roll imagery and the phrase "Hold Steady" thrown in for fun. |
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| The Hold Steady – Both Crosses Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I don't think that the girl is Holly - it's Sapphire, the psychic girlfriend from "Chips Ahoy". Back in happier times, she used to tell Charlemagne which horse was gonna finish in first, but now she's seeing visions of his murder. He gets stabbed anyway, but the tip-off might have saved him - in "Yeah Sapphire" he tells her that "it all went down exactly like your visions" and that "I'm not drunk, I'm cut / I'm gushing blood /And I need someone to come and pick me up." Throughout the rest of the album we hear inconsistent accounts of one murder, or two murders -- so while some townie definitely gets killed, we don't know if it's Charlemagne or not. The album also has a few hints that it's Holly who is the "Judas" who tells the bad guys where Charlemagne is hiding out -- she previously told people she was up in Massachusetts. She's definitely the strung out girl in "Lord I'm Discouraged" - there's your relapse. |
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