| Paul Simon – The Rhythm Of The Saints Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Someone seems to have replaced the lyrics for this song with the lyrics for the song "Proof". Not cool. | |
| Simon and Garfunkel – The Rhythm Of The Saints Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| These lyrics are misposted -- this song is "Proof". It was on the "Rhythm of the Saints" album, but not as the title track. | |
| Antony and the Johnsons – Epilepsy Is Dancing Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I've been somewhat uncomfortable with this song in the past; I wondered whether it was a bit appropriative WRT people who actually experience epilepsy. The situation described by the song gets to me, but my enjoyment of it always comes with a bit of discomfort at the idea of romanticizing what can be a serious disability. Having seen two people post here who see something in the song which relates to their own experiences with epilepsy, though -- I can't help but wonder whether this song was written by or in collaboration (or consultation) with someone who actually goes through what the song describes. | |
| Mika – We Are Golden Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| It doesn't take too much to understand what's going on here. As far as I'm concerned, there are two types of people over 20: the ones who actually remember what it's like to be a teenager, and the ones who pretend they don't. I'm with Mika on this -- it can be horrible, but it can also be brilliant and creative and wonderful. The trick is that you have to *force* the wonderfulness. Even then, it will only be some of the time, but that's the part that defines you. I'm well out of my teenage years, and I don't think there's anything you could do to convince me to go back, but I think both Mika and I approached those years the right way -- which includes not forgetting how intense everything is. | |
| James Taylor – Never Die Young Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I'm actually with tommaso on one detail in particular -- but let's go through it line by line (or at least verse by verse). I'll refer to "stanzas", which isn't quite the usual way I'd describe song lyrics, but since the verse/chorus structure isn't as strict as with most songs, it seems to make a bit more sense. There are a lot of contrasts here, which seem to be deliberate, and it starts in the first pair of lines. "Ring-around-the-rosie children" are contrasted with "circles around the sun"; both invoke circles, but the circles "we" (where "we" seems to mean almost everybody) act out are tiny and childish compared to the scope of the pair the song refers to; the two perfect lovers encircle the sun as easily as the rest of us encircled a rose in a children's game. The next two lines evoke an inevitability, invincibility, eternity; the subjects of the song will, in particular, neither grow old nor die young and so seem almost immortal. There's already a bit of ironic melancholy here, though; the only way to keep from growing old, after all, is to die young, so there must be at least some figurative element here. More on that later. In the second stanza the astronomical metaphors return; again, it's a contrast between the cosmic inevitability and stability of the lovers and the earthbound limitations of the rest of us. The third stanza brings back a bit of the sorrow that drifts in and out; but it links the sorrow to hope. The unbearable experience against which "we" can only close our eyes is the hope that "they" might "make it", might really have found something transcendent while the rest of "us" are left to negotiate with an imperfect world and try to get by as best we can. We break down our losses, tears, etc. into manageable pieces, while "they" are above sorrow -- which again implies that "they" are not, strictly, living human lives any more. The next two stanzas might seem to return to a bit more mundane detail (streets, Saturday nights, a particular town) but the unease here starts to hint at tragedy. "They" simply aren't equipped to live in a world of mundane details; together, they're "too sweet", "too tight", "not enough tough". Through it all, "we" are far enough from them that we can't even hope to touch what "they" have. Still, "they" aren't immune to the harsh realities, in the end -- they have "their backs up against the wall", and if it can't ultimately break them apart, it's still a threat. The "hold them up"/"never to let them fall prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin" stanza is, with the following section, what suggests most to me that something, likely fatal, has happened to "them". "They" are set apart here, with a near-prayer hope that "they" be held forever immune to the ravages of time; again, death is the only way around this. Other lovers may go through life together, but the lovers referred to in this song seem to have transcended it entirely. This continues into the last two stanzas... Here is where the song moves into what seems to me to be a deliberate apotheosis. "They" don't simply deal with the troubles that "we" face in previous stanzas; they move beyond entirely. They "rise from among us", "take [to] the sky"; and while *other* "hearts were broken", the "golden ones sail on...to another land beneath another sky". This apotheosis -- a near-deification in terms that evoke an exodus to paradise or a union with the stars in the style of Greek mythology -- carries a particular note of melancholy, particularly in the context of the rest of the song. "They" were never suited to this world; "we" can only join together in a chorus (again, Greek-style) to pray that "they" be held up and preserved, a state often associated with exemplary mortals at their deaths. So I tend to hear and perform this song as poignantly ironic -- as referring to a couple whose love was spectacularly inspiring but who did, unfortunately, "die young". Rather than dwelling on that death, though, "we", the living, remember the love that inspired us, made us hope that anything was possible, that in the end if we can love like "they" did then no matter what else happens we have lived well. This is, of course, only my reading of the song; I won't claim that this is the best or only interpretation, and I certainly don't know what James Taylor intended in writing the song, but I think it's a reading that makes sense in terms of both the lyrics and the tone of the music. I've heard some people suggest that this song specifically refers to a couple lost to AIDS; while the time-frame would fit, while this would certainly make for a poignant added detail to performances/interpretations of the song, and while James Taylor may have done some work for AIDS charities, I haven't read anything to convince me that this is a necessary part of the song. There's definitely enough breadth of meaning here to support a range of readings; I'd certainly like to see more interpretations by different artists. (JT's collaboration on the song with Luciana Souza is definitely worth acquiring, by the way.) |
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| Tracy Chapman – Telling Stories Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I'll refrain from trying to speculate about Chapman's thoughts in writing this song (on grounds of respecting her personal/artistic boundaries as well as Barthesian grounds), but just in terms of what we're given with the song: This isn't just a description of any two people -- this is *everybody*. As much as we want and struggle to feel like we really understand another person, ultimately we can only construct our own fictions of everyone else and hope that those fictions are something that other people might see themselves in. Thoughts and language alike are "fiction", not the reality we try to describe; but "sometimes a lie is the best thing" in that we can sometimes recognize that *everything* we think we know is, to some extent, a "fiction", and that really the best we can do is to try to come up with a "fiction" which respects and is sensitive to the needs of everyone else that we base our fictions on. In other words -- this is a song about the impossible but necessary task of really understanding other people, and our failures along the way as well as our hopefully-reciprocal acceptance of the same failures in others. |
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| Tori Amos – Shattering Sea Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song plays with my head -- though it's more the instrumentals than the music. The lyrics are relatively (i.e. for Tori) straightforward here, evoking a state where a relationship has disintegrated into rage and denial. The music, though -- the repeating string motif suggests building tension and frustration, while the piano theme (very heavily reminiscent of Matthew Shipp, actually, especially Shipp's "DNA" album -- in a good way) brings the tension over the boiling point and into the breaking glass. The return to the "gentler" themes implies an alternation between anger and quiet desperation; this isn't a story which happens once and then is done, it's a destructive cycle. |
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| Tori Amos – Code Red Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think bugoff's approach is a good one for most of Tori's songs -- she plays with images, metaphors, and moods effectively enough that you can listen to her songs as being "about" more than one thing at the same time. It makes sense as talking about the music industry, it makes sense as referring to "playing the field" in terms of relationships. (In terms of the latter, there's quite a bit of nuance. Men are usually given props for enjoying the hunt, while women are crucified for it; as always, Tori isn't having any of that shit. I actually like the idea of some commenters here that "grow me some wine" could refer to "settling down" -- because it frames the process in terms of taking the time and effort to produce something subtle, beautiful, and intoxicating rather than it being a "settling for" something less than what's desired. I'll have to listen to the song again with that in mind.) It's also certainly possible to read the song with respect to rape, in terms of "what you stole I would have given freely", especially in the presence of "a six-pack of Coke and a bottle of Jack". There's a feminist angle here, too -- a woman who's looking for love and sex, especially a woman who has decided that she *wants* to seek sex with a particular man, tends to go through oceans of shit if that man rapes her. In that reading, the song insists on the distinction -- even if she (our nameless narrator) wanted him, what he did is unforgivable. Oh, and if anyone is tempted to ignore bugoff's fabulous deconstructionist self due to that nasty "deconstructionism" word: in terms of listening to songs, "deconstruction" has a particularly enjoyable meaning: it's the practice of looking for as many different ways of listening to a song as possible. And I suspect that any Tori fan, even the ones who find academic jargon a turn-off (not me!) know what I'm talking about: with each track, Tori gives us all not just *one* song, but a whole *collection*, with a range of meanings depending on how we choose to listen to it that time through. One Tori Amos track has more different "songs" than most *albums*. |
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| Antony and the Johnsons – Rapture Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| @ Narayan -- The Bible doesn't mention the Rapture. It first existed as a doctrine in the 17th Century, and wasn't a popular idea until the 19th -- in both cases based on ambiguities in English translations. By now, though, it's enough of a popular trope in the U.S. to be used non-dogmatically as metaphor. | |
| Paul Simon – The Rhythm Of The Saints Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Olodumare (a.k.a. Olòrún) is a Yoruba supreme being; Babalú-Ayé represents Olòrún on Earth and is associated with both diseases and their cures. Both are associated with Candomblé, which fits with the Brazilian emphasis of the whole album. | |
| Paul Simon – The Coast Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| "Summer skies, the stars are falling" -- some of the most spectacular meteor showers happen in the summer. The "injured coast", though, speaks to an element of human disruption and/or delusion. | |
| Paul Simon – Spirit Voices Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Like dharmacase said, this is Paul Simon's "ayahuasca song" -- though that almost diminishes it. This isn't some recreational "drug" -- it's about a spiritual journey, arriving at that awareness that everything is connected in ways that we humans can only briefly understand, that "hear[ing] the jungle breath[ing]" is as close as we can be given to a real understanding of the world that can only be understood through experience. | |
| Ellis Paul – Alice's Champagne Palace Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Alice's Champagne Palace is actually a bar and music venue in Homer, Alaska. It's a small town (about 5,000 people, with another 5,000 in the vicinity), but the people there are definite music lovers; one night when I was in town visiting family, Homer people managed to sell out both an appearance of the Kenai Peninsula orchestra (in the high school/community theater, about 500 seats) *and* an appearance of the jam band Moonalice at (of course) Alice's Champagne Palace (another few hundred in the next-door hall, IIRC). That's what this song is about, really -- Alice's Champagne Palace is both a campy-ass bar with frequent musical acts showing up (they had Bela Fleck and the Flecktones!) and a stand-in for Homer itself, which is a crazy little hippie town literally at the end of the highway. | |
| Mika – We Are Golden Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The chorus is awfully close to the hook from "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" (Rick Nowels/Ellen Shipley; most people know Belinda Carlisle's recording). Not sure whether to take it as a tribute or just a near-copy... | |
| Peter Schilling – Major Tom (Coming Home) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I've been told that the German original implies a few things that don't translate well -- does anyone here have a strong enough grasp of German to comment? | |
| Antony and the Johnsons – Epilepsy Is Dancing Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Both the song and the video seem to be from the perspective of a person with a disease or disability which causes seizures or involuntary movements, but also provokes visions. As is sometimes the case with tumors or damage in some parts of the brain, the visions can be unimaginably beautiful, almost impossible to return to "reality" from -- but they're also part of a disease which may be killing the body. "Curing" the disease might be the only way to survive, but it would mean losing the purest expression of beauty and transcendent meaning that a person might ever be able to experience. | |
| The Pussycat Dolls – Feelin' Good Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The song is by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse -- it's from the musical "The Roar of the Greasepaint–the Smell of the Crowd". I actually prefer the song (when standing on its own) when it's given a more ironic reading -- the singer "in character" trying to convince themself that everything is going well...and not quite succeeding. The chord structure of the song makes it less suited to an upbeat reading. | |
| Joanna Newsom – Swansea Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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It might be significant that more than just "ghost towns" (a couple of them at least, Buttonwillow and Lagunitas, aren't deserted) are locations that road-trippers (and trains, maybe?) pass through. Most of the people who enter any of these places in a given year (with the exception of Assateague, which doesn't have a through-road) are traveling through on the way to somewhere else. Also on the bungalows and toads...I read the lines as "bungalows stare, distend...like endless toads endlessly hop down the road". The California bungalow (prefab or otherwise) is a part of suburban sprawl; the area occupied by often-flattened (toad-like?) bungalows "distends" out into areas further from the cities. |
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| Tori Amos – Past The Mission Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This is one song where I've always wanted to know how much of the music video was Tori's idea. Mostly because, in the imagery of the video, I've always been that little boy in the end who runs off to follow the women and the girls instead of sticking with the men when it came time to pick sides. If that detail was a deliberate choice on Tori's part, then I'll have to thank her for it sometime. | |
| Antony and the Johnsons – Rapture Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Instead of rising, the "Rapture" here is a universal falling -- sorrow, and even death, become central to transcendent experience. | |
| Tori Amos – Roosterspur Bridge Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think I base my reading of this song mostly on the chorus, with the verses expanding on it a bit. There has been a relationship -- probably, though not necessarily, romantic -- where the two people involved growing as people also meant their growing apart. The character the song is sung to has grown from a "boy" to a "man", trading "fear" for "fire" -- but, in doing so, leaving. The relationship has helped him become himself, but that same development led to the relationship ending. And as much as she might search for an understanding of what changed, or what could have happened differently, his emergence into himself (with the "wonder" he finds at this) and his "leaving" are ultimately the same thing. | |
| Van Morrison – Moondance Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This is definitely still "rock-and-roll with jazz influences" rather than a jazz song (I could go on a tangent about how a jazz combo would play this, but it would be horrendously boring to anyone but jazz-heads who would already know it anyway), but it wears the influence well. Autumn is underused as a romantic image and time; but this song makes up for it. There's a certain, almost predatory ring to some lines, both in the music and the words -- which is quite appropriate for the combination of moonlight and autumn which forms the central image. | |
| Van Morrison – Crazy Love Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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All of Van Morrison's "love songs" seem to approach the feelings involved in different ways. Here it's a wonderful, tender, soft, and profound feeling -- something to wrap oneself up in and sit astounded by the sheer comforting power of it. It's appropriate, whether intended or not, that a few of the adjectives in the last verse -- "righteous" and "mellow" -- are among the most-often used when talking about the state of indulging in cannabis. Here love is of the same hue, but more meaningful and penetrating -- love as the most righteous high imaginable. |
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| Van Morrison – Cleaning Windows Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This sounds like a set of experiences that a lot of musicians, poets, and artists could appreciate: working a menial job, sure, but using that to buy the ability to indulge in art on the sly. Notice that he devotes one line to "blowing saxophone on the weekend," but a whole verse to the influences that he describes himself as absorbing and taking to heart. |
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