| Sunset Rubdown – Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh! Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I feel like "Anna" is a reference to something I just don't get. But it doesn't matter, I love it anyway. The other themes, growing old, the moon (artemis), etc etc are recurring... such a great albuM!1! |
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| Sunset Rubdown – We Got Broken Eyes Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I'm thinking this song is about how the pop-culture consuming public consumes a lot of shit. First of all, they dance to everything, no matter how terrible the pop songs becomes. Here's Spencer, obviously a religious man to some degree (see "Swimming"), and he's looking at the whole mess and asking, are they hypnotized? Why are they listening to the shit they do and watching the stuff they do (aka "kiddies got a lot of shit in their eyes"). To him, materialism is just hugely impersonal and not genuine in the least--from the clothes to the watches even to the God. Spencer's not like that--he doesn't sing songs to be "a son of a bitch in the night," aka do all the "rock star" things like partying and drugs and girls. There is a lot more in this song. But I guess that's what I think the gist of it i. |
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| Swan Lake – Paper Lace Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This is an incredible song. I'm pretty sure it's about marriage. What is a marriage license if not "paper lace" that can so easily burn, fade, or morph into something ugly? In this case, I'm thinking there's some poor guy whose pretty wife just left him. Spencer invites him to run wild--to be single and carefree once more--instead of moping around. This poor guy has been trying to please him wife (aka the lion skins and laurels), but in the end, he's not rich and he can't give her any materialistic displays of love. But I get the feeling that their seperation is only temporary--like both him and his wife are just playing at being "on the wild side," but they will inevitably return to the "sanctuary" that is their marriage. Either that, or it's the complete opposite, that this guy is telling himself that she will be coming back, although really he doesn't understand her or the fact that she's not coming back. God, SK has outdone himself... this is such a beautiful, mature, and poetic song. The chants of "oh sanctuary" just kill me. I don't think I've touched on half the themes in this song--it is such a subtle one. |
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| The Antlers – Bear Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Amazing song. I can't wait for Hospice. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I agree with the very first comment. and I'd also like to say that there is no doubt in my mind that the third stanza is about Anne Frank, Jeff's love and muse. In my dreams you're alive and you're crying As your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet Rings of flowers around your eyes and I'll love you For the rest of your life In the album Jeff introduced us to a wide range of characters, from king of carrot flowers to two headed boy, to anne frank etc. I believe this song is him closing the album by trying to reconcile their pain. Then, at the end, he comes to the conclusion that it can't be solved. Pain will always be there. The two headed boy will never know passion--the king of carrot flowers dad continues to be horrible, and anne is still dead, no matter what he does. Also, in the forth verse, i feel like he's not talking to anyone in particular but to anyone whose been angry and whose world has fallen apart. Jeff wishes he could fix everything, but no matter what he wishes, nothing changes. As for anne, he says he'll love her for the rest of her life, which may pose a little problem. All that is left to take away the pain is God, who, like anne did, you will wait for. And you will wait for Him the rest of your life. |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Forgive me if someone has already posted something like this, but i'm going to skip reading 78 other comments... While in the Aeroplane Over the Sea is about the holocaust and Anne Frank, I don't think that's everything. The Two Headed Boy saga especially, I don't think is about Anne Frank. Her spirit is all through the album, and what she represents to Jeff, is everywhere--but this song isn't literally about her. What Anne Frank represents to Jeff, well, I'm not going to claim I know or even can understand, but for the sake of this comment I'm going to say she represents purity and innocence and youth, and that Jeff yearns for her and loves her. So that's why I think that this album is about youth and loss of youth--the awkward transition that is puberty and all of the goodies that come with that. This song is for everyone who sometimes wonders who they are. I read somewhere that two-headed boy is about sexuality. But, since it's Jeff, it's just as likely it's literally about a two-headed boy. If it is a literal two headed boy, then the boy is a representation of every torn person who has ever lived, and every person who has ever been rejected and thought of as a freak by society. It's also about the shame and awkwardness of young lovers--and the connection between them. I'm not phrasing this very well, but I hope I'm getting across what this song means to me. But I'd also like to give some time to the theory that it's about sexuality. The boy is torn between his lover and the awkward, painful, shameful experiences that they have that are only natural, and "putting on his sunday shoes." In the end, Jeff wants to give him the world that he wants, where he won't be a freak and he won't be ashamed. this song captures how torn a sweet gay boy discovering his sexuality in a religious family would be. Beautiful. I'm just waiting until Jeff plays this in concert again. Please be soon. I'd also like to ask mega whether he/she was POSSIBLY serious. I mean, really? If it's a joke, I guess it's not that bad. |
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| Wolf Parade – You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I always thought this song was about war... and i mean, spencer's using war metaphors etc etc i got a number on me = draft card and then there's all the talk of heroes and fathers, well that could easily be a metaphor for uncle sam (I know he's canadian, I know) oh yeah, and then he straight up talks about guns. then I read that it was about family issues. Now I look at it in a completely different way, but it's interesting to think how the war metaphor can apply to family stuff. It's a powerful war to point to conflict in a family. This song can be interpreted to apply to a lot of different family situations... the one I see most clearly is that he had a father who came and went, while the whole time there's this boy, waiting for, doting on, and idolizing his father. BUt I think kabmha has a completely legitimate analysis as well. This is such a powerful song. It's what got me in to WP in the first place. Thank you, spencer. |
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| Sunset Rubdown – Claxxon's Lament Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| isn't this a cover of a frog eyes song? | |
| Sunset Rubdown – Colt Stands Up, Grows Horns Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| another time we see loss of innocence in this album... | |
| Sunset Rubdown – The Courtesan Has Sung Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Ok. Bear with me here. I think the Courtesan is Wolf Parade. Through this album, spencer brings up both "virgins" and "whores" quite a lot. virgins are obviously pure and whores are obviously not, etc etc. In this song (well, actually the whole album) I think he's using these themes to talk about the purity of music. Evidence for this is basically just the word "guitar" and that the courtesan "has sung." The song is also spencer grappling with having a wider audience--that's what the "brother, your work's got no soul" part is about. A "stranger"--any person out of spencer's big audience"--judges an artist's work in their "home" (here, i'm taking home to be saying that the music people are judging is very personal) and declares it "soulless." It almost seems like spencer feels his privacy is being invaded. Also something to note is that spencer has to defend his work. I'm going to agree with inna1 that the paintings are an artist displaying their life's work and not being appreciated. so two lines there. Also, a quote from inna1's post: The fact that the racy thing turns out to be vodka (again) could mean that often rock bands that become so called "self indulgent" a la drugs are just going the predictable route. The line that led me to the conclusion that spencer is talking about world parade is "Amber says she hates guitar." Spencer has referred to Wolf Parade as more of a "rock" band. Now we know that Wolf Parade's been very successful, but, deep down, spencer is a keyboardist who relies on piano driven melodies not guitar ones. So it's not a huge huge leap to think that he doesn't feel completely genuine to himself when performing with Wolf Parade. After the "courtesan," himself, has performed, he looks around and sees that like so many buzz bands their audience is young as hell. Is that convincing? hopefully. Anyway, going off the assumption the "courtesan" is wolf parade. So currently spencer is referring to them as a "courtesan," not a "whore," which means he still has respect for the band. But the verse "think of the scene where a washed up actor/ wipes the make up off his wife/ and says/ morticians must have took you for a whore" is spencer saying he's afraid that at the end of his life people will look back at his work and see it as having "no soul." Morticians only see people at the end of their life--they only see what you became, not what you were at the beginning. Also important to note is that she's taken for a whore with her make-up on--if spencer is ever taken for a whore, it won't be him at his core that's the whore but the face that he presents to the world. Moving on... the "five actors" verse is about sell outs. They're good looking, and they're hungry, or ambitious. So, like many pop stars, they just start making something with the shit that's already been done. It's "safe" because pop and pop ballads are "safe." as for the Crowd is forming, well, that verse i'm not completely sure about. The crowd forms to listen to the shit on the stage from the good looking people--basically every successful pop artist. The winged things--i don't know, see winged/wicked things for that. You could see them as something divine, for good or bad, like some sort of angel on your shoulder. But we know spencer has mixed feelings about god... anyway, this is a pretty weak interpretation of that line, but these divine things, unable to speak as they are, try to warn the people they're being stupid and that they're something MORE than the shit on the stage, but no one hears them. That about wraps this up... one day I will learn how to write short comments. but there's just so much IN these songs... Another important theme in this song is gender. The "pure" are always women--the wife whose make up is being removed, nadia, amber, the painter, all that. The corrupt are always men--the Stranger, the unnamed man, the actors etc. Spencer might be saying there's something very masculine about the self indulgence of rock or that the part of him attracted to what comes with fame is masculine. who knows. let's ask spencer. Sidenote: umm so I agreed a lot with inna1. That's because inna1 is my old account. ROLFCOPTER. LOLERSKATES. |
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| Sunset Rubdown – Child-Heart Losers Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I agree with uptherea44. All the themes of the album are really being tied together in this song... actors, agings, self awareness, etc. So this post is really more about the album as a whole than this individual song. This might be reading way to much into everything, but I wonder if overall, the "actors" which I think are probably the most overarching theme in this album, are spencer wondering if he's still genuine. Like in this song, he could be questioning whether he's lost the beauty and purity that comes with being an uncut diamond. Like uptherea44 said, he's asking himself at the end of this song "why so many violins?" which can be read as why so many embellishment. Maybe he's not an uncut diamond anymore. Actors, throughout the whole album, represent an artist whose craft is pretending to be someone else. Never are they genuine. "the part of the virgin" has been taken--even the part with the most purity. And, in The Courtesan Has Sung, the aging actor tells him wife "morticians must have took you for a whore," which I take to mean the longer you pretend the less pure you become. Through the album I see spencer flirting with fame. In For The Pier, he says he "will be an enemy/of men seen in the light." I mean, that line can be taken in a lot of different ways, but bear with me here. Going back to actors, actors have to perform, obviously, before an audience, and Spencer is becoming more aware of this audience. The Courtesan has Sung is all about this, which we see when a "stranger finds you in your home/says brother, your works got no soul." Music is obviously something very personal, and spencer is coping with a larger audience looking into something very personal, his home, and judging it harshly. I won't go on about this, but I'll post more in the comments for that song. Sorry for the essay, but I'll stop now. Basically, I think this song is an absolutely breathtaking close to this album and is spencer lamenting his loss of the pure, child-like desire to make music and him becoming forced to become more of an "actor" and embellishing things more, like with violins (yeah, this is a run on sentence). One last note... the line "who lets that take place" is spencer cursing god for not allowing him to just purely make music. There's a lot more in this album than what I've written so far, but this is my interpretation. |
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| Sunset Rubdown – The Mending of the Gown Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Not that it's not always great | |
| Sunset Rubdown – The Mending of the Gown Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I really wish that Spencer would start playing this song at the original tempo again... Playing it slow takes a way a the joy that was in the original... | |
| Sunset Rubdown – A Day In The Graveyard II Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I'm going to agree with mtamney here. In an Animal in Your Care, Spencer also talks about what a girl would do at his funeral... and also suggests that she wouldn't care. I think it's the same thing here... To me, it's pretty clear that it's his funeral because it's "I had a rose petal bed/I had the sun on my shoes" which gives a pretty clear image on him lying in a coffin. And when he "knew" and "could see" that she wouldn't give the other one to him that just meant that even at his funeral, she wasn't there. I'm also agreeing with Heraclea that God is the conductor, but I don't think Spencer's saying that he will forgive god, but more like it's not either of their fault because the conductor, God, fucked up. He doesn't really seem mad at her for "doing something else" instead of going to his funeral, just sad that she doesn't care. He won't blame her for not caring if she doesn't blame him for dying. the one line i'm not entirely clear about is the helicopter one. Is he talking about publicity? I don't really know. But it's a Spencer song, so we'll never REALLY know, will we? |
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