| The Flaming Lips – The Spark That Bled Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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"I accidentally touched my head..." Noticing that you're not as fulfilled as you could be. Wondering how long you've actually felt this way, and who/what exactly caused you to accept it as reality, instead of fighting for who you are or what you want. "From this moment on..." Deciding that from that point forward, you're going to live your life knowing that you should "stand up and say 'Yeah!'." Life is worth living, not necessarily because there is or isn't some kind of magical force holding it all together, but because you've experienced something that makes your life feel worth living, now, in the present moment. You're not living to get into heaven or avoid hell, you're not living to glorify some kind of invisible parent figure, you're not living to repent of your past sins or transgressions, you're living your life to the fullest because IT IS WORTH LIVING, RIGHT NOW. "And it seemed to cause a chain reaction..." Everyone seems to appreciate the act of "standing up and saying 'Yeah!'," but in reality, they're not reacting to him at all. They've "resigned themselves to holding onto something that they've never had," i.e. a REAL spiritual experience. Since they've never had a REAL spiritual experience, they have to hold on to something prescribed for them by their church/temple/mosque etc., which is CALLED a spiritual experience by the members of the church/temple/mosque, but is actually suppressing the real human spirit, which is by nature very celebratory and socially inclined. Instead of "standing up and saying 'Yeah!'" to the human spirit/experience/condition, they're holding on to something masquerading as real life, but in their ignorance, they think they've got the real thing. This is "too bad," because as long as they hold on to that simulacrum, they'll never hold the reality of human existence, only low-grade copies of the real thing, created by people who have never actually held (or even seen) the real thing. "I accidentally touched my head..." (second time) Realizing that you've probably ALWAYS known that most people don't ever have a real spiritual experience. This was most likely what caused you not feel as fulfilled as you could be to begin with. It's a vicious cycle. In the end, the answer is to stand up and say Yeah!, regardless of how many people are joining in with you, regardless of how many truly understand why you're standing up at all. Your life is worth living, right now. Let the dead bury their own. |
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| Andrew Bird – Imitosis Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This is from a 2007 interview from "gothamist.com" http://gothamist.com/2007/05/16/andrew_bird_musician.php Imitosis is the full incarnation of a song on Weather Systems named simply "I". Is it true there were copyright issues that prevented the full version from appearing on Weather Systems? "Yeah, the version on Weather Systems is just something to bide my time while we worked that out. Musically that pizzicato pattern has just been so fertile for ideas over the past couple years. The song has been been morphing as I’ve been playing it live and I enjoy that feel so whether I got all the lyrics in there wasn’t that important." And what was the issue with the lyrics? "It was based on a childhood memory of a skit from Sesame Street where these men live inside a capital I and they come out and they polish the I and they sing this song, which goes, “We all live in a capital I”. Instead of saying “We’re all basically alone” I would say “We all live in a capital I”, which is basically saying the same thing. There’s no other resemblance to the original Sesame Street version melodically or – beyond those lyrics – anything. But we went to Sesame Street and we said, “Hey, we’ve got this song, it’s based on a childhood memory of this skit.” And they led us along for a while and said, "Talk to our publisher, blah blah blah." And it took several years for them to say, “We don’t want to do this.” So instead of getting angry I just stayed up all night and rewrote the lyrics." |
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| Andrew Bird – Armchairs Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I just want to say, and not in response to any poster in particular, that Andrew Bird writes some of the most "open to interpretation" songs you'll find. Some of them are more straight ahead than others, but this one is especially malleable. It can be bent or shaped to mean just about anything you want. That being said, this is the way I've cherry-picked the lyrics to say what I want them to mean. I wanted to focus on this part: "an awkward pause a fatal flaw time it's a crooked bow oh time's a crooked bow in time you need to learn to love the ebb just like the flow” You'll be "shot" up or down by the unpredictability of time and circumstance, and the key is to remember not to allow your mood to get too low when time and circumstance shoots you downward. "Loving the ebb just like the flow" means recognizing that, when things aren't going well for you, it's still an opportunity to grow and better yourself, and that the tide HAS TO recede as well as advance; that's just the nature of things. If the tide was always flowing, there'd be no ground to walk on. “as if you lack the proper chemicals to know the way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low” Remembering the last time you forgot about the nature of time and circumstance, and how awful you felt, and how that feeling got you nowhere because it prevented you from growing or learning anything from the experience. Those 2 parts of the song are permanently stuck in my head, and have actually added something to my life. There are very few song-writers I can say that about. |
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| Andrew Bird – Sick of Elephants Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I really didn't mean to try to offend you or "pick on you" in any way, I don't even disagree with what you've said. I also hate partisanship on sites about song lyrics, but some people just can't help themselves. I just wanted to point out that it really couldn't have been written specifically for the 2008 election because of the release date of the song itself. And I had to *re*-register to post because I have no idea what my password once was for this site. And the "plus 1, minus 1" is something I always do because no one else uses it and I think it's hilarious. I've just given you some more negatives, and myself a positive, strictly to amuse myself. Don't take it personally. Cheers. |
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| Andrew Bird – Sick of Elephants Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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@ thriggle : I really doubt this song has anything to do with the 2008 election, given that it was written well before either party had held their primaries. And the very first entry states that Bird explained he had written it directly after the 2004 election. I'm not going to comment on your personal politics, you can believe what ever you want, and you can have this song stand for whatever you'd like, regardless of Bird's intention. But it clearly was "meant'' to be a jab at those who voted for Bush in 2004. I know your point was to draw comparisons between both parties, and to say that Democrats shouldn't be so high and mighty about their candidate, but I will absolutely guarantee you this song had nothing to do with the 2008 election. At the time he wrote this song, Clinton Romney were still probably the media's "frontrunners." Your post, though not "out of line" in any way, is bordering on revisionist history. |
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