submissions
| The Beatles – You Can't Do That Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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The devolution of John Lennon’s [lyrical] jealousy from this song to “Ticket To Ride” (“don’t know why she’s flyin’ so high”) is astounding.
From a seemingly direct threat to a resigned shrug. |
submissions
| Kurt Bestor – Dreams of A Better Day Lyrics
| 5 years ago
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This is the highlight song from the 90's "The Buttercream Gang" movie, which I saw with my two sons roughly 25 years ago.
It's rare that one can find music from the past 30 years with no trace of absurdity in it, but this is one of them...still well up inside when I listen. |
submissions
| Kansas – Got to Rock On Lyrics
| 7 years ago
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A song about us "Northern band boys" who suffers the winter doldrums until we can bring the axes out and rock on! |
submissions
| Joe Walsh – Life's Been Good Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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The line "everybody's so different, I haven't changed"...well, probably the opposite has happened and the protagonist can't see it because of his fortune and fame. One of my top five songs of all time. |
submissions
| Alabama – Can't Keep a Good Man Down Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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A transformational little ditty about a man who decides to cure his broken-heartedness with a whole lot of whore-mongering, followed by a flat refusal to welcome back the woman he once loved and in whom he made a considerable emotional investment. |
submissions
| The Monkees – (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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If the protagonist really wasn't [her] 'steppin' stone', the lyrics wouldn't, as they presently do, tell the story of him being shit on in the first place.
He really was her steppin' stone...another product of the denial-laden sixties. :-P |
submissions
| Ace – How Long Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I thought for the longest time that it was a song about a secretive partner, but it's actually written about Ace bassist Terry Comer, who was working with other bands around the time the song was penned. The lyric line "to break up our singing this way" has been interpreted in other parts as "to break up our scene this way", and also "to break up our scene in this way". A YouTube video confirms that it is indeed "scene in this way"...that is, if the group didn't alter the lyrics for that live performance...:-) |
submissions
| Blue Öyster Cult – Debbie Denise Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I see it as the short story of a guy in a band whose faithful partner waits "so patiently"; patiently because she wants him around all the time, and it gets to the point that her life centers solely around that. But he almost totally neglects her and causes her to think the relationship is over. It's unclear to me if they reconcile but regardless, the guy becomes what Debbie Denise once was, in the respect that his life now consists of staring out the window "where I was out rolling with my band". |
submissions
| Bachman-Turner Overdrive – Flat Broke Love Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This is on the greatest hits CD (though I don't recall hearing it on the radio way back when). The protagonist is basically saying his heart is empty, therefore 'flat broke'. One of the best set of BTO lyrics. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Yer So Bad Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Looking at just the lyrics might lead one to conclude that the song is about a man who counts himself lucky to have someone who won't 'take him for all he's worth', but add the music that rocks back and forth between an A minor verse and G major chorus and it seems to become a song of uncertainty, as though the protagonist has been saying all along, "you won't do me like that, will you?". The song may not be quite as positive as it seems. |
submissions
| Blue Öyster Cult – The Marshall Plan Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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There are three things I derive from the lyrics.
1) The acquisition of fame isn't so gratifying ("found it easier to live in pain").
2) Just because you change your world to the hilt doesn't mean someone else's world will be in your orbit ("Still he reaches out, but Suzy's disappeared").
3) Suzy's a band slut and nothing in the world will ever change that. |
submissions
| Blue Öyster Cult – The Marshall Plan Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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The meaning is, I think, a lot like "So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star" by the Byrds, that is to say, the perception of being a rock and roll star from the outside being in stark opposition with the reality of being a rock and roll star. |
submissions
| Alice Cooper – Alma Mater Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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It might mean something more than merely leaving school, as a simultaneously played 'Taps' and 'Happy Trails' bring an end to the opus. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Circus Envy Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think the song is about the weaker partner in a relationship who has, almost, finally had it with his partner who is emotionally enslaving him, but he's not quite ready to make that leap. He is envious of his partner's ability to manipulate and control and despises his own weakness in the face of it. |
submissions
| The Cowsills – Hair Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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A great tribute to one of the great icons of the time period, of course, HAIR.
One of the funnest songs of all time. |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – Glorified G Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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The lyrics convey a hateful stereotype regarding gun owners. I think of the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" when I hear the beginning. |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – Animal Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It sounds like gang rape. Eddie Vedder sings about victimhood in many of his lyrics, but when it comes to George W Bush, he and his bandmates become the five in "five against one". Think about it. |
submissions
| Taylor Swift – Picture to Burn Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It seems as though she was in love with the fantasy, not the guy with the pickup truck 'you never let me drive'. The woman is obviously really messed up. Lyrical genius; Taylor Swift is great. |
submissions
| Midlake – Branches Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It's about love not returned. I didn't like the music to these lyrics at first, but the heroic horns undergirding Tim Smith's "it's hard for me but I'm trying" liturgy is pure musical genius. |
submissions
| The Verve Pipe – Myself Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It's about a woman who is her 'own hero', but when near the end of the song you hear 'woman disappointed', you know the reason why. |
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