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Emmy the Great – On The Museum Island Lyrics 15 years ago
I think the first verse is referencing her and her friend Jazz Mellor. Jazz's father was Joe Strummer (of The Clash, as well as other bands). He died in 2002, so she probably would've gone to his funeral with her.

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Emmy the Great – A Bowl Collecting Blood Lyrics 15 years ago
This song always reminds me of Great Expectations.

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T.I. – Whatever You Like Lyrics 15 years ago
"Brain" is a slang term for oral sex. I'm not just being crass- it's why they censor "brain" in the radio edits.

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Deer Tick – Twenty Miles Lyrics 15 years ago
I thought the same thing when I was originally doing this, but it sounds like "the securities". It's possible that he swallows the "in"? Regardless, I'm changing it to "insecurities" because I agree with you.

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Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Shampoo Lyrics 15 years ago
I read in a review that the line was "But I don't want to die, however dark tomorrow may be" but I always heard "I'd rather die tomorrow maybe". In the live versions, you can hear it better. And I think "sun" is "sky"...but that's only because it rhymes with "why".

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Laura Marling – Shine Lyrics 15 years ago
Laura said in her interview with WNYC that "Shine" kind of represents the need to be around positive, healthy people and it was a word she used to explain that abstract concept.


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Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can Lyrics 15 years ago
I know this song is supposed to be about Penelope singing to Odysseus, but I'm sensing a little Laura Marling singing to Charlie Fink. She does tend to draw comparisons between herself and strong, female characters, so it will make sense.

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Emmy the Great – Two Steps Forward Lyrics 15 years ago
The people who say it's about anal are much closer than those who say it's about a relationship.

There isn't a mention of a relationship, only the sex. It could even have been a one night stand, because the protagonist seems to have plenty of those.

She even says word-for-word "that my love was underneath you making puddles on the floor". The narrator obviously was in love with this newly-famous individual, whereas he just wanted to hit it and quit it.

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Laura Marling – What He Wrote Lyrics 15 years ago
I love how her songs can have multiple meanings.

"but I'm broken too"
Can be "I'm broken too", "I'm broke in two" or "I'm broke into" depending on the verse.

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Sufjan Stevens – A Good Man Is Hard to Find Lyrics 15 years ago
"All my stories are about the actions of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal." -Flannery O'Connor

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Laura Marling – No Hope In The Air Lyrics 15 years ago
I know. I don't feel lazy because I don't even have the potential to do what she's doing. She makes me feel stupid :(

She added a verse for the album:
A friend is a friend forever
And a good one will never leave never
but you've never been south of what rolls off your mouth
you will never understand the effort/ever

I can't hear the phrasing that well and it's really ironic I can't understand that last word.... maybe I'll never understand it...

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Joanna Newsom – Baby Birch Lyrics 15 years ago
I think the "stars" are to be taken a little more literally:

"Do you remember staring,
up at the stars,
so far away in their bulletproof cars?"

What kind of stars drive bulletproof cars? Celebrities.

Of course, it could be a double meaning. Her songs are so complex.

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Laura Marling – Devil's Spoke Lyrics 16 years ago
Also, I think it's "interred" not "in tow", but I could be mistaken. There's a lot going on at that point in the song.

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Laura Marling – Devil's Spoke Lyrics 16 years ago
It seems like Laura is really advancing as a songwriter. A few months ago, I wouldn't have believed that it was possible for her to mature any more...she was already so mature before. I can't imagine what she'll be like in a couple years.

This is an amazing song and it's a completely different sound than Alas, I Cannot Swim.

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Emmy the Great – Gloria Lyrics 16 years ago
It does exist, but only the live version, which I found it on limewire one day. There aren't any video clips of her performing this song.

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Noah and the Whale – Slow Glass Lyrics 16 years ago
This song is so about Laura.

I love them both, though...even if they now hate each other.

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Beirut – Nantes Lyrics 16 years ago
"Mais qu'est-ce que tu as aujourd'hui" would be better translated as "what is with you today?". Non, "Laisse moi!" could either be "leave me alone" or "let me go!" I'm not French, so I can't be 100% positive.

The movie is La Bete Humaine. It's a great movie, but a little hard to find. Cult classic.

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Laura Marling – Night Terror Lyrics 16 years ago
I agree. Both My Manic and I and Night Terror depict a kind of descent into madness. I both songs, the protagonist gets sucked into the mental disorder.

In My Manic and I, she starts off saying "these are the reasons I think that you're ill", but it changes to "we're ill" and finally "I'm ill", as if she has become manic herself.

In Night Terror, she tries to wake him and is addressing him. As the song progresses, she is drawn into the nightmare and at the end, she's addressing the demons herself, instead of her lover. It's amazing how she can change a few little pronouns and the it takes the meaning to a different level.

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Slow Club – Let's Fall Back In Love Lyrics 16 years ago
I think it's "we shared a womb now let's share this tomb with the rest of our dead family"

...at least it makes the most sense to me.

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Mumford & Sons – After the Storm Lyrics 16 years ago
I think it's "I won't die alone and be left there" and "death is just so full and man so small".

...but I'm not entirely sure. I can't always understand what he's saying.

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Laura Marling – Night Terror Lyrics 16 years ago
I think it's a lover. She said in an interview that she "went out with a guy who had night terrors" and she "found it fascinating":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/26/popandrock

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Emmy the Great – Gabriel Lyrics 16 years ago
It seems more like she's marrying for money instead of love. Gabriel must be the man she loves, because why else would she keep everything he sent her- including his letters. She probably keep them if they were from a man she was going to use for money.

When she's saying things like "soon they will twist it at the shoulder and fix the clasp against my neck and i do not think you would know her", she's talking about herself on her wedding day, and she will be unlike to the girl he met in the orchard.

It seems like she and Gabriel were secret lovers, which is why she makes reference to his letters, telling him to "tread carefully" because she is soon to be a married woman...and why she wants to fold him up into her pocket like a "secret ribbon" (I don't know if that's a euphemism or not...)

It seems she's saying goodbye to her childhood sweetheart and is growing into a woman of society he wouldn't recognize.

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Mumford & Sons – Dust Bowl Dance Lyrics 16 years ago
I LOVE this song. Marcus gives me goosebumps every time. The drum solo in this song is beautifully epic, too.

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Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger Lyrics 16 years ago
There is a lot of contrasting imagery of heaven and hell in this song. The graffiti on the pearly gates- I always think of it as left by people not allowed into heaven, so they're condemned to hell. "Tell my mother not to worry" and "we'll meet again"- these words make sense if they are spoken by people who knew they weren't going to see their loved ones for a while.

There's also the whole "an angel kissing on a sinner" thing. I feel like the narrators still in love with his childhood sweetheart, but she has since moved on to bigger and better things, where he's stuck in the past.

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Laura Marling – Night Terror Lyrics 16 years ago
The thing that separates a night terror from a nightmare is that the person experiencing it rarely had any memory of the episode. To an outside observer, they may appear awake, but they are not responsive to the outside world. So, even if Laura is shaking the afflicted person, they won't wake up.

Interestingly, adults who suffer from night terrors have a history of depression. They also have an "inhibition of aggression, self-directed anger, passivity, anxiety, impaired memory and the ability to ignore pain." (thank you, wikipedia)

It gives you a bit more insight into the song's protagonists, doesn't it?

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Mumford & Sons – The Cave Lyrics 16 years ago
This is such a wonderful song in oh so many ways.

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The Decemberists – Billy Liar Lyrics 16 years ago
Yeah, I think this song is more about Billy Fischer (the title character from Billy Liar). There are quite a few Under the Milkwood references too ("nogood boy-o").

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Mariee Sioux – icarus eye Lyrics 16 years ago
I like her songs a lot better when I don't have to think about the meaning.

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The Decemberists – Sleepless Lyrics 16 years ago
Am I the only one who sees a connection between the first narrator and Eli the Barrow Boy?

"Wished for gold so I could buy you a palace" and "Would I could afford to buy my love a fine robe."
Both of them have a dead lover:

"You were still alive" and "but she is dead and gone and lying in a pine grove"
Both Eli and the first narrator drown too.

I think the song has two narrators. The first drowns. The second mourns the first. The second narrator comes in after the guitar solo.

"I've got nothing to hold on to" has two meanings- literally, he's out in the ocean and exhausted and doesn't have anything to keep him afloat. It could also be interpreted as he has lost everything in his life, so what's the point of living.

Or I could be reading too much in to things. Either way, Meloy is a brilliant lyricist.

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