| Stars – Set Yourself on Fire Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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One possibility I am considering, that I didn't see mentioned previously, is 'unfulfilled desire'. It's clearest in the "darkest part of you..." verse, but it is the only one I've thought of that seems to work with all the other bits as I go through them. It also fits well with the Set Yourself on Fire title if you're burning yourself up with desire. The hardest verse to fit into most of the above suggestions is the first one. It's difficult for me to see death, love, or life in the slats of light in the attic, does anyone have an explanation for that? That line made me lean towards nothingness, which has also been mentioned, but then I start thinking of the other half of the "darkest part..." verse with "diary of a priest" and "lover's head" and I can't see how that counts as nothingness. So if I thought about it as if the light was trying to illuminate the attic and it couldn't quite do it, maybe that is how unfulfilled desire would get in there. Anyways, that's the wordy explanation. Now I've decided t break it down line by line. In a village in the hills House buried to the window sills in snow - desire for freedom/warmth/summer In a prison yard at night An Alsatian barking for the stars to go - desire for day/end of a prison sentence In the attic of a house In the slats of light which kreep across the room - desire to illuminate In a forest grove at dawn Where the animals sleep hidden in the gloom - this one is a hard one... desire in the dreams? or desire for safety (as taken from the words hidden/gloom) On the 97th floor overlooking Tokyo In Camden Road in a second floor flat with Dilworth down below - desires of the people present There is only one thing There is only one thing In a cancer ward where the patients sit Waiting patiently to die - unfulfilled desires of all the things they never got to do In an airplane high above The place you finally left behind - desire to leave (except that has actually been fulfilled here so...desire to be somewhere else) In a cage where only one thing could be free - you and I may not be free but our desires are limitless And it's not you and I In every single place that has ever ever been Hiroshima, Los Angeles, and each town in between There is only one thing There is only one thing There is only one thing In the darkest part of you that you have ever seen - hmm, let's not get into that... In the smile of the child staring at the TV screen - desire for the item being advertised, desire to be in the setting of the show, desire to escape reality In the diary of a priest In the sheets that lie upon his bed - desire for that which he has sworn off Out there amongst the waves And inside your lover's head - hopefully a desire for you! There is only one thing There is only one thing There is only one thing There is only one thing (And then we die) 20 years asleep before we sleep forever - we can spend our whole lives longing for what's next, and then it's over... 20 years asleep before we sleep forever 10 years on the coast, figuring out the weather - putting something off for various reasons, like the weather Another decade getting high until you're free - just wasting the time away There's nothing after that, but you and I Nothing after that but you and me - maybe now, just before you die, the desires are finally gone....... 20 years asleep before we sleep forever 20 years asleep before we sleep forever |
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| Sam Roberts – Paranoia Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think he is giving examples of all these different people and they all have their gifts and their quirks but if you take a close look you see that if the right people meet up they'll complement each other perfectly (cause we all need someone to save our souls) | |
| Sam Roberts – Them Kids Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| "The melody that you thought you found reveals that she's been sleeping around" I kind of thought of this as the music someone's playing/listening to may seem original at first but it's really been used a hundred times before. | |
| Sam Roberts – Mind Flood Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| my thoughts exactly! | |
| Sloan – Underwhelmed Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The girl (Latina/french/whatever) wrote a story about her life and it had him in it and it said something about "affection" in regards to him. She got him to read it and he's so in love with her that he can't even see that she likes him back, even though she wrote it and stuck it right in his face! | |
| Neil Young – You And Me Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Definitely agree, gives me an instant strong sense of connection to Neil Young. Often if I'm playing guitar and singing, it's for the one I love whether I announce such a thing or not, and it breaks your heart just a little if she turns on the tv halfway through... | |
| Sam Roberts – The Canadian Dream Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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There are a couple of big questions that seem to arrise out of this song: 1) Is this a pro-socialism or an anti-socialism song or neither? 2) What is the Canadian Dream? Here's what I get from the lyrcis: 1) Canada is socialist and wants to be socialist and it doesn't look like that is going to change anytime soon. 2) Progression towards the Canadian Dream is not really getting anywhere. 3) The Canadian Dream = freedom and equality for everyone where everyone gets along with one another (ie. socialism) Therefore: my answer to Q1 is Neither because the song may really be saying that while we think we've got socialism and praise socialism, we aren't really there yet and there is still more work to do to get there. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Damascus Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Also, I think I hear "Does it matter that I fall down, My wall of doubt" but that one I'm uncertain of. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Damascus Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Definitely have to agree with almost all the lyrical adjustments by liquidhotmagma, "emissary" for sure and also "a people's past, it...", as for the other part, I listened a bunch of times trying to hear each of the versions written and what I have come up with is "When the order isn't certain or made, it..." brings me back. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Okay, so I've read through A LOT of these posts, trying to piece everything together and this is what I've come up with. I'm going to go through the scenario as if the narrator is female singing about a non-brother best friend but the song was written in such a way as to be intentionally ambiguous. The one hint we've been given from Sufjan himself is that it was "inspired" by the wasp that him and his brother made up, so that is in here too. Here goes... Girl sees wasp while writing in bed, her mind is in an imaginative state. She remembers... Her and her male best friend as youth, perhaps 15 years old, head out to go swimming at the Palisades Park in Savanna, Illinois (she takes her brother's awesome red hat with her). They have been innocent childhood friends as long as they can remember and have never brought up the fact that they are of the opposite sex. Her friend is bit by a wasp and it makes him cry (he's embarrassed so he hides his face in his hands). She wants to tease him and make him feel better so she goes up and gives him a kiss (like she is pretending he's a cry-baby and she's kissing his booboo better) and then they both suddenly realize what has happened. They can never be innocent little buddies again because she is in love with him romantically! (Hence the harm that wasn't meant by the teasing) The wasp on the arm gives this image of the pair together, frozen, as the enormity of what has happened dawns on them. Then it spins out to a much wider view. They are in love! They are in love! Wow the world is amazing! It's all so beautiful! We are so thankful we discovered this (Hallelu!). "How do I explain how it happened?" She wonders. Then there's a pinpoint of memory: from backseat of car, sees him fall asleep, he is so beautiful and peaceful. But for all her powers and effort she can't explain the feeling. Like being at the top of a tall tower over a huge expanse of field, perhaps? Well, the friend is gone but (and this is not a sad part of the song) now she has a something different. She's a got a person she loves, despite all fights and things from the past, and she can tell him because it's all out now, thanks to the terrible power of that wasp sting. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Admiration in Falling Asleep This is the scenario I see here. The two people are in the car, they could be driving along with another person or they are stopped somewhere. The narrator, at least, is in the backseat and sees his/her friend fall asleep and just notices how beautiful or peaceful the friend is in that state. |
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