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mewithoutYou – Bear's Vision of St. Agnes Lyrics 13 years ago
@cbay that makes a lot of sense! Good interpretation!

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mewithoutYou – Aubergine Lyrics 13 years ago
It's also interesting to note the parallels between the Elephant's story and the story of Jesus before his execution

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mewithoutYou – Aubergine Lyrics 13 years ago
Here's my very long winded interpretation...

Seeing as the song just before this one is about the Elephant during her trial and sentencing, it would make sense that this one is about the Elephant awaiting the gallows in her prison cell.

The first two lines describe the Elephant's last meal:

"Sugar down the syrup in the Queen Anne's lace
Shining in the light of nightshade"

It's customary for a condemned prisoner to have a meal of their choice served to them the day of or before their execution. In some cases inmates are either too greif stricken or anxious to finish the meal once it's prepared for them. The second half of the stanza illustrates this:

"Grapes gone sour and the spinach went to seed
It was spindly and sick from the outset"

The rest of the song seems to adress the Elephant's struggle to accept her fate and her "wherewithal to leave" as she awaits her execution. The Labrador tries to assure her that "time is an illusion" and not worth fretting over, but this only seems trouble the Elephant more, causing her to think of Aubergine.

Now aubergine is another word for eggplant so I'm assuming the elephant admires a particular eggplant and that's what the chorus of the song is about. Perhaps an eggplant was part of her last meal request and the "Aubergine" she's referring to is in the cell with her...or maybe she is reminded of another Eggplant named Aubergine. Animals falling in love with other species seems to be a recurring theme throughout this album so the idea that the Elephant loves an Eggplant doesn't seem too farfetched. In either case, Aubergine speaks to her:

"You can be your body but please don't mind
if I don't fancy myself mine--you at 32 still tied to your poor mother's apron strings!"

Aubergine seems to be suggesting to the Elephant that one's own body is merely an illusion and their love for one another is an allegory. If an Elephant can fall in love with an Eggplant, does ones physical form really matter?

The final stanza has the Elephant waking up after traveling down a "solipsistic road" in the desert carrying a basket full of Eggplants who ask her about a bible passage on her wrists. This could either be describing an Epiphany the Elephant is having just before her execution or an actual journey through the afterlife. Solipsism is the belief that only one's own mind is certain to exist (very mewithoutYou) so perhaps the Eggplants inquiring about the scripture written on her wrists is just another illustration of how in order to truly believe that anything is real, you have to have faith.

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Sufjan Stevens – Vesuvius Lyrics 15 years ago
I like what bottarga77 has to say. makes the most sense to me. I feel like some of this song however, just as a lot of the album, has to do with the illness he suffered before writing it. He said in an interview that he had been suffering from a mysterious virus that affected his nervous system and was forced to stop working on music for several months. He said concerning the album: "The Age of Adz, is, in some ways, a result of that process of working through health issues and getting much more in touch with my physical self. That's why I think the record's really obsessed with sensation and has a hysterical melodrama to it."

in the second stanza i think the first few lines are referring to this illness:

"Vesuvius
Are you a ghost
Or the symbols of light
Or a fantasy host?"

i feel like the ghost is this virus that he couldn't explain but that drained so much from him. Its illustrated further in these lines as well:

Follow the flame
Or fall on the floor
Sufjan, the panic inside
The murdering ghost
That you cannot ignore

I could be wrong, but i dont think the song can be narrowed down to one overall theme. Its got a lot of depth to it, some of it allegorical, some of it literal. Its a fantastic song and definitely my favorite on the record




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Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – Tiny Vampire Robot Lyrics 15 years ago
Also i think the lyric is "no one ever does" not no one ever dies. At least it is in the Buzzard version

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Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – Tiny Vampire Robot Lyrics 15 years ago
Here's what Richard said in an interview i read about Buzzard "Tiny Vampire Robot is about not wanting to write music anymore after Animal. Robot…vampire…they’re pretty opposite ends of the creature spectrum, so you can probably deduce what that’s about, it’s not too complicated." it was from http://atlalist.com/

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Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – My Baby (Cares For The Animals) Lyrics 15 years ago
I do believe this one's about Richard's daughter. Read the margot interview here (http://atlalist.com/) and you'll see what Im talking about. I think it's fairly easy to tell just from reading the lyrics though.

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Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – Nobody Knows the Names of All Those Birds Lyrics 16 years ago
You can listen to it at http://www.musicalfamilytree.com/band/margot_and_the_nuclear_so_and_sos

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Margot & the Nuclear So and So's – Hello Vagina Lyrics 16 years ago
Small edit, taken from Margot's website
The line goes like this:

"i am reborn hard
blown through your backyard"

just thought id throw that in there ;)

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Brand New – Noro Lyrics 16 years ago
Please change to "I'm on my way out."
I don't understand why people keep saying it's "I'm on my way to hell"
I have to try extremely hard to hear anything but "on my way out" and I still can't hear the "to hell" bit.
The words "way out" don't even sound anything like "to hell"
Sorry, but this is really bothering me
Somebody write Brand New a letter and ask them so we can settle this once and for all!

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