submissions

Jonathan Coulton – Better Lyrics	13 years ago
I love this song, my favorite line(s) is "And their stupid insistence on scanning my iris/ When they know damn well who I am" I suppose this song is vaguely about how people change? Or maybe about the evils of how plastic surgery don't make someone any "better".

submissions

The Weepies – Little Bird Lyrics

14 years ago

I think this song is about someone with depression. Feeling alone and abandoned, like no one is listening, so they "keep moving away/And forget what you wanted to say". But they have a friend who encourages them to say what's on their mind and connect with them. "Brush your gray wings on my head/Say what you said/Say it again/They tell me I'm crazy/But you told me/I'm golden" This seems clearest in the final verse where "it's hard to keep on", but the singer of the song encourages them to look outside and live their life.

submissions

Rush – Freewill Lyrics

16 years ago

I'd just like to comment on your response to tobintax and I'd like to point out that choosing between eggs and cereal for breakfast has everything to do with the physical laws of the universe. Your unconscious mind is going through data points you have collected through your experiences and comparing them with nutrients and calories your body needs or craves. It does this through neurons and synapses made up of atoms conforming to physical laws and acting unpredictably within the rules of quantum mechanics. But basically I'm saying that every single decision one makes is determined by your DNA and your experiences combined. Studies have shown that the unconscious mind often makes a decision before the conscious mind has time to explain it. Just pointing out that s/he does have a point but also that whether or not you think this has to do with the Free Will vs. Determinism argument has to do with your definition of free will. If you're simply referring to the fact that we feel like we are making choices with complete free will than yes, it seems like choosing cereal vs. eggs or belief in god is not simply chemical.

submissions

Regina Spektor – Wallet Lyrics

16 years ago

I think this song is about a lonely person finding a wallet and instead of just turning into the police she looks through it to see if she can figure out whose it is. She looks at all the contents of the wallet and wishes she could have such a wonderful life. When she says she doesn't have a wallet I think it is alluding to the speaker not having any pictures of family or friends to put in it so she just keeps her things together with a rubber band. In returning the wallet after looking through it she feels as though she is making a connection with this person that she's never seen and probably never will.

submissions

Regina Spektor – Machine Lyrics

16 years ago

I love these sorts of Regina songs because she has such a different opinion of the future and technology than I do. The song discusses how we'll stop thinking and stop caring and basically become mindless consumers as we are even further "hooked into machines" or dependent upon technology. It's also about how technology will widen the gap between the poor and the rich. The speaker in the song is someone who "has friends in high places" and who thinks that everyone who doesn't like her or doesn't get her is jealous. I also think that the speaker believes she is just a combination of her "moments" and is barely affected by a "mightier power" or a god. She believes that she is now better than any god who "just lack[s] [her] perspective" and is overall jealous of her. She then reiterates that she is only made up of her moments by saying that she's part of a composite and "downloaded daily" means that when she says "my moments" she really means the moments that she takes from others.

submissions

Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem of the 80's Lyrics	16 years ago
I think the song is about prostitutes who have lots of sex but really just want to fall in love and settle down, being able to watch their partner "sleep". It's more generally about people getting caught up in sex and not making time to just appreciate and love each other.

submissions

Regina Spektor – Carbon Monoxide Lyrics

16 years ago

I thought this song was about a girl and a boy she just met. She describes how she doesn't really care about her life very much and she takes this boy home who convinces her to commit suicide together using, obviously, carbon monoxide. She says how no one will notice at first and they'll think she's just staying home with her new boyfriend. I don't think that come on daddy is a sexual line but rather I think that it is her calling out to her father while she's dying.

submissions

Regina Spektor – Blue Lips Lyrics

16 years ago

I think that this song is about the first person to be reflect upon the world and he can't accept that this is all there is so he feels there must be something more. It then brings up that there are so many gods in all the religions of the world and they are all fighting in the skies, "on a backdrop of blue". Also it first says "began to breathe" as in come to life but later says "began to breed" and this describes how religion first came to life and then spread. I think that blue lips, blue veins refers to the blue pallor of sickness or death. Then when it adds "blue the color of our planet from far far away" I believe it is saying how we all fade together with the planet. Blue is obviously relating to sadness throughout the song, especially when she says that blue is the most human color. Finally the last verse follows a similar theme to many of Regina's songs where she begins with religious imagery and then describes it breaking down into cold industrialism. This is about the futility of fighting when they just end up "being enslaved in the assembly lines". I know this is a very choppy interpretation so sorry about that.

* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.