| The Fray – How To Save A Life Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This really is one of the most powerful songs ever written just because of how accurate it is and how much meaning it has to anyone who has ever had a friend that was slowly killing themselves with substance abuse or even depression and there was nothing you could do to stop them. The whole song is pretty much explaining what an intervention is like. You start by talking calm and never confronting the person. Just trying to “Let him know that you know best… [and] Try to slip past his defense / Without granting innocence. / Lay down a list of what is wrong / Things you told him all along.” Basically telling him that you care about him and are only looking out for his best interest. You accept his faults and the reasons he turned to the substance are valid reasons for being upset, but make sure you make it clear that he is not just some innocent victim, he still has a choice to stop. And most importantly, in the end, like he says, “Pray to God he hears you [this time].” Sadly, like he says, "He will do one of two things: / He will admit to everything / Or he'll say he's just not the same." And even more sadly, there is only so many times you can try to help a person that is unwilling to change before you start to “wonder why you came” and finally walk away because there really is nothing else you can do for the person. In the end, if the person is unwilling to change and does manage to either kill themselves or completely destroy their life, you are left wondering “Where did I go wrong?… / I would have stayed up with you all night / Had I known how to save a life.” That is really the worse part of substance abuse and severe depression. You watch it eat away at them, wanting to save them and in the end even after you did all you could, you are still left wondering, is there more you could have done to save their life. |
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| Lisa Loeb – Stay (I Missed You) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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To me, this song has always been about two people who really do love each other; however, they are kinda stuck in a bad relationship with a lack of communication and chances are different interests as well. They don’t really listen to each other enough to know exactly what the other person wants or needs. Neither are really happy which makes them want to leave each other, but at the same time they really do love each other and leaving is a very difficult thing to do. I am sure we have all met people that are in bad relationships with a lack of communication, yet the people do not want to end it even if they are unhappy because they do love the other. Like the saying goes, “sometimes love just isn’t enough.” On one hand, you can stay with the person you love even if you are unhappy, or you can take a chance and hope to find someone else that you will also love just as much and will actually make you happy and feel complete. In theory, the second option sounds much better, but you can not help how your heart feels and along with that, all those nagging thought that pull you back wondering what if you are wrong. What if there is no one else you are ever going to love as much and leaving will just be the worst mistake you ever make. After all, she tried to leave and she missed him. Like she said, “You said that I was naïve / and I thought that I was strong. / I thought, "hey, I can leave, I can leave." / But now I know that I was wrong, 'cause I missed you.” She is just not strong enough to walk away from him because she loves him too much and is scared of letting go and missing him for the rest of her life and instead of simply being unhappy, she would become unhappy and lonely. The last lines confirm he feels the same way. “You try to give away a keeper, or keep me 'cause you know you're just scared to lose.” It might sound odd, but it always reminded me a lot of the song “Is there life out there” by “Reba McEntire. Both women love the men they are with, but have both grown unhappy and bored. They want something new and because of this, they have grown slightly apart from their significant others. The difference is in the country song, she does not want to leave her husband, she just wants him to understand that she needs to get out and live some and be more than simply a wife and a mother. While in this one, the girl really does not really know what she wants; she just knows how she feels, in love but incomplete. She is still young and has her whole life ahead of her and is terrified that she will eventually regret whatever decision she might make and become like the woman in Reba’s song. (I used “he” simply because I think a good song should reach out and connect to the audience and because the majority are heterosexual, it makes more sense for me to use the terms he and she. Besides, the sex of the person she is singing to is irrelevant, what is important in music is how it affects and touches the listeners) |
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| Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – One Tin Soldier Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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celticgirl4, I think you are confusing the verse with another song you might have also sang at camp or the camp singer might have added this part themselves either by adding an extra verse he/she created or just saying what they thought it might have meant because someone might have asked who the "tin soldier" was. I have never heard of a version that contains additional verses to it and although it really is a very beautiful song with a timeless message and there have been some groups that have redid it (like Coven), I do not think any of them have ever played with the lyrics themselves. |
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| Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – One Tin Soldier Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I am not sure if it is right, but to me, "one tin soldier" always referred to someone like Saint Peter who is supposed to grant entrance through the pearly gates. When the song states "But on the bloody morning after, / one tin soldier rides away" it means you are denied access. Judgment day came for you, but you were passed over and left behind (hence, him riding off alone.) I do agree with Orph's interpretation of the tin man to a point, but I do not think it is referring to the people in the valley having no hearts. The chorus, although it fits the story too, was more aimed at the "children" the song is being sang for. Telling them, that if you choose to sin and do wrong regardless of your reasoning, come judgment day, you will be left behind. In its own way, it is a very anti-war song since it is saying feel free to kill another person just because you are doing it for religious reasons, however, it is still a sin and you will still pay for it in the end. The reason I said I agree with Orph is because I think he used the term "tin soldier" as a euphemism to a suit of armor with no real soul or heart attached (like Wizard of Oz). On Judgment day, you will be judged for your actions and because of this, there is no excuse in the world that will save you if you have committed too many sins. The man guarding the gate is not going to let you list your excuses, he is merely there to look at what all sins you have committed and pass judgment without you really having the option to defend yourself. It is basically all black and white with no real gray area because there is no emotion in the the actual judgment (no heart). I love this song and love the message that people should be good and moral at all times, however, it is a bit preachy if you look too deeply into it. |
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| Bette Midler – From A Distance Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I always took it as her saying, deep down everyone is the same in their hearts regardless of our religion or even what country we live in. Everyone wants to be happy and although there are some differences, our morals and value systems are extremely similar. After all, "It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace, it's the voice of every man." We all want to live in peace and harmony. Yeah, extremely optimistic view of people and sure there are examples of people that actually crave violence and hatred, but the majority really do just want to be happy. To me the point of the song is simply why can't we focus on the bigger picture and the things all people share in common as opposed to the more trivial things like what name you give your deity or how you view the creation theory. Also why can't we focus on what is really important in the world, humanity, as opposed to our egocentric view where we only think about our own personal bank accounts and that new DVD we want to pick up next and let others starve on the streets. If people would get past their personal desire for wealth and biases and really start really looking at the whole world and not just what they can take from it for themselves, the world would be a much better place. Yeah, she mentions God in the song, but really the song can fit pretty much any religion cause the core morals and doctrine are the same. It is kinda like the saying "Ask not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" only on a world wide level where you substitute the word "world" in for "country". To me, this song is a lot like the song "Imagine" by John Lennon. She is merely asking people to imagine a world where people share what they have instead of hoard it so there is no longer anyone starving and no more stupid wars over who has the natural resources or petty violence and fighting over who has more money. Everyone basically being treated equal and as human beings, not just numbers. |
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| Tori Amos – Silent All These Years Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This is my first time interpreting a song, but I always felt this one was so powerful, I could not help but add my own interpretation. Sorry it is so long, but like I said, the song has so much meaning to me and so many other people, I thought it was worth the extra words to get it all clear. The song is about rape and the long term affect it has on people. She feels stifled and unable to escape not necessarily a man, but rather her own inner voices that keep coming back at times and reminding her of the incident. That is why she wants to become someone else in the beginning at least for a little while. No matter what, she always feels this loneliness, fear and sadness inside. The antichrist yelling at her is her own inner demons and voices that wont let her go and let her fully move on and forget about the incident. If you have ever been raped, no matter how cool you might seem about it, it leaves a painful dent in your psyche that does not heal very fast and for some people, it never fully heals. Years later, even after you had not thought about it in a long time, there is sometimes still this fear of getting to close to a man even if it is all in your subconscious and you are not really aware of it at all. It is not always about a man touching you making you shrink back, but also just opening up to them in general and really telling anyone what you think because you are afraid they will turn away. That is what is so hard about rape, no matter how bad the incident might have been, that part was sadly the easiest because it was over in one night. It is the way that it haunts you for so many years after in ways you do not even realize that is where the real brutality lies. The voice she keeps referring to is the one she wants to use. So many things she has wanted to say over the years, but her insecurities do not let them come out. It took me a lot of years to finally find a guy I felt comfortable enough to say almost anything to and he gets me for the most part. However, even with this being the case, there are still these inner voices that keep me quite and chained internally so I do not always speak my mind and often just say what I think he wants to hear. I bring this up, because although I found the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with and I love and trust fully, like the girl in the song, there is still apart of me that still does not feel like even he fully understands me. Like her, I am still waiting for that one person (just a friend) that will fully get it and relate to me and someone I can really tell anything too with no fear or anxiety at all. I do think many of you are over analyzing the lines “Years go by / If I'm stripped of my beauty / And the orange clouds raining in my head / Years go by / Will I choke on my tears / Till finally there is nothing left? / One more casualty / You know we're too easy, easy, easy” I think it is as simple as it sounds. She is simply asking is she going to grow old, still repressing all those fears and still never expressing herself until she dies. Will she still be living a semi lie and not being her real self and instead be a type of fantasy version of what others perceive her as. Hence the orange clouds always raining her in mind is a way to say she is always internally crying even though no one knows it and even if she has a smile on her face. In psychology a mermaid often represents the fear of being drowned by your own conscious or subconscious and in a way, that is what she has been doing all these years. Ironically and quite fitting it also represents a fear of sex and intimacy, which also often comes after a rape. In essence, she was dating a guy that most likely broke up with her because she could not bring herself to fully open up to him like he really wanted and truly connect with him fully because she is still to afraid of letting anyone fully in. However, in reality she really did love the guy and in the figurative way, she is still clinging on to him (wearing his jeans) even though her name is on them (he moved on). The ending with the mother in a nasty dress was a very nice touch because it for once put him in exactly where she has always felt since the incident. This fear that people can see right through you and not like the real you so you must always wear a façade, however, at that one moment, the guy was too embarrassed and he had no where to hide. People were gonna see the real him, that he has emotions as well and can also be hurt and that is why she took hold of his hand. For the first time, she felt like he could connect with her on some level and actually understand a last a small amount of what she had been going through and why her voice had been silent for all these years. I just really do not think the guy is as much of a jerk as most of you say. He just did not fully get her struggles like most men don’t and he simply thought it was time to move on. It was not until he finally stood in the same place she was at in her mind, completely embarrassed and afraid people would see the real him that was afraid and unsure that he understood what it was like to be her, a victim. |
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