submissions
| The Mountain Goats – See America Right Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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This song is about the garden variety drunk-ass white, middle-class male punk of North Central Florida. They're around these parts by the dozen. This particular lazy punk is trying to get from Tampa up to Cedar Key and then probably heading to Tallahassee to see all his buddies, get laid, get drunk and tell stories about his misadventures. I have no idea why anyone, especially one of these vagrants, would end up in Inglis. It's in the middle of BFE. I think John Darnielle is attempting to demonstrate his knowledge of the local landscape. Perhaps the narrator is a bit road-weary, having bit off more than he can chew, between taking a Greyhound, getting thrown in the slammer and throwing back a few too many tall boys. His antics aren't quite as impressive as they used to be, and he's beginning to realize that tramping around in the swamplands doesn't make you a badass after all, it just makes you an ugly, unemployed, white trash loser. |
submissions
| Paul Simon – Hearts And Bones Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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The first time I heard this song was when I was riding my bicycle cross-country with my (then) partner. We had no access to a computer or radio, so for two months he would sometimes sing these lyrics, and I didn't hear the full song or understand it's meaning until I returned home (to my natural coast) and listened to it in full. We followed Route 66 for the entire tour except the day we reached the Sangre di Cristo mountains. That day, we took a shortcut up to Las Vegas, New Mexico from Tucumcari. We began that morning out in the dry, cracked desert with temperatures over one-hundred degrees. We rode well into the afternoon, until we were dangerously delirious from the heat. We decided to hitch-hike the rest of the way, and some people returning from a Fourth-of-July outing at Lake Conchas picked us up. It was late afternoon, just as the sun was setting, but I will never, ever forget the way the road seemed swallowed by the vastness of that landscape; the long, winding ribbon of a road leading up an almost-sheer cliff face called the Canadian Escarpment...and then, the strangest of all; snow-covered peaks in the distance. The drive took over an hour, but somehow the sun seemed to stall in the sky and yes---there were rainbows in the high desert air. After we reached the Pacific Ocean and returned to the east coast on a Greyhound buys, I never spoke to my touring partner again. That summer was incredibly difficult, surreal and beautiful. Looking back now, I understand why he sung these lyrics. They fit that brief moment in my life so well. |
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