| The Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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He's singing about it, not condoning it. I also think he was making fun of certain "white" ideas and fetishes about having sex with black people. He was dating a black woman at the time and so I guess the topic was on his mind. (I don't think it's directed at her, it's way too effed up.) |
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| The Rolling Stones – Brown Sugar Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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To be fair, Keith Richard has always been a heroin addict, STILL is - he basically gets dialysis every month or so. However, I think people are overemphasizing the heroin reference. Very obviously the song is also about slave rape, as well as consensual sex (specifically oral) with black girls. Jagger calls it "a mish-mash of things". (Btw, apparently Jagger liked to substitute "girl" for "boy" in concerts - he was also bisexual, or at least into occasional sleeping with guys, for a while there.) |
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| Gil Scott-Heron – Message to the Messengers Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Straightforward message about commercial hip hop. | |
| Gil Scott-Heron – Home is Where the Hatred is Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Fantastic poem about a junkie who came from a bad place and is now in an infinitely worse one. The last line is ambiguous, hopeful and doomed, likely on purpose - can he quit, or is he ready to give up and die? |
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| Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey on the Moon Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| It was written in 1970, inspired by the moonlanding in 1969, costing millions of tax dollars while there was still great poverty in America. | |
| The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Yeah. The "fat girl" thing seems mean spirited, but I always felt it was a mock-catty remark about a girl the protagonist is jealous of, sort of making fun of the way some gay guys can be. "Go ahead and marry your fat fag hag, waste your life, see if I care!" (Yes, I indeed think this song is really super gay. Most of his lyrics aren't necessarily, but this one is.) | |
| The Smiths – I Know It's Over Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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This is one of the few Smiths/Morrissey songs I feel actually is specifically and clearly about male infatuation with another male. The person he is singing about and in love with, "you really spoke to me", is marrying, and "she needs you more than she loves you". "Sad veiled bride, please be happy", and "love is natural and real, but not for you my love, not tonight my love", "not for such as you and I my love" - either, simply because they're gay and too many people don't see their love as natural and real, or because they are both cynical, screwed up people for whom something as romantic and devoted as marriage is bound to not work out. And it's tempting to be jealous and bitter and hate them, or cynical and laugh at their problems (like he does in some songs - "how can you stay with a fat girl who says, 'would you like to marry me? And if you'd like you can buy the ring'"), but either way HIS chances to be with this guy are over, he has to deal with his own issues, and he's trying to find the strength to be gentle and kind about it all. |
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| The Smiths – I Know It's Over Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Try to behave yourself, would you? Your anonymous, not invisible. | |
| The Smiths – I Know It's Over Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Aw babe! | |
| The Smiths – Girl Afraid Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Lol yes, let's get it over with - "He's gay! He's in the room downstairs staring at all his gay porn all the time, and then she goes down and finds it and sits and stares at it, realizing he's gay and she'll never make the mistake of dating a gay dude again!" Now, moving on... |
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| The Smiths – Girl Afraid Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think she really did say so, and it's funny, because we start with her insecurities and then we find out she's been kind of mean and selfish and she doesn't even realize that's why he's withdrawing. | |
| The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I love this interpretation. I always heard it in a more cynical and sarcastic way (possibly because I was also listening to a lot of Lou Reed at the time), but this is entirely possible. | |
| The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's so funny how everyone feels that their interpretation of a song is the obvious one, and when we hear other people's, they seem far fetched, over-analyzed... Anyway. In my interpretation, Smiths & Morrissey songs that are actually about homosexuality or gay relationships specifically: - I know it's over - William it was really nothing - I'm hated for loving And the ones that are not: - The rest |
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| The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Thank you for your contribution alfiebaby. This page wasn't meeting the random anonymous aggressive condescension quota required in all internet discussions - good call. | |
| The Smiths – Girlfriend in a Coma Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I agree that it's probably sarcastic, but I don't think he is being callous, even if he actually put her in the coma. I think he's disturbed enough to tell himself "I'd hate anything to happen to her" even if he beat the cr*p out of her - because that's how a lot of abusive people are, that self delusional. "Really, she'll be fine right, she won't die just because I maybe threw her down a few stairs - not on purpose, more like an accident, you sorta had to be there - will she?" Or, he just has mixed feelings about her in general, a passive aggressive type of guy who wouldn't beat someone but kind of wishes he would, and kind of doesn't, and now he doesn't know what to feel. | |
| The Smiths – Is It Really So Strange? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Dear lord, I wish Morrissey would've just come out so people could hear anything else in his lyrics one day... Being gay and in love is just one more way to risk being ostracized, rejected, alienated, or like this guy going truly nuts... It's hardly the end of the story. |
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| The Smiths – A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I absolutely disagree, but you know what? It works! It really does. I think the "rush and a push" is using the Irish-English conflict as a metaphor for some kind of struggle for love or independence, becoming independent after a relationship ended badly, rather than poppers and anal sex - but I have no proof. | |
| The Smiths – Death of a Disco Dancer Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I always thought of terrorist bombings too, because I heard this soon after one of a disco in Israel and the line "I never talk to my neighbours, I'd rather not get involved" and "If you think peace is a common goal..." struck a chord. (It obviously would be IRA in this case.) But it's hard not to think of gay bashings, too. I definitely don't get the impression that the Smiths would equate disco music with the ideals of love, peace and harmony - see "Panic". I think it's more straightforward than that. | |
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