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| Okkervil River – A Stone Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Casting my vote with the gravestone theory. Considering that inclusion of a different mineral or colour in a stone can sometimes take the form of streaks or "veins", has anyone else ever considered the possibility that "white veins" might be a descriptor of the stone itself? |
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| Sohodolls – Bang Bang Bang Bang Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I actually think the last verse is indicating that the guy's died. Why else would calls not be returned and then the news be talking about it? |
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| The National – Conversation 16 Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I saw them in Melbourne about a week ago (on the 9th), and he also introduced this song as being about marriage and cannibalism. Har. |
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| Bloc Party – Biko Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Also, "love not strong enough to bring you back from the dead" = the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. After his wife (Eurydice) died, Orpheus grieved by playing some beautifully sad and mournful songs ("I've been writing these songs for you To steal you from the grave"). Hades and Persephone were so moved by his sadness that they agreed to let him take Eurydice back to the land of the living, so long as he agreed not to look at her face until they were at the surface. As soon as he reached the land of the living, he turned around, eager to look at his wife, but forgetting that they both had to have exited the underworld, and so she was lost to him forever. |
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| Bloc Party – Biko Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Does anyone else see the parallel between "The world isn't kind to little things" and "I left you blueberries in the fridge / The little thing that I can do"?
In a sense, could be saying that the world as a whole doesn't care about their relationship and the little, kind things that you do for the people you love, like leave them their favourite food in the fridge.
When coupled with the idea that the other person is dying or depressed, it suggests a sense of despondency; the narrator cares so much about the other person, but sort of no-one else does. You know? |
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| Kate Miller-Heidke – The Last Day on Earth Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Um, she also said that it could be about 2012 or a soldier who never comes home.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/kate-miller-heidke-gets-two-lucky-breaks/story-e6frewyr-1225769267064
The overall "meaning" of the song is of the sense of "grief and loss and heartbreak" of any or all of those events. |
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| Damien Leith – 22 Steps Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Does this sound a little... stalkerish to anyone else too? :\ I know I'd be concerned if anyone who was interested in me knew the number of steps to my front door, even if it's squished into a cute metaphor. |
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| The Gaslight Anthem – The Navesink Banks Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I think it would make more sense for it to be "a man CAN'T ignore the signs". Sirens were creatures from Greek mythology who lured men to their deaths with their songs and beauty, and the sign (reference to Dante's Inferno) warns him to stay away from her even though she's trying to make him do her bidding. |
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| Gregory and the Hawk – Isabelle Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Probably something someone's already pointed out before, but I can't be arsed reading every comment.
I'm not so sure that Isabelle's dead, maybe she's absent herself. Maybe she's the one who travels, hence being gone out of sight. As to the reference to the tobacco-strewn backyard... whenever I talk with my mother, a smoker, about srs bzns, she smokes a lot more than she usually does. That verse, for me, is the narrator being comforting to Isabelle while she worries about what her husband is doing (literally and metaphorically) behind her back -- while being unaware that her confidante is banging her man. |
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| The Decemberists – A Cautionary Song Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Sadly enough, back in the 19th century or so, women did prostitute themselves on a frequent basis to feed themselves because they literally did not have any other options.
Taken in that particular context, $30 is hardly a paltry sum.
Even so, it's an unpleasant story to say the least. |
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| The Decemberists – A Cautionary Song Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It can be about both, they're not mutually exclusive.
Legally, it's not rape if the woman "freely and willingly consents". It's not free consent if she's only doing it to stop her children starving now, is it? |
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| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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According to another commenter on LAL, Colin says that HE jumped but SHE did not.
And yes, I agree that the narrator is a brat. Definitely feels like he thinks he's doing her a favour by doing her, and then telling her "it's okay, deep down your soul was willing!" |
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| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Even now, rape isn't considered to be such a bad thing if the girl was somehow "inferior" (drunk, dressed inappropriately -- "asking for it", pretty much).
I'm sticking with my theory that she's continuing to see him to better her own life as much as she can, from the privileges that he can offer her to be "his". It has little to do with affection as much as it has to do with survival -- I get a very strong 19th-century feel from this, or a Holocaust-type-dealie ("labour camps"). |
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| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Probably in the R&J you know, but the one I know is that she wakes up to find him dead after poisoning himself and stabs herself through the heart with his dagger.
I definitely do not see this as an R&J type deal (though there are parallels with young lovers), purely because I can't see this story as being anything other than a privileged brat taking advantage of a poor girl. |
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| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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From what I've read on the comments thread on LAL, apparently Colin's said at some shows that Miranda lets the guy jump by himself and stays behind for the sake of her child (LAL, presumably). |
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| The Decemberists – Leslie Ann Levine Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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This does seem to be medically sound. I believe this used to be a common thing, coffin birth, where in death the baby is expelled from its mother's uterus from the buildup of gases in the body. |
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| The Decemberists – Leslie Ann Levine Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Have you seen Schindler's List? One of the characters, a truly vile Nazi, falls in love with a Jewish girl from the concentration camps and convinces himself that she loves him back; he then takes her into his service, and (it is implied) rapes her multiple times throughout the story.
It's not all that uncommon for someone, particularly someone of privilege, to convince themselves that their "lover" (esp. if they are from a lower caste) cares for them, and they care for the lover in return despite the blatant abuse that happens As in WBGDT, "you wept but your soul was willing" -- how does he know she was at all willing, if she wept?
"Wastrel mesallied" could refer to the father, especially when taken into account the French translation given by EmilyPlay; I've never heard of a woman being referred to as a wastrel. Perhaps LAL, the result of Miranda's "rape" (quotation marks stay until I can be more certain), despises both her parents for having brought about her existence. |
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| Panic! at the Disco – Build God, Then We'll Talk Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Have you even SEEN Sound of Music? The version I remember seeing was made in '65 (with Julie Andrews), and Fight Club was written in '96. If it IS a Fight Club reference, it's a reference to Sound of Music which was referred to in Fight Club.
Sheesh. |
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| Dolly Parton – Jolene Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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"isn't JUST a plastic etc."
She's still a bimbo, just one that can write a song that encapsulates just how much it bites when your man wants someone else who's so much "better" than you. |
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| Closure In Moscow – Ofelia...Ofelia Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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After listening to this song again and watching Pan's Labyrinth, I can see a few parallels: the tyrant (stepfather), the tome, the ghost that came from the earth (the Faun), the wound that sustains the end (the main character, whose name is also Ofelia, dies at the end from a gunshot wound).
There may also be some parallels between this song and Hamlet, but I don't know the story and the character Ophelia well enough to write on it. |
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| Gavin DeGraw – Young Love Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I take it as... well, like in combat games where you capture/move a flag, one person in this partnership succeeds in their goal while the other loses. |
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| Armor for Sleep – Chemicals Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I agree with what everyone else said, about this song being about someone who the singer admired who was into drugs. I think, though, the refrain at the end ("Where are your drugs? Today we need them. Where are your drugs? We need your escape.") suggests that in a time of strife, such as that person's death, the friends and family members who'd once tried to dissuade them from doing drugs might resort to using them to escape from reality – much like what most people who use drugs use them for.
It also highlights the destructive and daisy-chain nature of drugs; it takes a disastrous or unstable event in a person's life, IMO, to cause them to begin taking drugs; this may, in turn, lead to instability in someone else's life, which causes them to take drugs, and so forth. |
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