| I Set My Friends On Fire – Reese's Pieces, I Don't Know Who John Cleese Is? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I agree with a lot of what both of you two said. This is sort of my elaboration on it: My interpretation is that it's basically saying that relationships and emotions die hard. The situation described by the speaker sets up everything to go wrong. When he realizes she's cheating, he has to go through several stages of denial, doubt, depression and hatred which ultimately ends in revenge in which he has to kill them both (which I feel is symbolic of him desperately trying to kill his own emotional attachment to the girl and his hatred of the guy with whom she cheated). He feels that revenge will allow him to let go. But even after that he realizes that even though their dead to him (symbolic or literal, take your pick) it's his own emotions that are plaguing him (his own regret, sadness, anger, etc.) so he takes all possible measures to kill these emotions (symbolized by the noose, gun, poison, and fire) but in the end his own attempts are futile and these feelings have to die slowly, and it feels like the worst it's the worst that could possibly happen. But it's impossible to just fall back out of love; the emotions have to die a very slow and painful death, and this is confusing to the speaker because he did everything he could to destroy the remnants of his love (hence the question mark after the second "dying slowly") Also the concept of the video tape represents the fact that no matter what beautiful and positive things have happened in their past, it ends up being erased by the horror of her unfaithfulness. Think about it (this is true with me): if you have an enemy who used to be a friend, its so much easier to remember why you hate them now than why you liked them before. The bad erases the good, or "tapes over" it. In the end moving on isn't in his control. All he has now is the new footage which plagues his mind. All he can do now is "Stop, rewind, and watch them die," and i believe that "them" means his own emotions and attachments to this girl and to this past that refuse to go up in smoke and must instead drown and choke themselves away slowly. |
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| The Human Abstract – Procession of the Fates Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I hadn't really taken it that way until now but after reading what you said I gotta say I totally agree. Great interpretation. Also I think there's a very important message in the lines towards the end where Ells says "What you choose to see is real: A cold dark world of enemies, obstacles you could never overcome, or a bright future ahead." Perspective is reality, and so the person's choice to see himself as an outcast and to dream that he's the only one who is so different is what perpetuates his illusion that all of these things are true despite the common human traits he has with the rest of his species. |
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| The Human Abstract – Counting Down The Days Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Some of these lyrics are wrong. Namely "We will mourn our freedom" should be "We will know of our freedom" while "without love for our brothers" is (i think) "We'll have love for our brothers" Both of those are followed by "Never again, never again" so I think they're supposed to be the opposite. The other things are just small stuff. Anybody think Obama when they read the first part? I think this song is less about society in general and more about one particular leader ascending to power. Each time we allow someone to have stronger power than everyone else but they bring us all down as everyone falls victim to human nature. For each of these eras that he mentions, we righteously overthrow an oppressor but with our violent revolution we set ourselves up for another oppressor to step into place and let the cycle continue. In the end, no matter what we're fighting for, we're still fighting fellow human beings with whom we should be sharing the planet. We're erasing "all that we've become" and "all those we loved" until everything burns to the ground, which leads into the next song, where the character sees "a dead world at sunrise." That's all my interpretation at least. Also, it's worth mentioning that the little speech part beginning with "Warmongers!" not only sums up the concept of the song quite nicely but is one of the most powerful vocal parts of any song i can think of, with the "ROT IN YOUR GRAVES!" ending. it's brilliant imo haha |
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| Between the Buried and Me – Mordecai Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I felt the need to comment on this song, seeing as it’s my usernamesake. This song is my inspiration. I think maybe second place to it is Composure by August Burns Red, but this one is probably the single greatest song for when I feel like shit about something. In my opinion it’s about the darkness in humanity, and how good people tend to get knocked around a lot until they eventually start feeling that the morality and compassion they’ve had is wasted on people who don’t really deserve it and are in fact only exploiting their goodness. But upon waking up from this supposed nightmare that is in some ways also the real world, he realizes I think there’s an interesting duality of sleep and wakefulness. While the darkness described at the beginning is in some ways a nightmare (hence sleep) it can also be representative of the real world. At the same time, the waking that occurs later has a very dream-like quality to it and also embodies both sleep and wakefulness. I think Tommy is encouraging people to free themselves from the black and white view of things and focus on the optimism and beauty that can be found in what is admittedly a corrupt world. Simple things like music and companionship are maybe enough to keep us persevering. I walked into the quad at my school this morning, and I noticed the sunrise right as the outro of this song started in my headphones. It was an amazing moment haha. The beauty in the world is there, this song is what reminds me when I feel like shit about something. |
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| Between the Buried and Me – Fossil Genera - A Feed from Cloud Mountain Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| As far as I can tell, it seems like it's a very general model of how the people in power in the world turn simplicity into a sort of ignorance and blind trust. They uphold our lives so that we forget how to fend for ourselves and become pawns. I know that's a really vague explanation but it's sorta the idea I get. Some day I plan to take all the lyrics to Colors and The Great Misdirect and just pore over them with a pen and see what I can discover hidden between the lines. Tommy's lyrics are pure poetry, without a doubt. | |
| All That Remains – Not Alone Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Honestly I think the argument over whether or not this is about a girl or a god is ridiculous. A few people touched on this already, but I believe the genius of this song and similar ones like This Calling and The Air That I Breathe is intentionally left very simple and broad so that it is allowed to take on different meanings. Regardless of Phil's faith, it's impossible to say definitively what the intended meaning of the song is. I'd like to believe that it was intended to cover an expanse of different meanings, kind of an open-to-interpretation sort of thing. Either way, I'm not particularly religious, so to me this song is about either a relationship or simply the strength of one's friends behind him. Overall, I think it's the lyrics are brilliantly simple and the song is incredibly well-performed. |
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