sort form Submissions:
submissions
Sucre – Hiding Out Lyrics 12 years ago
I have a different thought than previous commentators...How about the idea of playing hard to get? The song is called "Hiding Out" so that's clue # 1. But also the stanzas which I would call the verses: "I take it to heart..." are very clearly remarking on that special kind of infatuation that comes with new love. Before you've expressed any feelings toward each other, when you're still just "friends", everything is a big deal--every touch, every movement of the eyes, twitch of the mouth, sighing, clearing of the throat, body language, the smallest brush of their body against yours--even how they act around other people can be taken and analyzed, flipped and turned inside out till you've driven yourself crazy trying to interpret it.

For those of us with over-active imaginations and dangerously soft hearts (bad combination) everything that person does and says is taken not lightly but very, very heavily. "You take it too hard when I don't even feel it." = "I don't even remember saying/doing that and it meant absolutely nothing, yet you're reading into it these dire circumstances and misinterpreting it." Then, "Cause you're paying for my love." = "Yeah, I'm playing hard to get, but I'm not trying to kill you--you're putting yourself through this; let's not go overboard here." Because the game of playing hard to get can be fun in the very beginning, when taken lightly and used sparingly, but played with the wrong person--the overly sensitive over-thinker--it can become this surreal mess of fixations and aimless circles of thought, feeling, and conversation. The two stanzas that start, "Oh, so many times..." illustrate how these games can easily and quickly go past the point of no return. "We could've stopped this, we had plenty of chances, but instead we carried on in our rhythm of uncertainty. Now we've gotten so comfortable in it that we don't know how to act otherwise."

The last lines bring it back around full circle. You play hard to get because "Nobody wants anything unless you give it to them like it's worth something." "You have to make them work for it (...Right?) so they will truly appreciate it because otherwise they won't appreciate it at all. You have to make them pay for it."

So all the times she repeats: "My money/Your money is paid." It's meant to be a plea. She (and/or he) is crying out desperately to win what she thinks she deserves and vice versa, as well as a reassurance in the end. "...Your money is paid--it's paid, it's paid." Then it follows with: "Will you find me hiding out?" Because even though the person has been assured of her love, and they may have agreed to cut the shenanigans and be real with each other, they still can't shake the natural inclination to play hard to get. You want to run, but you also hope to be caught.

Or maybe this over-active imagination is over-thinking all this and reading too much into a little 3.5 minute song--haha! Sound familiar? See above.

submissions
Eisley – Mile Away Lyrics 13 years ago
I get the feeling this song is being sung from the perspective of a couple or a group of sirens. Don't know why but the imagery evokes that to me. Tentacles, nets, silk dress, hunting in the night, they person being sung to can feel them from a mile away...

submissions
Regina Spektor – Reading Time with Pickle Lyrics 16 years ago
okay, geez. i'm not reg, so i can't say for certain, but i never thought this song had a sexual undertone at all. at all. i think this song is so beautiful and really, is one of the major songs that showcases her genius as a writer and a great example of why i love her so much. carried under the guise of a silly song about pickles is this beatiful, weighty, honest message. this song brings me to tears all the time. lemme preface...

several years ago...like over half a decade now...i had a terrible breakup with my then-new boyfriend (now fiancee, so it's okay:D). we were only apart for about 2 1/2 wks, but it was truly 2 1/2 of the worst weeks of my life. i dropped 25 pounds, started spending all my time pulling doubles and overtime (at a job i hated btw) and stopped taking phone calls from almost everyone--like literally kept my phone turned off because my heart would break every time it rang and i realized it wasn't him. the point is, i spent my time doing anything i could to keep my mind off him and made many fruitless attempts to find happiness in small, trivial pleasures ("pickles") like a sitcom or a funny book or a kid's movie etc. and it would appease me for all of five minutes before i'd be back to my old sad self.

so, to me, this song is talking about how when you're depressed, you'll find anything to latch onto that will give you some sense of comfort and happiness, no matter how empty and meaningless it really is. and how, if you find that thing, it completely consumes you. and then how, at some point, you look up and realize it's silly and you have to tell yourself that whatever that distraction or "pickle" is, it's not going to save you; you have to face the problem so you can move on. i won't go into the specifics of the lyrics, because in this context, they're all pretty straight forward.

but i love the line about the bathroom being the truest room in the whole damn house because it's true. of all the rooms in the house, you spend most of the time you're naked in the bathroom. just being you and not putting on any airs or hiding yourself away, but just simply being. and doing things like using the bathroom and showering in your own specific way that other people don't know about etc. and when you're in that kind of depression, the last thing you want is to be around other ppl, like your family, who you can't totally be yourself around and it makes you wanna run to a place you can be yourself.

anywho, sorry for this rant. i know no one cares about my silly break-up story, but i thought i needed to give an explanation...i probly didn't...oh well.

submissions
Regina Spektor – The Devil Came to Bethlehem Lyrics 16 years ago
ahh! i forgot to talk about the verses! continuing with that vein of thought...i think the reason she put joseph and mary in our world and sort of modernized them was to make the statement that that's how they exist in todays world. that they don't carry any significant weight anymore--this especially rings true for the last verse, but the first and second definitely show this as well. and while i'm on it, i want to make a correction to lines 7 and 8. in 7, it should be "back" not "bank". so, "just long enough to see the eiffel tower and back" and in 8, it should be "wear" not "wearing" and "booze" not "boots" so, "wear a red scarf and booze on the airplane"

anyway, the first half of verse one is saying (to me--and i'm no authority) that this is how these people are remembered. these biblical figures are discussed in only the most superficial way. they're the parents of jesus. end of story. people read/preach the stories of the bible but don't go past them, don't read further into what's being said and what was going on in the world at the time and so on.

the second half of verse one lets us see what they would be like in the modern world. leaving the baby with in-laws to take a trip--unheard of in their day. but i also get a sense that's she's talking about modern people who are tied to their beliefs even though they have deviated considerably from their original intentions and even though our cultures have deviated so completely from theirs. "wear a red scarf" clearly not a big deal to most westernized societies, but it means something else to other cultures and religions and she states it in the song, i feel, in the voice of mary. and by stating it, we are meant to think that it's a big deal, that it's an iniquitous act, as well as "boozing".

this carries over to verse two, which gives us further insight into what they'd be like/how they'd feel in our world, to see what it's become. "joseph and mary are so sad...nothing bright to right nothing good to send" and the joni mitchell lines work so perfectly in the context of the song. i think it's a rather melancholy song...but then again...what do i know?

submissions
Regina Spektor – The Devil Came to Bethlehem Lyrics 16 years ago
it was interesting to read everyone's comments. i have a completely different view of this song. i could be totally wrong, but i've always interpreted it as a message about the depravity of religious commercialism. i thought the "devil" was religious fanatics who are obsessed with seeing the "holy land" and go trekking over there like tourists with their cameras, hence "with a bible and an alarm clock". they have their trips planned out with their little itineraries and they use their modern machines to tell them when to be where and they lug their western lives around in backpacks and miss the whole point. i may sound cynical about it, but i'm not an angry atheist--nor am i atheist at all--i promise. just get fed up sometimes with the shallowness of it all. but anywho, that's how i view the song.

* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.