| Burl Ives – Sweet Betsy from Pike Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Ike is a bit of a fool, a rube, a figure of fun, while Betsy is a hard woman, tough and a match for any man. Their poor luck is a matter of Ike's haplessness, and eventually Betsy tires of him, though he's sort of a sweet loser, and kicks him out. | |
| The Who – Rael Lyrics | 5 years ago |
|
I think the yellow flag is a "sickly herald against the morn" not "simply held" I don't believe that the song is about any specific occupation, but rather a sort of mythic archetype of an advanced civilization that's surrounded by more populous but less civilized neighbors. Something like the ancient Hebrews, or the Athenians might have seen themselves. |
|
| Frank Zappa – Don't Eat The Yellow Snow Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Lots of good, basic advice for people doing business in the tundra region. If anything ever happens to your eyes as a result of some sort of conflict with anyone named Nanook, the only way to fix it up is to go trudging across the tundra, mile after mile all the way down to the Parish of St. Alfonzo. | |
| Van McCoy – The Hustle Lyrics | 9 years ago |
|
The poem takes the form of a hortatory imperative command. "Do the Hustle," the poet-speaker commands us. And yet in his tone, and also in the light and playful melody we are led to understand implicitly that rather than being an onerous burden upon us, this very thing we've been commanded to do, this "Hustle" will in fact lighten our hearts and spirits. The second verse is similar. "Do the Hustle," we are again reminded. The third follows a familiar track as well, and by the fourth fifth and sixth repetitions, we find ourselves in new territory. The very repetition and our place in the schema has made the listener/reader into now an active participant. We ourselves, in singing along, are commanding OTHERS to participate in this hustleatory effort, thus ensuring the further propagation of the activity. |
|
| Frank Zappa – Camarillo Brillo Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
I think it's "flaming out along 'her' head" rather than 'ahead' The Camarillo Brillo is her curly red afro, which has been dyed using cochineal dye made from ground up insect exoskeleta, "by where some bugs had made it red" |
|
| Al Stewart – Nostradamus Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Two great men yet brothers not make the North United stand. Grant and Lincoln, holding the North together, and keeping the United States whole? |
|
| Al Stewart – Nostradamus Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Two great men yet brothers not make the North United stand. Grant and Lincoln, holding the North together, and keeping the United States whole? |
|
| Al Stewart – The Last day of June 1934 Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
The song visits three countries on June 30, 1934, the "Night of the Long Knives" in Germany. In a pastoral scene, a Frenchman is making love to his woman, skipping out on his work as a grape picker. He is remarkably contented and in love. His simple life is a good one. The scene then shifts to a wealthy estate in the area around Cambridge. English aristocrats are living a very high and sophisticated life, arguing abstract philosophical principles "in a world that's finished with war." Then we change scenes again first taking note of the fact that this is indeed the depths of the depression, and not everyone is as lucky as those in the first two sections. There is great poverty, and the economic misery is particularly acute in Germany where we land next. The death of Ernst Roehm was the final consolidation of power for the Nazis, folding the SA into the SS under Himmler, and killing all of the leadership of the SA. Roehm was a fascinating and monstrous character in his own right, and had protected Hitler in the Beer Hall Putsch, but had grown too powerful, to the point that evern the army feared his brownshirts. Once Roehm was out of the way, the Nazis were fully in control of Germany, and World War 2 became an inevitability. "...voices rang out In the rolling Bavarian hills And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters Grown strong like the joining of wills." Germany now felt its momentum undeniably, and the dream was truly alive. The voices say that the tenets of the Versailles treaty would now be brazenly ignored, "You can't hold me I'm strong now, I'm strong, stronger than your law." Then at the end the song shifts to the present day (well, the 1970s anyway). The poet says that he is standing by the Rhine dipping his feet in the cold stream of time. Even the Germans of the day know longer know or care who Ernst Roehm was, but the poet, a bit of a mystic, knows that his spirit is still there, and imagines he can see Roehm and his ghostly SA army of brownshirts. |
|
| David Bromberg – Sharon Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
An allegory of the cold war. Crawling on her belly like a reptile, extreme flexibility, Sharon is the snake in the Eden story, tempting the poet speaker to abandon the typical American scene in which the action starts, to become a Russia-supporting communist, i.e. the Red-Bear man in the song, who uses Sharon's propagandistic allure to bring people into the tent of International Socialism. Or maybe it's about a dude who falls in love with a stripper. I guess the latter. |
|
| Lead Belly – Rock Island Line Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
That Rock Island Line train, coming back this a-way. A traindriver, he pulls up to the toll-gate and the man hollers nicely what all he had on board, and he said: I got cows, I got horses, I got hogs, I got sheep, I got goats, I got all live stock, I got all live stock! Well, they said, you’re all right boy, you don’t have to pay no toll, and they gonna let that train on by. So, he goes on through the toll gate and as he goes through, he starts pickin’ up a little bit of speed, pickin’ up a little bit of steam. He got on through and he turns to look back at the man, and he says: I done fooled ya! I fooled you! I got pig iron, I got pig iron! I got pig iron |
|
| Joe Walsh – A Life Of Illusion Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
This song is about accidentally getting your girlfriend pregnant. The illusion is that there's a point to all the social climbing and effort that we go through to find love, when Nature is really just coming up with a way to get us to have babies. POW right between the eyes. Oh How Nature loves her little surprises. |
|
| The Who – A Legal Matter Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| As a side note, it's worth pointing out that Townshend who wrote this was married and faithful to his wife all through The Who's craziest and busiest years. Which sounds incredible. | |
| Yo La Tengo – Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand (The Who cover) Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This here is a song about a girl who gives really excellent handjobs. And that is all what it is about. | |
| They Might Be Giants – Four Of Two Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| ...and a girl who doesn't show up | |
| Bow Wow Wow – Do You Wanna Hold Me Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| She could really sing | |
| XTC – Senses Working Overtime Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
It's a celebration of the senses, each of which is evoked several times in the course of the song. For example the chorus line about trying to taste the difference between a lemon and a lime (taste)/ The similarity of sounds between black skies, black eyes and black ice (hearing)/ pain and pleasure (touch)/ night fighting day (light=sight) / turds and treasure (smell) His senses allow him to possess the world and all in it, the good and the evil, but to him there's beauty in all of it, that he appreciates with his senses. |
|
| Neko Case – At Last Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
I think you all got close, but not quite there. Here is my theory (a-hem!): The song is written from the point of view of a family dog, an aging dog who is facing death but knows he has served his people well and faithfully and is ready, if necessary to die. clues: i am an animal and cannot explain my life down this chain if death should smell my breathing relation means nothing i wished to stay among my people. Plus Neko is a major animal person. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.