| Adam Green – Emily Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[Vikfor:32167] I'd say the "permission from the government" is a divorce - which is why he's gotta dance with Jennifer, and then Eleanor, in subsequent verses before he goes back to Emily. | |
| Rilo Kiley – It's a Hit Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I think the first verse definitely alludes to Bush, but the "jungle" part makes it clear that it's not just Bush, it's leaders who "deploy more troops than salt shakers" in general. And the remaining two verses make it clear that she's having a go at a lot more than that; Bush is the hook to draw in a more general critique of the world as she sees it. So I'm with those who say this is a great song. And the tune is great in itself; it wouldn't sound out of place on some of the poppier VU albums. |
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| The Beautiful South – Prettiest Eyes Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[SoundogBabylon:23940] And then he returns to form on the very next track with "Worthless Lie". But he's so damn good at either... | |
| Voice Of The Beehive – Perfect Place Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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A nice ambiguity in the first line. Are they saying "we are altogether alone", i.e. we are all hopelessly alienated, or "we are all together, alone", i.e. our very sense of alienation gives us something in common? The song comes across to me as the cry of a desperate idealist. She can see what she's up against, but she still wants to try to make the world better, no matter how hopeless it seems. My favourite song of theirs. |
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| Dickey Lee – Patches Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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That's the wrong song. The posted lyrics are of a different song by the same name, by Clarence Carter. Dickey Lee's "Patches" is this one: Down by the river that flows by the coal yards Stand wooden houses with shutters torn down There lives a girl everybody calls Patches Patches, my darling, of Old Shanty town We planned to marry when June brought the summer I couldn't wait to make Patches my bride Now I don't see how that ever can happen My folks say "No" and my heart breaks inside Patches, oh what can I do I swear I'll always love you But a girl from that place Would just bring me disgrace So my folks won't let me love you Each night I cry as I think of that shanty And pretty Patches there watching the door She dosn't know that I can't come to see her Patches must think that I love her no more I hear a neighbour telling my father He says a girl name of Patches was found Floating face down in that dirty old river That flows by the coal yards in Old Shanty Town Patches, oh what can I do I swear I'll always love you It may not be right But I'll join you tonight Patches I'm coming to you |
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| Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – A Minor Place Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[fanoftheelipsis:19108] But, ironically, the song is in a major key. Because when he's in his minor place, he's nowhere to be seen or heard. | |
| Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – A Minor Place Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[fanoftheelipsis:19107] That's how I interpreted it. Note that the song is actually in a major key, because when he's in his minor place we don't see him. |
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| Alvvays – Next of Kin Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Interesting fact - Molly's father, John Morris Rankin, actually did die by drowning. The circumstances were nothing like the song, though; he was driving on a winding highway in Cape Breton, and he hit a pile of road salt that had been spilled on the road. He lost control of the truck and plunged off a 25 metre cliff into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. | |
| Jeffrey Lewis – Broken Broken Broken Heart Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Apparently he and frequent collaborator Helen Schreiner had been in a relationship and they split. It can't have been as painful as the song implies, though, because she played on the album. | |
| Jeffrey Lewis – No LSD Tonight Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| The story I heard is that after he did "The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane" people were always offering him acid, so he wrote this one in the hope that they'd stop. | |
| The Donnas – Let's Rab Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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The main question is the meaning of the word "rab". The Donnas are the only people I know of who actually use the word, and they use it quite often. I'm assuming it's sexual, since in their song "Hey, I'm Gonna Be Your Girl" it's used as follows: Come on, baby, rab with me You're the best dressed in Pali You can make me go, go, go Let's go to my room and blow! So yeah. On the other hand, in other songs of theirs (e.g. "Let's Go Mano") the word is used as an adjective ("They're so rab"). I'm guessing it's a bit of local slang, specific to California or even just to the Bay Area. |
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| Green Day – Pulling Teeth Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Never heard the story about Dirnt's accident before. Always thought I saw a Misery connection. Great song either way. The melody, though, is awfully similar to "Rhythm of the Rain" by The Cascades. |
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| Monty Python – The Idiot Song Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[beer:10667] good I checked and the lawsuit did happen, with co-writing credits given to Innes on the Oasis song. It seems a bit of a stretch to me - there's a similarity in the songs, sure, but I've seen way more similar ones (e.g. compare Green Day's "Pulling Teeth" to The Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain". | |
| Courtney Barnett – Elevator Operator Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Just one typo - I'm pretty sure the second line should say "worries he's going bald", not bold. According to Barnett, the song is about something that happened to a friend of hers. Like in the song, he went up to the top of a building to enjoy the view, and a woman in the elevator thought he was going to kill himself. I do hope, by the way, that her friend's name isn't actually Oliver Paul, otherwise ticket inspectors will be hassling him for the rest of his life. ;) |
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| Metric – Blindness Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I'm inclined to agree with those who think the novel and/or film Blindness was the inspiration. As a side note, am I the only one to notice that blindness and/or blindfolds seem to be a recurring theme in Emily's career? Besides this song, there's the video for "Poster of a Girl" (she's blindfolded in part of it) and the song "Dr. Blind" from her solo project. And she reportedly performed blindfolded at least once. |
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| Metric – Blindness Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[ShadowStalker:7562] Interesting. I interpreted "you gave me a life I never chose" as "I didn't choose to be born", which also fits in with the depression theme. | |
| Courtney Barnett – Boxing Day Blues Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| In the Commonwealth, Boxing Day is the day after Christmas. Apparently this song is about an incident a few years ago when her girlfriend's mother died on Christmas Day. The girlfriend was desperately trying to reach her, but she was, by her own account, "out getting drunk somewhere" and couldn't be reached ("I let you down"). Somehow their relationship survived, though. | |
| Courtney Barnett – Anonymous Club Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[Rickvee:6586] Well, since it's Courtney, the person she's sitting in the dark with is probably a her rather than a him, but otherwise a good description of the song. | |
| Rilo Kiley – The Absence of God Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I see it more as her not thinking there's anything bigger, but wishing there was (hence the melancholy tone of the song). I could be wrong though. | |
| Rilo Kiley – The Absence of God Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Jenny once described herself as a "terrible Jew"; whether that means she no longer believes, or that she still believes but isn't good with the actual practice, I'm not sure. Don't know anything about the rest. | |
| Lorde – Royals Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Funny you should mention "Common People"; I thought of that same song listening to this one. | |
| Juliana Hatfield – Dumb Fun Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Enjoyable if a bit silly (hence the title I suppose). One ambiguity in the lyrics, though - does "your true love is fucking around" mean "the person you love most is fucking around on you", or "the thing you like to do most is to fuck around"? | |
| Lunachicks – Babysitters On Acid Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| The "cooked baby" story predates that movie: http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/babysitter.asp | |
| Shakespear's Sister – Hello(Turn your Radio On) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| "Gonna have to reach my friends to find out how I feel" - pretty prescient for over 20 years ago. It sounds like it could have been written for today's "always plugged in" age. | |
| Johnny Cash – Please Don't Play Red River Valley Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I guess "Red River Valley" is to the harmonica what "Stairway to Heaven" is to the guitar. | |
| John Prine – Illegal Smile Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I definitely agree with your points about the paranoia and the "word salad" lines at the end. Regarding Prine's denials about this song, does anyone have the verbatim quote? Did he deny that it was about drugs period, or did he make what TVTropes.org calls a "suspiciously specific denial" by saying it wasn't about weed specifically? If the latter, that adds credence to the LSD theory. |
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| 4 Non Blondes – What's Up? Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| One error - it's Linda Perry, not Katy Perry. Very different people! | |
| Veruca Salt – Volcano Girl Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The "Glass Onion" reference is perfect, even down to the little misdirection/mindscrew - Just as it was actually John, not Paul, who sang lead on "I Am The Walrus", it was Nina, not Louise, who sang lead on "Seether". | |
| Eric Bogle – The Band Played Waltzing Matilda Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"We buried ours, And the Turks buried theirs, Then we started all over again." Says it all, really. |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Curse of Millhaven Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The bit about "Bill Blaikie's little boy" is amusing to me, because Bill Blaikie is the name of a respected politician (now retired) from Manitoba. He does have a boy, though nobody in that family can be called little... | |
| Emm Gryner – Northern Holiday Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Is this song about Americans emigrating (or threatening to emigrate) to Canada? "'Cause there's a new jackass in the White House Take the sweat and tears we shed And be snow angels instead We can think it out loud just like Ron said" |
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| The Breeders – Metal Man Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'm pretty sure that the "three in a tree" bit is actually "three on the tree", which refers to a three-speed standard transmission with the shifter on the steering column (common in older vehicles, like for instance the '65 pickup in the song, but almost forgotten today in North America). | |
| Deborah Conway – Release Me Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Why has nobody commented on this yet? It's great! | |
| Johnny Cash – The One On The Left Is On The Right Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Even the fates of the members somehow seems appropriate. The one on the right (who was politically on the left) ended up on the bottom, and the one in the middle (who was on the right) was on the top. The one on the left, the centrist, came out the worst of all (he got a broken arm after all). And afterwards, the centrist becomes a bank teller, the right winger becomes a trucker, and the left winger becomes an all-night DJ. And the guy in the rear, who never seemed to quite get what was going on, was the one who ended up getting drafted. | |
| The Beautiful South – The Sound Of North America Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Why has nobody commented on this amazing song? | |
| Blake Babies – Cesspool Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I think it's about environmental damage (I seem to recall hearing that it was about one particular polluted beach, but I could be wrong about that. In any case, the overall theme is pretty clear ("made the water turn to black", "they'd do almost anything if the price was right enough", etc). And there's also a poke taken at half-cocked wannabe activists ("I'll get my guns and *both* of my friends", the best line in the song by far). | |
| Mungo Jerry – In The Summertime Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Actually they use a weird hotch-potch of systems in the UK; for short and medium distances, they use centimetres and metres... but for long distances they use miles. Go figure. | |
| Neko Case – The Virginian Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I'm pretty sure it was "you'd thought it were spring". I think there's an error earlier on, though; I'm pretty sure it goes "Hope and superstition had (or have?) your heart's permission..." Terrific song, anyhow. |
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| Neko Case – Karoline Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Why has nobody commented on this one? It's great! | |
| The Damned – I Just Can't Be Happy Today Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Staticburn: That's kind of amusing, because it certainly doesn't portray a world with the Devil in command as desirable... | |
| Emm Gryner – Symphonic Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| On a slightly more mundane note, I wonder which river Thames she's talking about - the one in England, or the one in Ontario (less than 100km from her hometown)? Maybe it's about a real person that she knew back in the day. | |
| The Proclaimers – What Do You Do? Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Can't believe nobody's commented on this one. On the CD booklet, the word "right" is capitalized, which suggests to me that it's referring to the political right (which at the time would mean the Thatcher government in the UK). And "voting the Scots way" refers to voting for the Labour party. |
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| The Damned – Hit Or Miss Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| If you listen closely to the fadeout at the end, it sounds like they're saying "shit or piss" instead of "hit or miss". | |
| The Lemonheads – It's About Time Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'm pretty sure she was joking when she said that at the reunion gig. | |
| The George Baker Selection – Una Paloma Blanca Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| A classic piece of Europop. I prefer the Nina and Mike version, though, because I don't know enough German to understand the lyrics (which presumably are as dippy as the English version...) | |
| One To One – Angel In My Pocket Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Note that this is the album version; the single version is the same except "she" is changed to "he". | |
| Crystal Bernard – The Ecumenical Movement Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Oops, just realized that it should say "Calvary" not "Calgary". That's what I get for copying and pasting! The song is both cute and creepy. |
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| Juliana Hatfield – My Darling Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Apparently Evan Dando says this one is about him... | |
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