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Sufjan Stevens – Pittsfield Lyrics 15 years ago
“Pittsfield is probably the most personal song on The Avalanche. It’s based on a lot of my life growing up in a big family where there were a lot of chores and we were always being asked to contribute to the household. To do work and wash the dishes. Work was an important factor in our life, and now that I’ve grown up I have a different understanding of work. It’s not so much about physical exertion but about applying skills to particular tasks. It can be an abstract task…I don’t want to get too Marxist on you, but that song is kind of a rumination on work in the house, you know and chores - that was really important growing up. I wrote a series of verses for that song and then sort of transplanted them in this little town in Illinois that’s very similar to the small town where I grew up in Michigan, after we moved out of Detroit. It’s still very self-conscious because it’s a song about how much work we had to do and how much I rebelled against that. But then I realized that as an adult and as a songwriter, that I have somehow, in me, the inclination to overwork myself that my father had. And I’m just applying it differently. So he would spend five hours mopping the floor and I spend five hours on a vocal line in the studio.”
-Sufjan Stevens

submissions
Jenny Lewis – Big Wave Lyrics 15 years ago
Living your life in the gray
Is the new American way
We're spending what we haven't made
And we save our money in good faith
And we work hard for our living wage
But the still the bank's gotta break

Because the dream's a lie
And the snake, it bit you
When you were awake
And the books are fried
You are bankrupting
Because all the loans you take

Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
It's going to hit you with a big wave


I can't sleep these days
And my blues, they won't go away
So there are these little pills I been taking
And my doctor, she says that they're safe
But I been sleepwalking down to the lake
And waking up in the water

And the feeling's a lie
But the snake, it bit me
When I wasn't awake
And the scripts, they lie
I have been poisoned from
All the things I take

Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
It's going to hit me with a big wave
Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
It's going to hit you with a big wave

I know you feel deprived
(You don't trust me)
Our love is still alive
(You haven't touched me)
It's really just that I don't feel
Like it much these days

And my love's a lie
Because the snake, he visits me
When you are away
And your dreams don't lie
I have been corrupted
Because of all the lovers I take

Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
You're going to hit me with a big wave
Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
It's going to hit you with a big wave
Big wave
Big wave
Big wave
It's going to hit you with a big wave

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