| Radiohead – My Iron Lung Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| A Belisha beacon (not "bacon"...) is a type of road safety thing we have in England. It's a yellow globe-shaped beacon on a striped pole, next to a pedestrian crossing, so drivers can see the pedestrian crossings in the night. | |
| Radiohead – 2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this is about the Nixon era, and general '70s malaise, and how this era laid the groundwork for the trickery of the Bush era, using 1984 as an allegory for this (if that made any sense). Are you such a dreamer To put the world to rights? I stay home forever Where two and two always makes a five I'll lay down the tracks Sandbag and hide January has April's showers And two and two always makes a five This part has been analysed to death; the 1984 reference is obvious. This is desperation for certainty in the most destructive and truth-destroying away. It's the devil's way now There is no way out You can scream and you can shout It is too late now This requires no analysis, really. It's hopelessness writ large. Because You have not been Paying attention Paying attention etc. This part is just "because you have not been paying attention, paying attention..." repeated. I can't hear any of the other lines listed here. This sounds like blaming oneself I try to sing along I get it all wrong Because I'm not Because I'm not I swat them like flies But like flies the buggers Keep coming back But I'm not Here's where the Nixon stuff starts. "Them" could be doubts, or 1984's thought police. "Buggers", on the other hand, is an interesting choice of word to describe them. I'm English enough to know the usual implications of the word, but "buggers" as in those who plant bugs? This is all very tenuous, though. This remains very tenuous, until the last stanza here. I wouldn't have thought up the Nixon analogy at all if it weren't for this: Oh, hail to the thief Oh, hail to the thief But I'm not But I'm not But I'm not But I'm not Don't question my authority or put me in the dock Because I'm not Because I'm not Oh, go and tell the king that the sky is falling in But it's not But it's not But it's not Maybe not Maybe not QED. |
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| PJ Harvey – The Last Living Rose Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I think it's about how you can be incredibly fond of England even whyen you're supposed to be European citizens of the world. Screw Brussels, take me back to beautiful England! | |
| Vampire Weekend – Jonathan Low Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I assumed it was about the Irish Troubles, actually. The reference to "the clan", "Londonderry nights" (Londonderry being one of the places traditionally fought over by the British and the Irish since way before the Troubles), "words were cried at night / in unforgiving tones" = sectarianism?, from there on it's pretty self-explanatory assuming this is right. VW have written about British conflicts before (Mansard Roof = the Falklands War), so it's possible. | |
| British Sea Power – It Ended On An Oily Stage Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| All across the Eastern Bloc | |
| Radiohead – Palo Alto Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| It amazes me that a song attacking Palo Alto (a city which I actually like, but that's notwithstanding)could be written pre-Facebook. In that way, it's almost prophetic. | |
| Arcade Fire – (Antichrist Television Blues) Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| There are clear references to Islamic terrorism here; "the building downtown" is the World Trade Centre, though "downtown" + terrorism implies Baltic Exchange (though I'm a Londoner, so it would; perhaps New Yorkers think of Ground Zero as downtown), hence "no, I don't want to work in a building downtown/I don't know what I'm going to do/Because the planes keep crashing always two by two" - this requires very little explanation. "Parking the cars in the underground/the voices when they scream, well, they make no sound/want to see the cities rust/and the troublemakers riding on the back of the bus" seems to be a 7/7 reference to me (the bombing of the London Underground, and of a bus from a suicide-bombing passenger in the back, on July 7, 2005). | |
| Hope of the States – The Red The White The Blue The Black Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Also, I always heard this as (I could be wrong); Mouths of dust and ruptured windpipe Fairytales for lying cheats They're lashing out like wolves in barbed-wire Ring the bells and stop the fires now The red white and the blue has always been what led you If you don't do something they'll steal it all from under you Board decisions, bored children Watch the world through gunsight eyes Hijack trainwrecks, sell the wheels No way out unless you steal it all The red white and the blue has always been what led you If you don't do something they'll steal it all from under you You beat us black and blue We're coming back to find you The red white and the blue has always been what led you If you don't do something they'll steal it all from under you |
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| Hope of the States – The Red The White The Blue The Black Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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There's little doubt, at least to me, that this is an attack on patriotism in the most powerful countries of the Anglosphere. Red, white and blue initially make one think of America, and the video's an obvious reference to America in its military heyday, but the most powerful English-speaking countries (Britain, Aus, US) all use red, white and blue flags and are all bogged down by patriotism. The lyrics could refer to any one of them. America's certainly the most infected by blind patriots, the sort whom the red, white and blue have always led, though. Of course, there is one alternative interpretation along these lines, that it does not refer to individuals blindly devoted to their countries but to countries blindly devoted to others. Most of Europe's currently under the hegemony of the US, Britain possibly most prominently so, and a lot of US corruption has been conveniently routed through Britain. That said, this was not the case in 2004 to the extent that it is now (or, rather, it wasn't public that this was the case in 2004), so it is somewhat doubtable that a band would write about in 2004. |
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| Machinae Supremacy – Seventeen Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| No doubt about it, this is an attack on US Iraqi Freedom-era (are we out of the Iraqi Freedom era - chronologically, that is?) expansionism and satellite state creation. | |
| Neuroticfish – Ultrahymn Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I'm fairly certain it's "don't trust my ways". It's also definitely "where only you and me will know". | |
| VNV Nation – Genesis Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I interpret this as being about how humanity failed to advance into space after all we did in the 20th century. That said, I'm simply a space geek, so you can ignore this. | |
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