| Foster the People – Pumped Up Kicks Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I support ledzeplover's quote of Mark Foster's thoughts on writing this song, on how it's about getting into the killer's mind. I liked the relaxed, carefree beat and repeating lyrics at first, and then I read the lyrics and the world came crashing down and now I just end up just feeling so, so bad for Robert. And the people he kills. The system, man, it's the system. The first part is third-person perspective of the shooter right before shooting. It's like starkrayz said about sociopaths projecting themselves onto an imaginary person; a fleeting image of himself just before the shooting, while he has the power and feels good for once. Robert used to play cowboy when he was a kid, or watch cowboy cartoons, and when he found the gun in his dad's closet, it brought all those memories back. Now, before he shoots everybody, he's got that picture of himself in the back of his mind. The chorus is pretty obvious and other people have explained it already. The second part is a first-person peek at Robert's sad, lonely, insane adolescent mind, maybe the night before the shooting. Sounds like his neglectful, maybe workaholic father often promises him a "surprise," whether it's real food instead of a TV dinner (dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice -- I don't think this has anything to do with revenge), or a new pair of shoes, whatever. The point is he ALWAYS forgets. I picture Robert sitting in the kitchen with his father's gun in one hand, talking to his cigarette in the other (because there's no one else), practicing brandishing the gun like a cowboy. Then he talks to himself, telling himself his hair is on fire, and that he must have lost his wits -- obviously, he's not rational. He's insane. Who knows if his hair is really on fire or if that's just an example of the garbled word salad coming from his mind. His father never comes home (sleeping at the office?), so Robert goes out in the morning to school as usual and then shoots the kids whose parents love them, who have the latest shoes, who try run away from him because deep down, he wants what they have and doesn't know how else to express it. |
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| Placebo – Space Monkey Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Make up sex? | |
| Placebo – Taste In Men Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| This reminds me of reading that Brian Molko was connected some way to PJ Harvey, and that she's known for changing her musical/all style between each album. It could also be about someone who used to like his type, but then changed her preferences. The song feels like they had a casual physical relationship and he hasn't heard from her since they hooked up on Christmas Day, and it's Valentine's Day and he's thinking about her. | |
| Placebo – Sleeping With Ghosts Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| While humanity or the whole world is destroyed by the "one world" government, with killing and lies, soulmates, that true connection with another person, never dies. Soulmates are on a plane above the horror of the world. That's the only comfort. | |
| Placebo – Post Blue Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| It feels like trying to explain a good heroin session with somebody after it's worn off, trying to describe it ("it"). He's describing that feeling where you can feel *everything*. | |
| Placebo – This Picture Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| "I hold an image of the ashtray girl, as the cigarette burns on MY chest," like he's the one in the picture except young and female. He's thinking about him(her)self in the past, trying to hold onto that image of him before his world was shaken/he watched himself kissing the floor, on all fours. Also, thinking about himself in the past makes him realize that older now, and he doesn't want to grow old so he puts 'this picture' of his youthful self out of his mind ("assassinated, for fear of growing old"). | |
| Placebo – The Bitter End Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| it's being filled with every moment of the relationship at the very instant that it's ending. that's the bitter end. | |
| Ellie Goulding – Starry Eyed Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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She went from childhood ("handle bars") to falling in and out of "love" -- and then she meets him. And everything else was nothing, because when they touch, there are fireworks in the sky and it's like lightning has hit her. I think this pretty accurately depicts true first love that transforms your whole world. You see everything with rose-tinted glasses ("everybody's starry eyed") and you've got that love energy making you glow ("my body glows"). This is what people talk about when they say "it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," except after you've had a love like this, you're not sure you agree, because it's been five years and sometimes you still think about them, even though you're over them and have moved on. |
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| Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I always pictured human hunters on horseback following a pack of foxes (probably because of the name). The narrator is one of the hunters, and maybe he's the older brother of Michael, who came along for the hunt for the first time. When the narrator takes his eye off him for a second, Michael falls off the horse and bleeds onto the snow. And the camera pans out... The pack of foxes has "scarves of red tied 'round their throats" a la the red fur. Or it could be a euphemism that instead of dying when they're shot, they lose the scarves that keep their heads on their bodies (like the fairytale interpretation). |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Two levels. One, his significant other is in Europe and he's in the US, and he's describing a fancy about the miles and miles of water that separates them. "I need you so much closer" -- that can't be more obvious. "So come on" -- I need you closer, so let's get closer. Come on, come visit me, or I'll come visit you. Two, he's talking about metaphorical distance. "The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/ It seems farther than ever before/ Oh no." They're growing apart, but he misses their closeness. There's also a wistfulness about how easy it used to be, how close they used to be. "The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door/ Have been silenced forevermore." However, they're going to break up unless she also tries to "row towards him," shortening the distance between them. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Bend to Squares Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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He went out with a girl he didn't really know well, who broke up with him after "five to six" dates and now he's thinking about the end of the relationship over two fingers of whiskey in a glass tumbler. He dated the girl to get over someone else, in an effort to forget the ex. The girl didn't share his interests of the foreign films and modern plays he took her to, probably because that's what he and his ex liked ("gravitated towards a taste..." = forced to be interested in, to be like his ex). The "bend to squares" bit is sadly sarcastic (ie. ironic) in that she didn't share his indie tastes, and the spectre of he and his ex are the "squares" to which she didn't want to bend. At the end, she realized that he thought her to be the substitute for his ex, and her fingers "came unwired," with "quite a loosened grasp." Once she realizes this, she drops the weight, the pressure of being treated as the machine substitute for his ex, so that she could "move forwards" and on with her life. Over his rock tumbler of whiskey (or whatevs), he's resisting the urge to call her because he knows she's right, he was projecting his ex onto her. He's deciding to think about the relationship with the square as "time passed and that was that" since he hasn't heard from her since they parted ways. She has probably moved way on, but he's still thinking over it. "What a way to cut lengthwise" -- true, cutting wrists lengthwise is how one kills oneself, but I think this is about the ending of the relationships. He went out with the square to forget about his ex in the first place, in lieu of killing himself. And now he's saying, 'well, look where that led me.' Instead of finding peace from his rebound relationship, he's no better off -- or is he? He's learned to accept that he won't find his ex anywhere, won't be with her anymore ("knock the wind from one last urge"), and the relationship with the square helped him to see that. He's back to himself at step zero, way behind where the square went ("forwards"), but at least he can now truly move on with his own life. |
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