| The Strokes – Barely Legal Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| It comes across as a song about maturity and direction. The speaker here seems to be a down-on-his-luck guy who is immature and doesn’t know what he wants. The girl, in contrast, seems to be a little more mature and in-direction. In a way he wants to corrupt this and in a way he’s jealous. In the end, instead of anyone changing anyone else, they end up going their separate ways (“The things we did…”, etc. suggests they aren’t together any more). The speaker here is still lost and without direction. He’s still dealing with growing up. | |
| The Strokes – The Modern Age Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I read this as a song about attraction that is at first strong but is lost once the relationship is well-established. The first two verses paint the picture of a guy trying to get a girl’s attention there are a ton of references to pretending or attempting to appear a certain way (“start to pretend, stop pretending/it seems this game is simply never-ending” and especially “work hard and say it’s easy/do it just to please me”). This hits at the things we say or do around people we’re attracted to in order to make ourselves appear more interesting. The last two verses find the two in a long-term relationship where all the exciting attraction is lost. Now all the pretending they were doing before is revealed as a lie or a line and they’re no longer enamored with each other (“I wish you hadn’t stayed/My vision’s clearer now”). By the end of the song they end up leaving each other. |
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| Jawbox – Sound on Sound Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Sounds like a song on stalking. He follows the person and can’t hear their words because he’s too far away to hear, even though he says that they’re “near”. The last two verses reveal the desire he feels. | |
| Jawbox – 68 Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Probably about a long-term relationship. “68” refers to a sexual act in which one person receives a favor and the other person is “owed one” (usually used as a scam). This could refer to a lack of compromise or promise, which seems to be going on here with the relationship. “Rationalizing all compromises” sounds like he’s either convincing himself that he’s doing better than the other person or party, or that he’s getting screwed out of something, but he rationalizes it as a fair compromise. | |
| Jawbox – U-Trau Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I get the feeling that this song is distinctly about spinning one’s wheels or wasting time and being unproductive. In this song, it’s a bad thing; the character here wants to have done something meaningful, but instead they appear to be working in a factory of some sort (hence the “cardboard dust”) and feeling themselves age in place. I suppose the “dream house” could be the person’s ultimate goal, but it seems so unattainable that the person feels hopeless. | |
| Jawbox – Reel Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| From what I can tell, a (relatively) easy song about someone abusing themselves. They cut themselves and the other person (the “you” in this song) is trying to talk them out of it, but can’t get through to them. This is really more of a song about the psychology of a cutter or someone similarly self-destructive. It points out how rarely people take anyone else’s advice. The “reel” refers to how many times you repeat what you say, yet they never listen. | |
| Jawbox – Green Glass Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song has something to do with dwelling on something painful, or in some way torturing yourself by refusing to move on. The event itself isn’t explicit; it could be about death or a breakup, probably a loss of some kind. It has to do with holding yourself back and making yourself feel bad about something. Guilt. | |
| Jawbox – Cooling Card Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Classic cryptic Jawbox. Here we have a loss of hope, multiple uses of the images of hands and fire, and the feeling of fear or danger. I can’t really get anything specific from this except that it’s probably about the fear of risks. Maybe it’s less innocent than that and it has something to do with arson or something, though the last verse sounds more like unfulfilling acquiescence. It seems like this person both enjoys and hates danger and risk, and he is somehow addicted to it. | |
| Jawbox – Savory Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Now that I think of it, "one hand will wash the other" could also mean something like "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours", or that he'll do her a favor if she'll do him a sexual one. | |
| Jawbox – Whitney Walks Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| There is certainly a power struggle going on here. The main guy, presumably Whitney, has a Catholic and a key in his pocket. Having a person in your pocket means you have control over them, while having something in your pocket usually means you are almost certainly going to win or obtain it. And, here, a key could represent knowledge or power. The singling out of the person in his pocket as a “Catholic” could be because the person is perhaps a religious leader who is being paid off or manipulated into doing something. Thus, it could be a song about religious corruption. | |
| Jawbox – Chicago Piano Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| A “Chicago Piano” is a nickname for a tommy gun, which is stereotypically associated with mobsters. What I get out of the song is that it’s about a mobster’s conscious, or perhaps the guilt or paranoia that one may feel while living outside the law. I figure the “stern old men” could be politicians, while the “face out of history” could refer to money. Maybe he’s being paid by crooked politicians to kill someone, or maybe he’s trying to pay them off. He’s still very uncertain about everything, sure that he’s going to end up screwed somehow. Of course, this mobster scenario/psychology could just me a metaphor for something similar. Like, perhaps, cheating on a spouse or being corrupt in some way? | |
| Jawbox – Jackpot Plus! Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song is about gambling addiction. I don’t think “Dempsey” is in reference to anything (that I could find), but he’s definitely addicted to gambling. It’s “all nerve and no brain” (so, seemingly automatic), he’s already had “a hundred thousand bad throws”, and yet he keeps “dropping it in.” I think the “Someday I” is coming from him. It could either be “someday I will win it all”, or “someday I will stop.” But the sentence is cut off, because neither of those possibilities are true; he’ll never stop and he’ll never win. | |
| Jawbox – Cruel Swing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Sure, it could be a song about having OCD, but it’s almost definitely about political corruption. I don’t say that simply because of the influence of Nixon; while obsessing throughout the song over being clean and white, the only other clear subjects here are a king and a knight, which suggest politics. The repetition of "fixed" (which could mean "repaired", but probably means "rigged" and thereby "corrupted") is here, along with the malicious-sounding "the king is hound's-tooth clean", sounding like the king did all kinds of bad things to be seen as clean. It's almost intimidating, like the king dares anyone to say otherwise. The obsession is huge, it seems, almost like a political figure so obsessed with being seen as clean that he doesn’t see the awful things he does to try to maintain that image. Maybe like in Shakespeare’s play Richard II. | |
| Jawbox – Cruel Swing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| were* | |
| Jawbox – LS/MFT Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The title to this song references a brand of American cigarette called Lucky Strike, whose slogan was “Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco”. The song itself is about an abusive relationship. Specifically, the guy abuses the girl because he is possessive and controlling. He attempts to rationalize his abuse by saying “she left some marks on [the] inside”. He also tries to blame his abuse on her in the refrain; by saying “you stayed willingly”, he implies that she knows that staying with him will involve being abused, and since she does stay, the abuse is her fault. The reference to Lucky Strike is probably a play on words. In the last verse, he says, “She’s healing up just fine/To take what’s coming up next time.” This could mean that he almost killed her with a certain strike, and since he did, it was a “lucky strike”. Interestingly, Googling "mft" brings you to a Wikipedia page that suggests that it could stand for "marriage and family therapist". |
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| Jawbox – Motorist Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The speaker is involved in a crash and is facing mortality. Lines like “you will go where you’re meant to be” and “nothing is better than getting out fast” make this sound like suicide. It could be about someone committing suicide via car crash to reach what they believe is the afterlife; they feel they have nothing else to live for and, if destined to end up in a certain afterlife, wants to get there faster. The line “what would you risk to rescue me” is interesting. It could be asked to a paramedic, of course, or even to a person that the speaker was close to. But it could also be asked to a bystander. This brings to mind a sort of heroism: who would risk the danger of getting someone out of a car crash? Perhaps that is the person that the speaker here is looking for. Thus, it could also be about isolation and looking for human connection. |
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| Jawbox – Breathe Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This could very easily be a breakup song. The refrain references things coming to an end, not to mention the intimacy of the line “breathe in my face”. The verses, meanwhile, reference units of time (like a countdown) and secession and insurrection. It feels like the countdown to combat or opposition. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about breaking up, though. It could be about death or disease, as referenced by the finality in the refrain. Or it could literally be about rebelling against a political force. I try to read that as a metaphor, though. Anything involving opposition or dissent. It could even be about murder. There's definitely enough evidence for that. |
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| Jawbox – Savory Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This is definitely about the objectification of women. The speaker in this song is a guy who is exploiting a girl (he has power over her, as seen when he says "consider your position"). And even though he very obviously remarks on her physical appearance and the effect she has on people ("see you feign surprise/that I'm all eyes/and you're all you"), he attempts to make her feel just as guilty ("one hand will wash the other", or "you'll protest your complicity"). This could also be about using sex as a product. While the woman here is being objectified and seemingly sold as product, the speaker implies that she knew this beforehand and she's just as guilty as he is for this outcome. While the song definitely explores thoughts on the objectification of women, it also deals with the guilt in living in such a culture and contributing to it. |
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| Jawbox – Cruel Swing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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White night* Lyrics to this song was inspired by "the Poetry of Richard Milhous Nixon" |
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| Jawbox – Breathe Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| According to the de Soto FYOSS vinyl re-release liner notes, that last "election time" should read "insurrection time". Wow, that's a really, really picky little detail. Sorry about that. | |
| Jawbox – Savory Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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From the de Soto FYOSS vinyl re-release lyrics sheet: After the "one hand will wash the other" there's another short verse: "Hey angel fly over and bless me see you feign surprise that I'm all eyes and we're all we need to be easy now. One hand will wash the other One hand will wash the other." |
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| Jawbox – FF=66 Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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From the de Soto FYOOS vinyl re-release lyric sheet: 1.)"'FF=66' contains an excerpt from "the Seafarer" by William Carlos Williams, from "The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams 1939-1962" (the parenthetical part above) 2.) The lyrics match up except for the last "verse": "FF=66 FF=66 Six six feet deep in the irony You'll see the light It's getting bigger" |
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| Weezer – I Don't Want To Let You Go Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song perfectly describes my feelings for Weezer. | |
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