| Embrace (UK) – Ashes Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is definitely about me. When I was a kid I got messed up trying to be perfect so my parents would stay together. This may sound nuts, but many kids watching their parents' relationship disintegrate have the same idea: that it's their fault or that they can save everything somehow if they just do the right things. Whenever I did anything 'wrong' I'd tell myself I was a bad person so I wouldn't do it again. Obviously I'd mess thing up pretty often, being human and all, so I spent a lot of time feeling bad about myself. Eventually I was ashamed to be me. It's taken years but I now realise I was a brave, strong, kind kid then for trying to take on that responsibility. Also, I don't have to believe bad things about myself to feel virtuous, I'm good enough. Things didn't work out for my parents, but they can work out for me. The 'you' in the song is the belief that you have to be perfect. A belief I fell in love with because it offered hope and safety but which was very harmful to me. The song for me expresses the joy of acknowledging your past and the part you played in it so that you can rise up again. On the other hand, the song could be about you... |
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| Echo and the Bunnymen – Seven Seas Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I really like this interpretation of the song. I always thought the line "paint your whole world blue and stop your tears from stinging" was more downbeat than that though, reflecting the way that when we're sad the whole world seems a less happy place. Perversely this can be a comfort because being sad in a world where contentment is possible offers hope - and disappointment - and envy. Holding on to this blue painted world imprisons us in depression. This doesn't fit as neatly with the cavemen line as your interprestation, though, and generally I like your reading a lot better. |
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| Morrissey – Everyday Is Like Sunday Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I have to disagree with comments about how this describes the futility of life. It beautifully details the dullness of the many gone to seed British seaside towns. The song describes Whitstable so perfectly it made me laugh out loud when I first heard it. Nobody's mentioned that this, like so many of Morrissey's songs is funny... "trudging back to the bench where your clothes were stolen" is a scene from a sitcom! Calling for the bombing of a town because it's boring is self-consciously and hilariously adolescent. I have no idea what greased tea and strange dust is about but wouldn't be surprised if there were some literary innuendo there. On the subject of which, the "come nuclear bombs" line is an obvious reference to John Betjeman's "Slough": "Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough" but lacks its snobbishness. Morrissey admirers might like to wonder if this little poem didn't influence him just as much as Wilde: http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html |
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| 10,000 Maniacs – A Campfire Song Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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If the protagonist were called Scrooge the message couldn't be any clearer: love is where real value lies. "Something is out of reach that he can't beg or steal nor can he buy". When love feels unattainable, our grief and need make us vulnerable in ways that we may not be able to bear. We don't know what caused this loss: 'something is out of reach, something he wanted.. he's being taunted' but we see him trying to make of wealth a comfort and a shield unaware that this drives him further from contact with nature, with humanity, with himself 'Never will he believe that his greed is a blinding ray'. Great song regardless of whether you know or care about the lyrics. |
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| Led Zeppelin – Tangerine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Yardbirds song "Knowing that I'm losing you", an earlier version of this song. Retains the same bittersweet feel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPh1r32TCMY | |
| Led Zeppelin – Tangerine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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According to the Wikipedia entry for the song: Like several Led Zeppelin tunes written by Page, [Tangerine] has its origins in an old Yardbirds song, in this instance a composition entitled "Knowing That I'm Losing You". The Yardbirds version features different lyrics, with the exception of the verse that begins with "Measuring a summer's day." |
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| Indigo Girls – Closer to Fine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable And lightness has a call that's hard to hear I wrap my fear around me like a blanket I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it I'm crawling on your shores I was depressed for a couple of years a long time ago. This verse describes the experience of trying to reach out when all your strength is going into locking yourself safe inside yourself. |
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| R.E.M. – You Are The Everything Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The point of poetry is not to decode it but to experience it, you don't jump into a lake just to swim immediately to the shore. Stipe gives us a sensual treat here. Love and loss, childhood and age are all here... and yet I feel always, as someone said above, safe and loved, on hearing this song. |
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| The Smiths – Accept Yourself Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I love this wise and generous song. It would be easy to take the theme of self-doubt and indecision and make of it a manifesto or a lament. This is neither. Morrissey says things that hadn't been said before in song and I don't think have been said since: that loneliness and boredom and commonplace and undramatic, that gentleness and patience and maybe taking an interest in the small details of life 'how do I feel about my shoes?' might be enough. |
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