| The Shins – Australia Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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This song is pretty simple. Mercer is talk about life. He is talking about seizing our own lives and making them whatever it is we choose. He wants us to ignore the pressure from society to give definitive meaning to our lives. He seems to be singing to a girl, my guess is his daughter (dunno if he has one). In the first verse he is talking about how fun and easy life is when you are young and innocent. Speaking to a girl who hasn't yet fallen in love but, like most young girls, she is obsessed with boys: "They're gonna buy your life's time." Then comes the Cartwheels line. This about when the girl first falls in love. This is the start of her fall from innocence and distancing from self. Her shape on the dance floor makes Mercer want to gouge his eyes because, in my view, this is his daughter and naturally it is difficult for him to see his daughter grown up and romantically active. Lets skip the chorus, I have an idea of what he is referring to, but i'm not certain. Mercer is outspokenly against religion, see here: http://imgur.com/DG12B. I believe he is speaking about JC in the first verse after the chorus. His point is that Christianity is holding us down, it tells us we are naturally sinners and we must follow God's commandments to to live a virtuous life. Well, I won't get into my views on religion, but I think Mercer's are pretty clear. The next line about being pulled from the ocean refers to being baptized. When baptized, you are held underwater and then pulled out. In this case, once you are pulled from the water, you are confirmed/baptized into the church and thus it is too late for you. Next, the girl has found someone to marry. But this is not good. Mercer is very pessimistic about marriage in this verse. I believe he is associating marriage with the girl giving up her ambitions/passions/career as her husband is likely the provider in the relationship. The girl becomes raiser of the children. The more time she spends with him, the more her future is sealed and her aspirations go un-pursued. The fact that she was changed by "a potion" tells me that this was a shallow relationship and not a deeply loving one. Last verse is the most tragic in my view. Androids conundrum speaks to the idea that despite everything we understand about the arbitrariness and monotony of our lives, we do these things anyway, and as we get older we become more and more accepting of these things. We work the 9-5, we live a married life that keeps us from our dreams (why? so we can create more fucking kids?), and we go to church every sunday unquestioning of why the fuck we are apologizing. Furthermore, the emotions, Mercer's emotions, against this expected lifestyle slowly diminishes. In other words, as you get older, your lust for life dies, your desire to rebel fades. The fire inside of you goes out slowly but surely. And in the last line, since he is singing to a younger girl, I think he is saying: so lets go live now, right fucking now! Lets move to AUSTRALIA and leave this life behind! Lastly, at the beginning of the song we hear, "put ze ear covers on"; though this is minor and funny, this bolsters my theory that he is speaking to his daughter. Certainly, Mercer does not want to enlighten his children when they are young about his view of society and life, but he makes this song for when they are ready to hear it. |
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| The Lumineers – Ho Hey Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| maybe she's a ho | |
| Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Songmeanings botched these lyrics and it's a tragedy. This song is about convincing yourself a relationship is good, that your partner loves you the way you love them. It's one of the most helpless and most trapping feelings if you have had. Most emotional song i have heard from Tame Impala | |
| Spoon – Anything You Want Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I think this song is about an intimate connection with someone but for one reason or another you two are destined not to be together. So you lie and push off the inevitable, but you both know you won't stay together. You are in love with this person more than you will be with anyone else ever, but the relationship is not practical.. or something. | |
| Slightly Stoopid – Wiseman Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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The better i understand this song the less i like it. It seems like Slightly Stoopid is saying the ambitious man who wants to be something and becomes it is the real loser because he betrays his authentic self. My problem is the assumption that the man who "controls his destiny" is betraying himself, why can't someone want to do something and do it. Probably overanalyzing |
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| Kid Cudi – Up Up & Away Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Great songing. Lots of misinterpreted lyrics. | |
| Starfucker – German Love Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| nailed it | |
| Arcade Fire – Month of May Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Yea i agree good reading, i think it is a call to action to the youth who have seen the shallowness and negatives of society and decided to rebel through rejecting society and living outside of it, sort of adopting a idle role, rather than accepting society as is and attempting to actively critique and help it; sort of what Win Butler does with his music. The next song 'wasted hours' continues ideas presented in this song with only a less critical and more supportive of his idea that the younger generation must be constructive in order to help society; 'wasted hours that you make new, turn into a life that we could' presents the idea that he was constructive and found a life in society in which he succeeds and critiques the world. | |
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