| Sunset Rubdown – Nightingale/December Song Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I almost wonder if this song isn't about a band member or ex-band member from one of Spencer's other projects. I have a few reasons for saying this and the interesting thing is that none of the reasons involve "He said he wants to move to Nashville and master the guitar". The primary reasons are 1. This album deals a lot with the divergence of friends and acquaintances and how they lead their lives (as we talked about in the forum "Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna O!", this song might represent the dichotomy created between the lives of the narrator and "he" in the song. 2. The metaphor of the Nightingale and the Bluebird, the immediate thing that comes to mind when a person uses the Nightingale as symbolism is creativity as the Nightingale has a very distinct song (and also the historical and cultural use of this symbolism to suggest this). Also, the Nightingale is migrative as "he" is- in wanting to move to Nashville to harvest his talent and creativity. Having said this, I don't believe that the use of fire symbolizes "Life" but rather "Livelihood and creativity". "He" in the song represents an explosion of creativity, perhaps even a forced creativity in the actions like "covered his body in mud" and "swam in a lake of holy water". These seem like spiritual attempts at harvesting creativity for "he". The reason that I wonder if this is about a band member is that, well, we all know that members of Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade have created loads of side projects (Frog Eyes, Moonface, Handsome Furs, Johnny and the Moon) and they've gone different directions and came back, but it seems that most of the acclaim resides in the bands that Spencer is involved in. I think that this song is a bit of a cautionary tale, about a person forcing creativity, perhaps somewhat humble in a way about the means of nurturing creativity rather than harvesting it, like a bluebird rather than a raucous Nightingale. I think that Spencer does a bit of sympathizing with the line "I see us all as lonely fires that have burned as long as we remember" saying that neither branch of the dichotomy is gifted as an artist but rather that they are "sacrificial virgins" of their muse. Perhaps "he" in the song is meant to return to Spencer as a band member so they can amalgamate their two forms of creativity and continue to create evocative music- as many band members have- branched out and returned to create undeniably good albums (EXPO!WOO!W.P). Even if its wrong, I'd like to see if this song is an analysis of how Spencer views his creativity and the means of creating art through music. |
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| Sunset Rubdown – Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh! Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think its funny that you figured this out by thinking about the artist and the canon of the album rather than relying solely on the song like most people are. Your first step to discovering a lot of what this song has to say was asking yourself "What do we expect of Spencer and what have we come to expect from this album". I'm very impressed. | |
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