| R.E.M. – Losing My Religion Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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I'm a huge R.E.M. fan and have been following the members' interviews and public statements for decades now. First of all: yes, Michael Stipe has said clearly it's a song about unrequited love (and that he was trying to one-up "Eevry breath you take" in terms of sounding even more obsessive than Sting). The narrator (he) loves someone (let's call them a "she" for distinction purposes) and she doesn't love him back. Also, "losing my religion" means "losing my composure" or "losing my ability to remain cool and civil". Also, Stipe constantly wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style, meaning you will not find a straight narrative line, but more like scattered pieces concerning one same theme. So there's no need to feel frustrated when the explanation below changes from one aspect to the other abruptly. "Life is bigger than you" is the narrator trying to bring the woman's importance down to a more reasonable level. He is kinda arguing with himself: he loves her so much that it feels like madness. So he tries to come back to his senses and reason that "come on, you're not that big, woman. Life is bigger than you, and you are not me", because his well-being, his health, should feel more important than she is. But he's still struggling with that notion: his love is so huge, he has to struggle to bring it back to a more reasonable level. She can't be bigger than life or bigger than himself. She's just a person. "The lengths that I will go to" vs" the distance in your eyes" is pretty self-explanatory, right? It's just a clever word game here. He would cross the world for her, but she wouldn't care, as she's distant. At a given moment, he "says too much", maybe even on purpose so as to be noticed. That's why he says "I set it up". He's in the corner, shy, abandoned, cast aside. But internally, he's in the spotlight due to the turmoil going on inside. He's scared people could be noticing his obsession, which would put him into the spotlight. Both situations -- going unnoticed and being worried as he is -- lead him to (almost) lose his composure, his ability to remain cool -- or, in Southern terms, "lose his religion". Pretty much the rest of the song follows that intense dichotomy he's living with and the anguish that provokes on him and make him lose his composure/religion. He tries to keep up with her, not knowing if he can do it. At a moment, he thinks he said too much. But did he, actually? Or maybe he didn't even say enough? He's very much inside his own mind, worrying like crazy, obsessive, trying to stop thinking of her, but can't. He thinks he heard her laughing, singing, trying... He's so obsessed that, at each whisper of his every waking hour, he has to carefully chose his words so as not to embarrass himself and fall in disgrace. Like a puppy -- a hurt, lost and blinded fool --, he keeps his eye on her, trying to smother his feelings while struggling to balance that and a normal life where that feeling goes unnoticed. Again, he thinks he just said too much, but actually didn't say enough, didn't set anything up. Something he says at one moment can be considered "the hint of the century". But, if she notices that, he's sure she won't correspond to his feelings, so that will be the slip that brings him "to his knees, failed". God, if those fantasies become known to her, flailing around awkwardly as they are, he's doomed. He realizes for a moment that those times when he thought he heard her laughing, singing, trying... were all just a dream. He cries, thinks of trying, but why try? And then the song ends without a resolution to his case, because such is life. He'll have to give it time to heal. |
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| Pixies – Velouria Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| I used the moniker "GodzillaFoil" for a short while. Been using Gargumma for years now. Same person. :) | |
| David Bowie – Modern Love Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[GodzillaFoil:8303] I completely misread the "paper boy" thing. It's about waking up early, but that doesn't change anything. He's never gonna fall for this "modern faith". | |
| David Bowie – Modern Love Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This is the very first time I stop and try to decipher the lyrics to this song. I honestly think that Bowie was just replacing the word "faith" with "love", so it wouldn't become too on the nose what he wanted to say. So I don't think the song has anything to do with relationships in general or girls. It's a downright refusal of a "modern" way (as he sees it) of exercising faith that he profoundly disagrees with -- and I'm not sure what it is, but "no religion" is a pretty clear clue that he's talking about organized religion. He doesn't think it truly connects him with God (nor God buys it, according to the lyrics). He reads the news expecting this (human organization around religion) to change, but it doesn't. When he's "standing in the wind" or "lying in the rain", he's just in the middle of the whole "modern faith" commotion. He is in doubt whether he should give up on his old ways in favor of the new ones, and tries to do it, but never waves bye-bye to his own faith. This "new" way of professing faith shows no sign of life and is just the power to charm, much like neopentescotal religion, shallow, loud, dogmatic, but never really deep as he wanted it to be. It even makes him party with the whole stupid song and dance, but just that. And that's true: organized religion will take a man to church on time, as if programmed to worship. But he's terrified of it. He wants something more. He doesn't believe in this "modern faith". | |
| Pixies – Velouria Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The song is about a woman. The writer remembers seeing her when driving by Northern California, close to Mt. Shasta. He believes she lives there, maybe under the mountain, because she's somewhat related to the Lemurians, a mythical people who came from the lost continent of Lemuria. In California, there are people who believe the myth in those terms. The thing is, the writer remembers her covered in a kind of velvet-like fabric, like velour or velveteen, maybe due to the cold and snow of Mt. Shasta. The "coat" with her eyes out makes her look like a lemur, which is funny, given the name of her people. A nice pun. The writer wants to give her a name. When "Victoria" comes to mind, he makes the connection to "Velouria, the woman dressed in velour". He also remembers she, somehow, reflected the sea and the snow of Mt. Shasta, even if wearing the velour. Maybe this ability was due to her mysterious (some say "alien-like") origin. When Mt. Shasta in covered in snow and melting, she also reflects the "tears of Shasta". The final touch is, he got intrigued by that woman - after all, she was too exotic to go unnoticed. He can't help but admiring her and thinking about the longest times her story has been recounted. Phew... |
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