| The Beatles – Taxman Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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1+19=20 1/20=0.05 Therefore, 5% Can I get my equivalency degree, now? |
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| The Beatles – She Said She Said Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Largely thanks to George Harrison's fascination with Indian culture, the latter Beatles ventured into traditional Eastern themes. Tomorrow Never Knows, one of their trippier tracks, features monastic, humming lyrics while describing the art of meditation. Yet despite their wandering style, The Beatles were a Western band through and through, greatly shaping a whole era's culture on their native side of the meridian. She Said She Said sketches a story about a melancholic girl who expresses her feelings with the darkest aspect of Eastern enlightenment - knowing the afterlife. This girl isn't happy, though, so I suppose she's just posturing with her jabber about being dead inside. She comes off as a little melodramatic. Prince charming of this song, the narrator and John Lennon, is probably an equally Bohemian friend of the melancholic girl. He must be buying into some Eastern philosophy if the girl is making him feel like he had never been born - I don't think that means anything, really. The two lean on each other: the girl confides her sadness, the man is given a chance to rescue her. Since the man knew happiness as a boy, and in all likelihood both probably know some happiness in their present life, there is a glimmer of hope in a future together, although nothing is guaranteed. Isn't tentative hope at the heart of music? |
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| Fountains of Wayne – Prom Theme Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| The typical prom image is of the king and queen. Fountains of Wayne subvert this in a prom song about two (male) best friends leading a memorable night together. While the girls are passed out on the beach, the friends are playing air guitar... and probably knocking back a few beers between songs. | |
| Wilco – One Sunday Morning (For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend) Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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This song is about a man coming to terms with his estranged father's death and the religious fanaticism that ruined their relationship. The first verse prefaces the core narrative. "One son is gone" refers to the death of the narrator's father, who is someone's son. "Against the weather dawning...": The second verse begins the narrator's digression into the core narrative. It sets up the song with some foreboding imagery and establishes the narrator's father's disdain. "Outside I look lived in...": Verse 3, lines i and ii, develop the narrator's emotional dishevelment. His condition is so poor that he has physically grown frail. "How am I forgiven...": Verse 3, lines iii and iv, reveal a braveness within the narrator, who no longer needs God's forgiveness for atonement, just the time it takes for him to overcome any damage, by his own hard work. "This I learned without warning...": Verse 4, lines i and ii is a phrase that references the narrator's spontaneous loss of faith. Out of nowhere, hatred for his entered the narrator. Toward the end of the core narrative, the narrator reuses this line very poetically. "In time we thought I would kill him": Although immediately evidence for the narrator's vigorous hatred toward his father, this line also establishes some solidarity within the narrator's family. The "we" covers people the narrator and his father mutually know, so as I interpret it, it shows that the narrator had family in-tune with his spiteful emotions. I like this verse because it develops some additional subtext by espousing a gradient of fanaticism, and shows that typical religious families have members with variable religious commitment - This line also shows that the narrator's father is particularly angry, since he is apart from his family. "O' but I didn't know how": This isn't a death metal song, so the narrator probably wouldn't kill his father. However, this line underscores the pain caused by ultimately loving someone but being in immense conflict with them all at once. "I said it's your God I don't believe in...": As I see it, verse 5, lines i and ii eliminate any ambiguous interpretations of this song. The narrator is pretty clear; he told his dad he no longer shared his beliefs. "Knocked down by the long lie": Religion is the offender in question, and the narrator has called it the long lie. His father was its victim. "He cried I fear what waits for you": Classic doomsday fear-mongering on the father's part. "I can hear those bells...": I doubt the narrator's hearing wedding bells. "I feel relief I feel well...": By verse 6, lines iii and iv, the narrator is still conflicted about his father's death. His proclaimed relief could stem from many things. The narrator could be relieved in knowing that the animosity between him and his father was buried along with him; the narrator could be relieved smugly. Interpreting verse 6, line iv literally reveals a blatant paradox, but what it really means is that the narrator is confident his father isn't scolding him from the afterlife. "Ring 'em cold for my father...": In verse 7, the narrator reclaims his father. In the words "ring 'em", I tonally hear something of a jovial farewell, with any hints of sarcasm rapidly fading. The narrator has decoupled his father from the religious fanaticism that wrenched them apart by poetically telling Jesus off. "Something sad keeps moving...": Solace has not found the narrator by verse 8, lines i and ii, so he "wandered around." This sentiment should ring loud with the song's listeners, who must empathize with the confusion associated with grief. I personally get a vibe of drugs, sex, and self-destruction although those first two are nowhere to be found in the lyrics. "I I fell in love with the burden...": The narrator has become consumed by his father's death, which by verse 8, lines iii and iv, has finally hit him face first. I imagine the narrator vehemently combating religious ideology, and/or perhaps mentally cycling through the vicissitudinous relationship with his father to a crippling extent. "Bless my mind I miss...": By verse 9, lines i and ii, the narrator confesses his truth; he misses his father! Here, the narrator makes a huge concession to his father's ways in an ironic, but endearing tone. The cry for true relief, "bless my mind", is phrased piously despite the narrator's atheistic convictions. Longing for "being told how to live" is quite unlike the narrator. Nevertheless, these were his father's traits which he is now looking beyond. "What I learned without knowing": The core narrative returns to this phrase, this time to tell us the narrator's love for his father. All throughout their ideological conflict, the narrator was clouded from all the good his father brought to life, now missing being told how to live - advice in a loving, paternal way. This phrase ties the narrator's relationship with his father together; although he was a harsh and didactic man, as we learned when this phrase first took meaning, the narrator's father is still his god damn father! "How much more I owe than I can give": The narrator acknowledges how much of an impact his father has had on him, now expressing regret because he can no longer reciprocate. Verse 10 is a repetition of the first verse. It ends the core narrative which is the narrator's meditation. By the lyric's end, much clarity has been accomplished, but the narrator's emotional rubble has yet to settle. Instrumentation completes the song's story. First, the song lingers on a painful, monotonous bass segment. The mundane thuds audibly construct a rut. A guitar flourish and a piano key start a cautious transition back into the post-verse refrain. There is a different outlook to be had now; even though everything's the same, we are different. The bass begins to skip melodically with pleasant reverberation from keys and chords. The story about grief has ended, but from it continues a story of happiness. I love you, grandpa. |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Bullet with Butterfly Wings Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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The narrator feels weak and constricted, hence "rat in a cage." Ultimately, he finds no redemption in this song, relenting the words "and I still believe that I cannot be saved". (He is later redeemed in "Muzzle", which follows this song in their respective album, "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness".) The narrator's frustration is directed toward a vague force that's restraining his happiness. He begins his lament with the statement, "the world is a vampire, sent to drain." However, it is implied that his own worst enemy is actually himself. It is his impractical standard for success/perceived freedom, desiring to be "the chosen one", that is holding him back. Allusions to this theme can be detected in "Siamese Dream"-- Today, in which Corgan as the narrator admits that he "wanted more than life could ever grant [him]". Of course, connections to the music industry can be made within BWBW. However, I would like to stress that Corgan's lyrics aren't strictly about the music industry. For reference, Coheed and Cambria employ a similar technique as the Smashing Pumpkins: They base their songs' themes on a comic book they publish in conjunction with their music. So, they incorporate a broader meaning within their music while also including one that applies to their comic books. Likewise, Corgan's music is written in such a way which simultaneously bases it on something while also incorporating broader meaning . Corgan's lyrics are based on his own life to enhance their potency, but they are written ambiguously to be relevant to his listeners (among other reasons one would obscure their own experiences). |
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| Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song is about a drug. It is an opiate commonly used as a powerful anesthetic and it is called heroin. The lyrics are framed around two people, conceivably band mates, getting high with one another to ease the stress of their vocation. "That'll keep you going through the show ". This lyric refers to the narrator getting high in order to overcome any potential nerves he may have in performing on stage. "But other than the doctors drugs..." Morphine, a "doctors drug", is essentially the same narcotic as heroin. If you want to listen to a song that foils "Comfortably Numb", take a listen to The Smashing Pumpkin's "Hummer". |
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| Tony Castles – Heart in the Pipes (KAUF remix) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| This song's meaning seems to be a mix between a break-up and doing drugs. | |
| Alanis Morissette – Ironic Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Almost everything she mentions is sardonic. I guess that doesn't roll of the tongue quite as well. | |
| Wilco – One Sunday Morning (For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend) Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This song peters on significantly after its lyrics come to rest. There is a particular instrument dynamic that always brings a tear to my eye: Right after the narrator ceases his recollection, the song lingers on a painful, monotonous bass segment. Although the narrator's spoken account has concluded by this point, his listlessness is made most palpable here. The mundane thuds of the bass audibly construct the narrator's mental rut. Then it is so emotionally uplifting when the song fades out with a jumpy, melodic bass line. | |
| 009 Sound System – With a Spirit Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| In Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis", when Muriel the piano player asks the narrator if he's " a Christian child", he replies with, "m'am I am tonight." The deep intensity of playing with her figuratively overpowered his rational faculties. Similarly, in "With a Spirit", the narrator tells the listener to "[not] think that God has died, this time." In our time, the prominence of religious belief has faded due to rational thought. God can be said to have died from within our collective conscious. Although atheism, liberating in the sense that it expresses what is likely to be the truth, by the same token brings with it a wave of cynicism. If the traditional belief that promises an after life with a benevolent being is false, what happens to us when we die? The implications are foreboding. This song encourages the listener to abandon their cynicism and just indulge in the basest of life's pleasures. Don't stop smoking those drugs, because they've got you feeling so high! | |
| k-os – Born to Run Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I largely disagree with this analysis. This song is definitely about individuality. | |
| Boston – More Than A Feeling Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Hmm, I don't think that's what the line is implying. The line sung prior to "I closed my eyes and she slipped away" is "And dream of a girl I used to know". With that said, I believe Marianne has been long gone, and upon shutting his eyes after delving into his dream, the protagonist loses the mental clarity Marianne. I believe this observation coincides with the previous verse where the protagonist states he clearly remembers other people, yet he fails to hold on to Marianne. This following assertion may sound contrived, but I believe this song is about a delusional man (why else would the sun be gone), that has only vague images of a single girl he remembers. Yes, he does claim to remember people as clear as the summer sun, but how clear is a non-existent sun (see the first line)? This assertion can be reaffirmed by the refrain "More than a feeling", as though he is telling us he is not crazy. A more grounded interpretation is that the song's protagonist is depressed about losing a girl friend/wife from years ago, and painstakingly longs for her. That doesn't tie the lyrics in an interesting way though, now does it? |
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