| MS MR – Bones Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This is a great explanation! It not only explains the song so well, but gives great insight into what others in our lives may be experiencing. I hope that society's understanding of the science and the experience of mental health issues increases and becomes less stigmatized. Also, I hope that regardless of how people encounter challenges in issues pertaining to mental health, they can seek ways to persevere and ameliorate them, to the extent possible. |
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| De-phazz – The Mambo Craze Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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from http://www.gullbuy.com/buy/2002/12_24/dephaz.php: The CD starts off with the extended version of The Mambo Craze. When The Mambo Craze first appeared on their second record Godsdog I loved the track. The new version is quite fine. It adds a few voice samples. I wish I could identify them all! I did recognize Ricky Ricardo saying 'Why Lucy, your eyes are filled with tears' and Jane Jetson saying 'The orchestra's getting ready. Dance with me George.' There are a few echo effects added to the music and vocals of the song as well. The Mambo Craze is a very attractive song, no doubt. |
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| Arcade Fire – Ready to Start Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| some of the lyrics that I copied-and-pasted are wrong. ugh, sorry. the lyrics need to be updated to what @humanlyperson posted | |
| Arcade Fire – Ready to Start Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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IMO, @emciptanya has the best interpretation of the song so far (although a few other comments are in this same vein). My understanding of the meaning is similar, but with a small difference. I agree that the main idea is about idealism vs. commercialism, and also having to make the choice between them. That much is clear from the get-go, with "Businessmen drink my blood / Like the kids in art school said they would" But the key here is "And if I was pure / You know I would / And if I was yours / But I'm not". In the dichotomy of blood-sucking businessmen and art-school indie musicians, if one is "pure" and the other one "corrupt", it's the indie musicians who are pure. (Side note: Agreed, RIAA is a bunch of punks.) Who is he talking to when he says that? Not the businessmen; they don't care whether he's pure. If it were the businessmen inviting him to come out tonight, when he doesn't feel like it, then it definitely would not happen if he were "pure" (true to his indie roots, perhaps?) Instead, it makes more sense that he's talking to his indie music friends. They're the ones who care and would know what he would do if he were pure. They're the ones who are asking him to come out tonight, and asking about their friendship. So clearly, there's some element of business success, and the downsides that go with it, that Arcade Fire experience, for better or for worse. Of course -- they're probably the most popular indie band. (I love their music!) But that goes against the starving artist, fiercely independent at all costs type of mentality that they must have started with. Is it really so bad that people actually like their music and their message enough to make them be so successful? Well, the friends immediately question AF's bona fides, "You say, can we still be friends[?]" But AF doesn't think that there's anything wrong with their fans' support. AF is still the same, and people just happen to like it. (I mean, people just like Funeral and The Suburbs. Do fans express as much interest, real or fake, in Neon Bible? Not as many. So it goes.) So AF says, if the businessmen are sucking the blood of AF, then AF will re-evaluate their situation and begin again with the businessmen. At the scale AF deals with, you can't hire indie companies to organize all your concerts, but, at least, you can at least re-negotiate a fairer cut from the contracts with the businessmen. So when it comes to their friends, AF says that they're not going to throw away their success just because some of their indie friends don't like it. They're not going to throw what they have away to "stick it to the man" -- not because they're afraid of what their friends are thinking ("If I were scared"), not because they don't have much going on business-wise anyways which makes it an easy position to hold ("If I were bored"), not because they are absolutist in their approach ("If I were pure"), and not because they're beholden to anyone besides themselves ("If I were yours"). These friends who are questioning AF's bona fides don't sound like good friends after all. They sound jealous, maybe, because true friends are happy for each other. So it sounds like AF realizes that those friends suck, and it's no wonder they say, "Now you're knocking at my door / Saying please come out against the night / But I would rather be alone / Than pretend I feel alright". Stupid frienemies. And furthermore, those frienemies probably aren't bold enough to buck the system themselves, "All the [art] kids have always known / That the emperor wears no clothes / But they bow down to him anyway / 'cause it's better then being alone." So they're hypocrites, too. Truly working 100% outside the system and sustaining a movement for change is a hard thing. AF knows that it's hard, and that effecting real change might require a little dancing with the devil, even if that idea is heretical in hardcore indie circles, "I would rather be wrong than / Live in the shadows of your song. / My mind is open wide and / Now I'm ready to start." Time will tell who's in a better position to make change. Maybe it's already happening, "You're not sure / You opened the door / and step out into the dark." Lots of issues going on there, it's kind of deep. It's a lot like U2's "Gone". Sorry for the epistle -- I feel like I just explained 1000 jokes or something. But it took me a while to figure this out, and I'm not sure if others would get it otherwise. It may not be "correct", and it's nice to see everyone finding their own meaning in something. My interpretation has really been resonating with me personally for a few months, now. Enjoy! |
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| Arcade Fire – Ready to Start Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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IMO, this is the best interpretation of the song so far (although a few other comments are in this same vein). My understanding of the meaning is similar, but with a small difference. I agree that the main idea is about idealism vs. commercialism, and also having to make the choice between them. That much is clear from the get-go, with "Businessmen drink my blood / Like the kids in art school said they would" But the key here is "And if I was pure / You know I would / And if I was yours / But I'm not". In the dichotomy of blood-sucking businessmen and art-school indie musicians, if one is "pure" and the other one "corrupt", it's the indie musicians who are pure. (Side note: Agreed, RIAA is a bunch of punks.) Who is he talking to when he says that? Not the businessmen; they don't care whether he's pure. If it were the businessmen inviting him to come out tonight, when he doesn't feel like it, then it definitely would not happen if he were "pure" (true to his indie roots, perhaps?) Instead, it makes more sense that he's talking to his indie music friends. They're the ones who care and would know what he would do if he were pure. They're the ones who are asking him to come out tonight, and asking about their friendship. So clearly, there's some element of business success, and the downsides that go with it, that Arcade Fire experience, for better or for worse. Of course -- they're probably the most popular indie band. (I love their music!) But that goes against the starving artist, fiercely independent at all costs type of mentality that they must have started with. Is it really so bad that people actually like their music and their message enough to make them be so successful? Well, the friends immediately question AF's bona fides, "You say, can we still be friends[?]" But AF doesn't think that there's anything wrong with their fans' support. AF is still the same, and people just happen to like it. (I mean, people just like Funeral and The Suburbs. Do fans express as much interest, real or fake, in Neon Bible? Not as many. So it goes.) So AF says, if the businessmen are sucking the blood of AF, then AF will re-evaluate their situation and begin again with the businessmen. At the scale AF deals with, you can't hire indie companies to organize all your concerts, but, at least, you can at least re-negotiate a fairer cut from the contracts with the businessmen. So when it comes to their friends, AF says that they're not going to throw away their success just because some of their indie friends don't like it. They're not going to throw what they have away to "stick it to the man" -- not because they're afraid of what their friends are thinking ("If I were scared"), not because they don't have much going on business-wise anyways which makes it an easy position to hold ("If I were bored"), not because they are absolutist in their approach ("If I were pure"), and not because they're beholden to anyone besides themselves ("If I were yours"). These friends who are questioning AF's bona fides don't sound like good friends after all. They sound jealous, maybe, because true friends are happy for each other. So it sounds like AF realizes that those friends suck, and it's no wonder they say, "Now you're knocking at my door / Saying please come out against the night / But I would rather be alone / Than pretend I feel alright". Stupid frienemies. And furthermore, those frienemies probably aren't bold enough to buck the system themselves, "All the [art] kids have always known / That the emperor wears no clothes / But they bow down to him anyway / 'cause it's better then being alone." So they're hypocrites, too. Truly working 100% outside the system and sustaining a movement for change is a hard thing. AF knows that it's hard, and that effecting real change might require a little dancing with the devil, even if that idea is heretical in hardcore indie circles, "I would rather be wrong than / Live in the shadows of your song. / My mind is open wide and / Now I'm ready to start." Time will tell who's in a better position to make change. Maybe it's already happening, "You're not sure / You opened the door / and step out into the dark." Lots of issues going on there, it's kind of deep. It's a lot like U2's "Gone". Sorry for the epistle -- I feel like I just explained 1000 jokes or something. But it took me a while to figure this out, and I'm not sure if others would get it otherwise. It may not be "correct", and it's nice to see everyone finding their own meaning in something. My interpretation has really been resonating with me personally for a few months, now. Enjoy! |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Yes, this is it! Thank you, colliemaedchen! And you put it so well. (Initially, I interpreted more literally -- thought that he was talking about wanting to have kids, and as a consequence, actually seriously thinking about moving back to the suburbs to live. But with that, I couldn't make much sense of "moving past the feeling".) If there's anything that I can add, it's when he mentions that he's moving past the feeling (of innocence) and into the night. I think that night/darkness throughout the album symbolizes a rejection of popular, consumerist culture. If the walls falling represents the loss of America's innocence and belief in the middle class American dream, perhaps the houses falling represents the sybmolic transition -- the collapse of the economy due to the housing market and the cold repossession of houses, despite the fond memories some grown-up gen-X'ers still have. |
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| Arcade Fire – Half Light II (No Celebration) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Hey everyone, It wasn't obvious, but I think I've figured it out... This song is about the commercialization of the US/Western World/the world and how it's made people void of humanity. San Francisco is a few hours away from the town where Win Butler (singer) was born, it was a hotspot of progressive cultural change in the '60s and '70s. But now, it's associated with Silicon Valley as the center of high-tech, dot-coms, etc. As in Sprawl II and perhaps other songs of the album, light is a metaphor for what is attractive (shiny) yet illusory (hollow, intangible) The over-speculation of dot-com stocks by greedy investors led to a stock market crash that left others suffering. And of course, the housing market collapse of 2008 has led to the current economic recession that still hasn't ended, and many people unrelated to the causes to lose lots -- their retirement savings, their mortgages, etc. Kids have seen their parents lose their jobs. Even now, there's no real reparations, and it's taken in everyone's minds that it's a done deal. If your house is repossessed, you're blamed for trying to afford outside of your minds, that you've set up yourself up for disaster already. But those who'd like most to accept things for what they are those who caused the problem, and they're afraid to really own up to what they've caused. Those who are left impoverished are struggling with their own problems to band together and effect change in the system, while those who profited and escaped lift a rich, unrewarding Already seeing what's happened in San Francisco, Win is saying that he's worried that all that's still good and natural in the world will be killed off by the effects of short-sighted human greed, superficiality, etc., which is happening faster than they expected. At some point, people will look back and wonder how things went wrong, but it will be far too late. Of course, this is just the gist of what I interpret. You may have other ideas. Personally, I'd also say that techology is a part of the self-destructive forces of commercialization sung about. Cool lyrics! |
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