submissions

Paul Simon – Under African Skies Lyrics	9 months ago
@[tappanking:53491] My intuition says "I think you've nailed it". However, I do not see a reference to "the dream of falling" in "An American Tune". My feeling about it is that it is a reference to the biblical fall of man, and his calling upon God for salvation from his plight, and this is a kind of fantasy that the modern world has woken up from (I have an opposite perspective).

submissions

Madness – Our House Lyrics	6 years ago
@[cosmicone:30055] If this is what the writer was expressing, then I think the song is quite brilliantly concieved.

submissions

Madness – Our House Lyrics

6 years ago

I've always felt that there was a divorce going on in the house, and that the kids were clinging to this idealized image of family. I think there are sad undertones in the music, a feeling that is both happy and melancholic simultaneously. I think the line that cued me into this was "two dreamers". Without carefully reading the lyrics, I took this to mean the idea that the mother and husband could stay together permanently was a kind of pipe dream given the forces of society - materialism, change, greed, whatever. So, I take it to be the fantasy of one of the kids as the reality of divorce threatens their psychological world. No doubt, my own experiences have colored the interpretation.

submissions

The Shins – Sea Legs Lyrics

11 years ago

I'm really amazed that some people don't dig this song, as for me it the melody is incredibly beautiful and profound. It is playing extremely loudly in my head at this moment. I love the broken rhythm and bass line, and some of the indian sounding notes in the bass and in the vocal make me think it has origins in some unknown ancient culture. Yeah, I kind of feel like my spirit is flying when I hear it.

submissions

Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime Lyrics

14 years ago

I think like many of the songs on "Remain in Light", this song is a critique of the path of normalcy and materialism, verses the path of spirit ("water"). Sonically, there is a synth sound that plays continuously during the song (except for the chorus) that represents water every-present. The song has religious overtones shown in the vocal delivery of a preacher in the vein of MLK. Water relieves thirst, it washes clean, it is there after the money is gone, but also it represents rebirth or baptism. In this case, the man seeks the path of normalcy but finds himself unable to find a coherent meaning of his life in the in the face of existential questions - he finds his he has no deep foundations. On the other hand, a huge body of water is there, potentially to absorb his ego, to wash his sins, satisfy his thirst for transcendence, and give him birth as a spiritual being, and provide the kind of existential rootedness and stability that he seeks. Jn 3:5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.

submissions

Alice in Chains – Would? Lyrics

14 years ago

I know there is a probably literal meaning to the the lyrics, but I've always had a strong impression given by the lyrics and the sound that it was about someone bowing down to Satan as their master. The harmony on "Know thee broken by master" is intentionally religious in the use of old English "thee", but the feeling is powerfully occultic, kind of monkish, like a dark monk singing a hymn to Satan. Also, it feels submissive to me, like as if he is bowing down to another power. "Into the flood again" seems like he is talking about the rush of heroin. So I wonder if aside from events and practices that the song may relate to, if on a higher level it's about going down into the great hole of no return, whether it is addiction or satanism. "I am the light of the world, Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of live" JN 8:12

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