| Sufjan Stevens – No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Tons of drug references in this song: capsule, stake in the heart, blood on the blade, take a hit, inhale fire, chasing the dragon, shade, Casper. I don't think that's the only message in the song, but there's a strong Eliot Smith vibe to the lyrics. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Drawn to the Blood Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| He has changed "my lover caught me off guard" to "the father of my last child" live in concert. Pretty sure this is about parental abuse. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Drawn to the Blood Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[ilurvepibbles:8893] or a female lover. He often sings from varying perspectives, and has been VERY careful about not revealing his sexual orientation. More likely, this is about his relationship with his mother (which is pretty much what the entire album is about). |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Owl and the Tanager Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This might be way off, but I strongly feel that this song is an allusion to the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus' experience of Golgotha connected with Sufjan's feeling of abandonment. So many images..."In seven hours I'd consider death" and "I'm bleeding in spite of my love for you, it bruised my will" makes me think of Jesus begging God to not die until he wept tears of blood. "I punched your ears and head and laughed and laughed" sounds like the centurions abusing Jesus. I am the ugliest prey...all of this seems to blur the lines between Jesus' victimization and Sufjan's loneliness (of which we are learning more and more with each album). | |
| Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People (Original Version) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I swear, I'm starting to wonder if I am frequently superimposing my own phenomenological treatment of faith onto Sufjan's lyrics, or if he's been incredibly consistent throughout his career. This song, again, reminds me of the problem of Jesus' ascension: How can one say "I will be with you always, even until the end of time" and then float up into the sky? How can someone love you at the deepest, most intimate level, and physically remove themselves from your life? How can we be a favored and transgressive? And especially in these last few albums (Adz aside, which seems to be specifically a personal account), Sufjan seems to indict the mainstream Church as worshipping an idol of their own pleasure. Certainly, Sufjan's faith is a suffering one, which can be exacerbated by looking about at churches that worship in the form of a rock concert and inspirational speech. Don't get me wrong...to accuse anyone who falls into a stereotype is just as prejudicial as the other forms of bias that have plagued mainstream America over the last 400 years. However, it doesn't make it any easier to suffer as a Christian, to suffer with other Christians, and to look about at the vast majority of Christians having fun and going about their lives as if their faith is a vacation from work or something. "And the people bowed and prayed, and what difference does it make for you and me?" "And what difference does it make I love you so much anyway And on your breast I gently lay Your arms surround me in the lake I am joined with you forever" The respite...this is my own cleft in the rock into which I climb when I'm angered by such thoughts. I don't want to accuse the Church, but it can be so hard and feel so lonely to have a love affair with Christ, and feel so distant from the most visible manifestations of the Church. To wonder why they don't chew over ethical, theological, political, or existential quandries all day...and I wonder if I am simply chasing a ghost...because that's how they make me feel. Like a madman wasting his time. But I hold onto my baptism, and there are moments of respite. The warm feeling comes, sometimes too quickly, like those feelings you get from a beautiful song, and are gone very soon. And that's the worst part...that you feel like what angers you when you see the rest...that you only love Christ from "the top of your heart"...because when you reach the bottom, it's too heavy and hard. You become distracted. "Suffer not the child among you Or shall you die young When the world's come and gone" This resonates with me. Don't put down the people who feel this naive love. If you appreciate the Arcade Fire's lyrics, you will get what Sufjan is saying here. Don't rob someone of their hope...of their childhood. Or maybe you've read Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". Don't rob someone of their innocence, like so many butchers of the Enlightenment have set out to do. I believe that all the dead, en route to that other side that none of us have seen fully, but the suffering have at least tasted, would say that those glimpses of innocent hope are what you carry in your cold hands...and our naivety hopes that the hold something that will warm us so that we can finally fully see the one who left us thousands of years ago. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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First, I wanted to agree with the commenter below that often times, people take lyrics way too literally. Sufjan has a degree in creative writing, and so he knows how to craft fictional characters to carry his intention in his lyrics. He might be gay...he might not...but I really don't think that is EVER the intention he puts into his music, unless it's being indirect. After owning most of his albums for a few years, but never giving them a thorough listen, I have been listening to his various albums intensively for a few months now. There are some themes that carry through all of the stories he tells in his music, and one that is most obvious to me is this modern existential tension inherent in orthodox Christianity. It seems to me that Sufjan has felt the presence of God in an intimate way, and yet also has felt the distance of God, and that he deals with that tension in his music. I have seen many, many examples of this tension in his music. A Sun Came has a play on words about the nearness of Christ, and the burning presence of Christ. Seven Swans carries several examples...To Be Alone with You is a pretty obvious reference to Christ' pursuit of man (You gave your body to the lonely, they took your clothes, you gave up a wife and family, you gave your Ghost...to be alone with me, you went up on the tree). It's like Sufjan is comparing the loss of each person...himself and Christ. He Woke Me Up Again talks about the loss of desire/attention, but that God wakes us up to Himself again and again. Everything culminates in the Transfiguration, which really models this tension...Christ as distant God (lost in the cloud) and as personal friend (have no fear, we draw near). Lots of stuff going on here. So to the Pallisades. There are so many things that can be construed as religious references: washing a face (baptism), my brother's red hat (sin/blood sacrifice), the number seven (perfection). But again, I like the other person's comment about not construing things too literally, so I will leave that stuff alone. Sufjan has mentioned in concert that this song is about a day that he went around traveling with his friend from youth, and how he gained his fear of flying things (probably him being facetious, but still). Flying things are a constant in Sufjan's songs, which refer to that alienness of otherworldly beings. Here, we see a flying thing touch Sufjan. The otherworldly touching the worldly. And then you get this language of loss...we were in love...I can wait...He was my best friend...From the backseat (distance)...the telling gets old...My friend is gone, he ran away, I can tell you, I love him each day...though we have sparred, wrestled and raged, I can tell you, I love him each day. At least to me, this SO explains how I feel about Christ. Why did He have to go away? I have had this utterly beautiful moments with Him, and then I just return to my ugly, mundane life. It's a bit like Sufjan sings in "The Child with the Star on His Head": "why crawl around in the snow when you know I'm right here waiting for you to expect something more? For I am warm, I am calling you close to my table" Why does He have to feel so far when He has felt so close at times? And I'm not seeing this lyric above for the Predatory Wasp, but this is the crux to the whole meaning for me: "Lamb of God we blow your horn, hallelujah! Unto us your Ghost is born, hallelujah!" (They sing it behind Sufjan's lyric: We were in love!) When a Ghost is born, the body flees. Blowing the horn is a reference to Christ' return in Revelation. How can this not be about Sufjan's struggle with the loss of God? About missing his friend and wanting him back? I might be reading my own story into the lyrics, but I REALLY think that this hits close to what Sufjan is trying to communicate. Again, he might be gay, but I don't think he's intending to communicate that in this song. JMO. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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First, I wanted to agree with the commenter below that often times, people take lyrics way too literally. Sufjan has a degree in creative writing, and so he knows how to craft fictional characters to carry his intention in his lyrics. He might be gay...he might not...but I really don't think that is EVER the intention he puts into his music, unless it's being indirect. After owning most of his albums for a few years, but never giving them a thorough listen, I have been listening to his various albums intensively for a few months now. There are some themes that carry through all of the stories he tells in his music, and one that is most obvious to me is this modern existential tension inherent in orthodox Christianity. It seems to me that Sufjan has felt the presence of God in an intimate way, and yet also has felt the distance of God, and that he deals with that tension in his music. I have seen many, many examples of this tension in his music. A Sun Came has a play on words about the nearness of Christ, and the burning presence of Christ. Seven Swans carries several examples...To Be Alone with You is a pretty obvious reference to Christ' pursuit of man (You gave your body to the lonely, they took your clothes, you gave up a wife and family, you gave your Ghost...to be alone with me, you went up on the tree). It's like Sufjan is comparing the loss of each person...himself and Christ. He Woke Me Up Again talks about the loss of desire/attention, but that God wakes us up to Himself again and again. Everything culminates in the Transfiguration, which really models this tension...Christ as distant God (lost in the cloud) and as personal friend (have no fear, we draw near). Lots of stuff going on here. So to the Pallisades. There are so many things that can be construed as religious references: washing a face (baptism), my brother's red hat (sin/blood sacrifice), the number seven (perfection). But again, I like the other person's comment about not construing things too literally, so I will leave that stuff alone. Sufjan has mentioned in concert that this song is about a day that he went around traveling with his friend from youth, and how he gained his fear of flying things (probably him being facetious, but still). Flying things are a constant in Sufjan's songs, which refer to that alienness of otherworldly beings. Here, we see a flying thing touch Sufjan. The otherworldly touching the worldly. And then you get this language of loss...we were in love...I can wait...He was my best friend...From the backseat (distance)...the telling gets old...My friend is gone, he ran away, I can tell you, I love him each day...though we have sparred, wrestled and raged, I can tell you, I love him each day. At least to me, this SO explains how I feel about Christ. Why did He have to go away? I have had this utterly beautiful moments with Him, and then I just return to my ugly, mundane life. It's a bit like Sufjan sings in "The Child with the Star on His Head": "why crawl around in the snow when you know I'm right here waiting for you to expect something more? For I am warm, I am calling you close to my table" Why does He have to feel so far when He has felt so close at times? And I'm not seeing this lyric above for the Predatory Wasp, but this is the crux to the whole meaning for me: "Lamb of God we blow your horn, hallelujah! Unto us your Ghost is born, hallelujah!" (They sing it behind Sufjan's lyric: We were in love!) When a Ghost is born, the body flees. Blowing the horn is a reference to Christ' return in Revelation. How can this not be about Sufjan's struggle with the loss of God? About missing his friend and wanting him back? I might be reading my own story into the lyrics, but I REALLY think that this hits close to what Sufjan is trying to communicate. Again, he might be gay, but I don't think he's intending to communicate that in this song. JMO. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Child with the Star on His Head Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Free album sampler on Noisetrade.com as well. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – The Child with the Star on His Head Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I usually just like to peruse the interpretations, but, as a Christian, I have found that many people have a hard time honing in on Sufjan's dense Christian imagery. This song is inherently...though, in typical Sufjan fashion, not overtly...about the Kingdom of God inaugurated by Christ' incarnation, or more plainly, about finding out what it means to be Christian in a pagan world. I don't read too much into some of these lyrics...or maybe I just don't know what he means in all of them. The scrambling around in the dark reminds me of Plato's cave, where we sit around watching shadows on the wall thinking that we've found what's real, true, and beautiful, when we've only seen a wimpy projection of that truth. Every once in a while, we might ascend out of the cave to catch a whiff of the beautiful Son, but so often, we are merely toying around with ugly things that we call beautiful. Eventually, we need to grow up and see this Beauty. I'm not sure if that latter half refers to the Christian familial greetings between brothers and sisters...or echoes Jewish stories about familial separation and reconciliation (i.e. the prodigal son)...or maybe he just liked that image...I dunno. Everything doesn't have to fit exactly. I'm pretty sure that the star on the head is a halo...used to denote holy people in icons and classical Christian art. The mother is the Virgin, blessed among women. I love that she is included here...I'm not Eastern Orthodox or Catholic, but the idea that a woman nursed a divine child...one that has the Government/the world polis on his shoulders...that he needed to be mothered and nursed...just fits this song perfectly...and enlightens any of the Christian faithful. Here we have the prodigal connection again...Christ calling those to the great banquet, which was denied by those honored with an invite, but taken up by the outcasts. It seems so silly that anyone would sit shivering in the cold, on the outside looking into such a wonderful scene...but there we are in the cave, fooling around with shadows...with empty things like schedules, and networking, and upward social mobility, and sports, and TV specials, and even with our own brokenness. I think the greatest image in this is engineering...I think of driving onto a bridge, simply assuming that the people who designed it were correct in their judgment. So much of our constructed lives are touched by engineers...not that those people are evil...but how empty are those building in comparison with what Sufjan describes in this album? And so, when Winter moves on into Spring, we are left with silly things like Christmas sweaters. They are ugly out of season, and go up in the closet for next year. Isn't magic of Christmas something underneath all this silly facade that we engineer? Something so simple as a boy lying in a manger...God Himself...and how He brings us together, beyond all the things with which we waste our lives...brings us to Him. I'm not assuming that everyone agrees with Christianity...but Sufjan's faith shines through so beautifully in this song...as it does in much of his music, if you know what you're looking at. That's not to say non-Christians don't enjoy the music as well, but you might want to at least look into the imagery if you're not familiar and you enjoy this album and others, like Seven Swans or Michigan. Sufjan is one of my favorite artists, as he is obviously Christian without having to force his faith into his art. Simply beautiful! |
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| Radiohead – Lotus Flower Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I think its true that most Radiohead songs are impossible to nail down objectively, and subjectivity will prevail. I also believe that post-Pablo Honey Radiohead rarely write about love in the sense taken here, as they are so anti-pop. Relationships, maybe. But Radiohead almost ALWAYS include apprehension to the modern condition, whether political or existential (my preference in their music :) ). As for this song, I believe it follows a path set out in the album, beginning the Buddhist (or a generally Eastern) path to purification and self-release. Lotus Flowers can symbolize this release, as they grow in mud, yet maintain beauty and purity floating on the surface of the water. They rise above. Lotus Flower signals the Bloom alluded to in the beginning of the album...the blooming of release from desire and attachment. Notice also that the frantic drumming and reliance upon complicated polyrhythms ebbs starting with this song moving through the rest of the album. Of course, these interpretations serve my own hermeneutical leanings. I suppose deconstructing a song line by line is fine. I just wonder if people assume that Thom writes a line, then completely clears his mind, and abandons any train of thought before writing the next. I think one can receive much more from a song if they assume that the song itself is a work of art, alongside the album (the collection), and treats things in context. I apologize for the arrogance or presumption. One should expect no less from Radiohead fanboys :) . |
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| Radiohead – Lotus Flower Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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My 2 pet peeves on this site: 1) Why do so many people automatically assume that every song ever written is about love and relationships? Are you people so obtuse that you cannot read the general, philosophical and socio-political underpinnings in, like, almost EVERY Radiohead song?! 2) Why do people deconstruct every song line by line? Do you think that Thom sits and writes a line, subsequently detaching from his previous thoughts to write another line and so on? You realize that each song has some thematic arc therein, right? If you're going to reduce every line to its raw form, at least find some cohesion within the context of the song. |
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| Radiohead – Lotus Flower Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I think you're on the right track. I'd add to focus on how Buddhist the album appears. Also, the first 4 tracks are similarly aligned. Mostly electronic, frantic 2-step/UK Garage-inspired beats, dealing with desire, longing and dissatisfaction. The last 4 songs seem to be a Buddhist approach at detachment from the aforementioned desire. Add to this the natural-feel to the art and imagery, and it all seems so cohesive. | |
| Radiohead – Just Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I've wondered lately if the Bends is about what becomes broken in human relationships...alienation and all that Radiohead M.O. It seems that while Radiohead albums are never hermetically-sealed Concept Albums, that they often have a cohesiveness based on the interests of the band at the time of recording. This song seems to describe how someone can be so oblivious to the fact that she drives away the people she tries to impress and befriend. Similar to Fyodor Karamazov...only at times, I think he knows exactly what he is doing. Either that, or someone who constantly invites pathological relationships. In either case, the obliviousness of the subject seems key. |
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| Radiohead – Bodysnatchers Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I concur. Same can be said about Arcade Fire's Suburbs. Seems to be a healthy dose of dissatisfaction with the legacy of modernity. | |
| Radiohead – Bodysnatchers Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I've seen you post this before, mainly on TKOL interpretations. You realize that dualism exists in MANY philosophies, correct? I'm not sure if I see the correlation between Radiohead's music and your cited philosophies. In fact...I'd say TKOL is much more Buddhist than anything else. | |
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