| The Beach Boys – Heroes and Villains Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Those aren't the full lyrics! Scandal! What happened to sunny down snuff etc etc...? Enjoyed reading those interpretations. Agree Dark Mind-its American history but think a little later than you indicate. The spirit that must be kept high is the pioneer spirit. I don’t think it’s about the Pilgrim fathers, I think the time is later, 1850s-60s-ish, the speaker is one of those pioneer characters like Raphael Pumpelly who went to Arizona to mine / exploit the resources and lived cheek by jowl with the Native Americans, constantly at war, and recording their experiences- 'to write in the rough' Spanish and Indian home seemed to be gesturing at Mexico, again another scene of white settlers arriving from the Great Northern Cities to try and make good and eventually settling. It's one of those settlers looking back on his life with an agreeable feeling of contentment at a life lived well. I think the line that clarifies things a little is the one from a snippet not used in the final track, ‘Bicycle rider, see what you’ve done to the church of the American Indian’. My guess is that it’s essentially about the interaction between black culture / white culture, (white exploiting black ) which fits the song but could be alluding to rock n roll itself. Brian once described his music as ‘White spiritual music’. The song is a mish mash of black and white influences - (the la la las are very similar if not stolen from Ben E King’s Spanish Harlem) and whitey’s barbershop close harmony. ‘Heroes & Villains’ is an ambiguous or playful/ironic title. Were the pioneer Natty Bumpo characters Heroes or Villains? Were they bold self reliant characters who forged a path for civilisation, or cruel dead-eyed adventure capitalists etc etc…yawn yawn. Cotillion could just be a cotton flag , could it not? Blasted with holes by disgruntled natives but still proudly aloft. God bless us, one and all! |
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| The Jam – Funeral Pyre Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Weller must have been channeling something here. Surprised no one has mentioned David Cameron and his mooted love of the Jam in connection with this record. They tend to mention Eton Rifles for obvious reasons, but this record seems much more apposite with mention of the 'crisis' and the rich looking cheerfully on. It's hard not to think of Osborne's grin and his perpetual ski-ing holidays. Probably an attempt to mimic the apocalyptic feel of London Calling, but it tops it because this record genuinely has a strange and spooky feeling to it. Agree with sivilla, if only they'd gone out on this instead of the insipid white soul stuff, their reputation would be much higher. It's like the funeral pyre is for punk idealism or leftism in pop or the group itself, since after this, the ambition of pop and what could be done with it was narrowed. In this, it's similar to Strange Town, another Jam high water-mark. | |
| Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned Browning. I’m sure there’s an explicit influence of “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning- and, by extension, King Lear (of which more later) Childe Roland has the same emotionally confused & disorientated protagonists, the apocalyptic imagery & landscape , the vaguely medieval setting & the tower itself (which may or may not hold the Holy Grail). Like the song, it ends with a rider approaching the tower to meet his fate, something sinister is about to happen... Childe Roland was inspired by the storm scene in King Lear —and I think Lear is in there too-the speaker in the song is obviously someone of high social status- in the storm scene the King talks to the fool (the joker) who makes these acute observations about the absurdity of existence. All the women coming and going is Prufrock, innit? T S Eliot is namechecked in Desolation Row too. Fits in with the meaninglessness of life theme. Surely (as others have said) there is no ultimate meaning to the song, it’s just a string of highly evocative/suggestive images, like Imagist poetry, its gesturing at something..no reason to get excited. |
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