| Bright Eyes – Cartoon Blues Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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dude, haha, i know this response is like five years late but i totally agree with you! this song has been my jam for a pretty long time and i had always gotten a feel of restlessness from him, especially with fame and new-found confusion. p.s. i really do love your username, sufjan is da best |
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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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so like, i read probably a fourth of the comments here after all of these years and haven't really agreed with most of them fully so far. here's what's clear to me: the narrator is NOT a female just because of the leg warmer thing, it's just sufjan who's talking about his BROTHER not his best friend. you can refer to your brother as your best friend if you want, especially if you're really close. and i got most of these things clarified from other people saying that in interviews, sufjan was talking about the meaning being about him and his brother in camp when they were younger, being afraid of huge wasps. so yeah, i guess the wasp isn't really a metaphor which a lot of people have said it to be, but really the whole experience of this childhood event is a symbol of childhood innocence and sufjan's sweet memories. and oh yeah, at the end when he's talking about how his best friend is gone now, and whatevs, he's just talking about how in the present they're not as close as they used to be literally and emotionally. so yeah, it's not about his brother killing himself necessarily, but just growing apart and that puts quite a sad ending to such a nice, childhood memory. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Majesty, Snowbird Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| man, there must be a really good damn reason he hasn't released this song all of these years.... | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Djohariah Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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sufjan stevens is freaking amazing. you know how everybody is always like commenting on songs (especially bright eyes songs) and saying that the song made them cry? well, i never really was able to relate to that until i heard this song and romulus...both made me cry my goddamn eyes out. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone with You Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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oh, yeah, and i forgot to add, the significance of the verses are also vital to the meaning of the song obviously. like i said, the first verse dwells on a man's sacrificial thoughts for love or god or whatever, but it connects to the meaning by saying that no matter how hard you try or whatever you do, you will stay be alone like every body else and feel that that common, inevitable feeling of lonliness. the second verse is the protaganist talking to a prostitute and a man who left his family, and he refers to them because he is saying that no matter who you are also, you're going to feel the same feeling like the rest of the human race. so yeah, maybe my perspective of the meaning makes more sense now, haha. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – To Be Alone with You Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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um, i don't know if anybody has already said this yet but i didn't feel like reading through 135 comments from the last four years to check, but i mean guys, like always, i feel like lyrics are written from the author's specific perspective but he/she doesn't really mean for everybody always to necessarily agree with him/her or think about the same thing when they listen to it, but instead create their own perspectives of it. whew. that was a very extensive, run-on sentence, haha. but anyway, i totally understand that Sufjan is a devout Christian so that may very well mean that the various biblical references do certainly exist. But, like i think that this song is more than religion, more specifically christianity, but something more general... the first stanza is very well about the instensity of the character's sacrificial thoughts... the third stanza is providing two different perspectives of people who would be deemed as lonely in our society, and just unloved or lacking love--a prostitute and a man who leaves his family... and who they are being alone with? with each other. not with god, not with jesus christ, not with a gay lover, but with each other. that's what i feel that this song is about, the fact that there are 7 billion people in this world and counting, yet we all feel alone, together. yeah, i took a long time to get to that simple conclusion, but there it is. that's what that line, "to be alone with you" and "to be alone with me" means. not necessarily literally being alone with someone in a room or spirtually, but being alone individually but being alone individually as a whole. wow. that doesn't make sense when i say it like that but i don't know how else to explain myself. maybe someone will get it. and the confusing, outlier line of "I never knew a man who loved me" is finally alluding to god, but in a negative sense. he never knew of the Man loving him, nor did the human race, because in the end we are still alone. |
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| Beirut – Cliquot Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| wow, I obviously don't know shit because I have no clue who Owen pallet is. Shame on me, ima go look him up now and only then should I be allowed to listen to this song and be wholly in love with it. | |
| Beirut – Santa Fe Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| oh my god, I love this song so much man. It should have way more comments. As for the meaning, I'm pretty sure lessthanyouthink nailed it. | |
| Beirut – The Rip Tide Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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There are no words to describe my feelings when I listen to this song, it's just so damn perfect, man. And I think the reason why it's so perfect is because its lyrics are so simple, so repetitive, yet the meaning still resonates deeper than you can imagine. So, the literal meaning would probably be this: in some random interview I came across a couple of days ago, zach Condon said he wrote this album when he finally felt like he settled somewhere for the first time in his life after his adventure in Europe (where beiruts previous albums were written in). And this song and the central meaning of the entire album is about just that, finding the rip tide and just finally finding a true home. I'm pretty sure he settled in new York, and that's where the song "east Harlem" comes from, which is also from this album. However, I'm pretty sure Zach Condon nor most artists want the lyrics of a song to be confined to their own personal experiences, but instead want the listeners to relate to the lyrics in their own unique way--that's why most lyrics are so obscure. So, I feel like it's especially important to make your own personal meaning when listening to this song, since the lyrics are so open-ended. Mine would be feeling like I've finally found an internal meaning or purpose in life. When he talks about feeling alone in a house, I personally take it as a non-literal manner since I literally do feel alone everyday since my sister left for college this year. And, you know I have a history of chronic depression and I have been feeling down for a while now. But when I first listened to this song and felt his vocals just seep deep inside of me, I felt an odd peace of some kind, like I knew something more. And that's what the rip tide is for me, that internal place of knowing. but that's just me. also, on a side note, I'm pretty sure some of lyrics are wrong: it's supposed to be "so the waves and i....." not "soon the waves and i....'' |
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| Beirut – My Night With the Prostitute from Marseille Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| TOTALLY MAN. Lmao, I didn't even read the rest of the comments because I completely agree with you. | |
| Belle & Sebastian – The Boy with the Arab Strap Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Well...going off the piece of handy information that pheonix86 provided, the previous comments from the more zealous fans of the past, and my own personal interpretation I'm going to have to say that it's basically about various things. It's manifest setting is London, as everyone agrees upon, and Murcdoch continues to make comments about its societial features (i.e. the lines about the Asian cab driver) and his own personal experiences (i.e. riding the bus, missing the bus, seeing a celebrity smoking a cigerette in a restaurant). But what makes the song ambiguous, layered, and purely interesting is that he writes it as he also contemplates his own relationships, as in his detoriating relationship with his soon to be ex-girlfriend/ex-bandmate Campbell and his considerably negative relationship with a guy from a band that he associates with, the Arab Strap. I say negative because, well, I mean just look at the entire fifth stanza. And plus a lot of people have already speculated this, but maybe he caught Campbell in bed with that same guy. But I'd have to say if he did he probably didn't see the guy literally utilize the sex toy, the Arab strap, so that puts in question of the line "The boy WITH the Arab strap" (because when he says "From the Arab Strap, he's obviously referring to the guy being from that band). So, then I'd say that line is probably ridiculing that guy in saying he needs one of those sex toys to sustain an erection since he's not good in bed, an explicit insult to any man. That proves my earlier point of Murdoch being negative towards that guy. Anyway, the last layer of the song is his constant references to prison. I think it's pretty obvious it's not literal prison, it's just a metaphor for his isolated or trapped mind. However, the whole "prison food" thing stumps me. But once again, it's probably not used in a literal sense, but may just represent bad food, or simply the smell of bad food as he's walking around in London since prison food is often thought of as, you know, bad. So yeah, but anyway, so his own state of mind is the last layer and gives you more insight on his personal feelings. Going off of the fact that the album is also titled "The Boy With the Arab Strap", I would also analyze more meaning to that phrase however. Therefore, the phrase probably expresses or represents a period of Murdoch's life, much described in this song. But that's just a guess because I honestly haven't heard any of the other songs on the album, so I couldn't necessarily make that conclusion. And then again, there is a possibility they just used that as the title because it sounded the most interesting. Anyway...so yeah. That's all I've got to say. It's my first Belle and Sebastian song (I'm only fourteen) so I look forward to exploring more of their music. If you actually read all of this, congratulations adn thank you for taking the time, bro. Personal note: I don't know about anyone else, but that first line of the song about the bus ride, saying: "A mile and a half on a bus takes a long time" and a line later on in the song saying bluntly "I missed the bus" really resonated in me. I don't even know why, I just like the way he wrote it in there, so bluntly stating a common experience that could also stand as a metaphor desribing something deeper. Going off the context of the song maybe how he relationship with Campbell was ultimately ephemeral (a mile and a half is a short distant) but felt like a long, enduring time anyway. And the part when he says "I missed the bus" is when he finds the guy in the Arab Strap in bed with her and he ultimately realizes there's no way to continue the relationship that was already falling apart. But yeah. That was just a side note. |
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