| The Cranberries – The Icicle Melts Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
Song pretty clearly IS about abortion, and seems to me to be a "prolife but sympathetic to women who abort" message. Strongly held prochoice views of majority of people commenting on this song doesn't overpower the blindingly obvious. What has "9 months is too long" got to do with the murder of 3 year old James Bulger by two 10 year old boys? The song might - and I think does - have multiple meanings, quite possible including the evil inflicted upon young James Bulger, but clearly "9 months is too long" is a reference to abortion, possibly one critical of women who abort rather than bear pregnancy for 9 months - something at odds with other lines sympathetic to women. |
|
| Peter Allen – Tenterfield Saddler Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
This song is largely autobiographical of its writer/performer Peter Allen, and has great cultural significance in Australia which it does not seem to have outside of Australia. At the obvious level the song is autobiographical. Peter Allen's grandfather was the admired and respected George Woolnough. Peter's own father was a failed man who suicided, "had need of a gun". Peter himself "changed his last name" to Allen, and married "a girl with an interesting face", a not particularly kind reference to his by then estranged wife Liza Minelli. At a less individual level, the song, I believe, has great human resonance by its description of time as an unstoppable, inoxerable force that eventually lays the truth out for all to see, pretty or otherwise. "Time is a traveler" is the most frequently repeated chorus line in the song, which for me evokes both the human image of horsemen moving forward, but also the universal hand of time conquering all. Time is also a "tale teller" and a "meddler". It is a meddler in that it doesn't always cooperate to help our lives turn out the way we had planned, which Peter would have known applied to his father who killed himself. It is also arguable that time likewise "meddled" in Peter's own life, when he subsequently died prematurely of AIDS after contracting HIV from a homosexual partner. Time is also a "tale teller" - it ultimately mocks our fronts, masks and pretences, and eventually lays open the hard truth to judgment. Time has told the tale of George Woolnough's decency and success, just as it has told the tale of the uncontrolled, unreliable and failed life of Peter's father. Peter would have also known that it would tell the tale of his life, and indeed details of his sexuality - and of obviously his premature death - only emerged after the song was written. Time has also been a "tale teller" by showing that being the son of a good, stable man is no guarantee that a child ("son with a gun") will not go along the wrong track, and by showing that a life of personal tragedy (Peter's lifestyle and prematurely dying of AIDS) is a very common outcome of being raised in a house with a mentally ill, alcoholic, suicidal father. In the end, Peter is write in saying that given the power of time, as humans with our lives all we can do is "make a bet". We can make the wisest possible decision at any point in time to provide ourselves the best chances - but the reality is that we are still only "making a bet" in that even the decision we foresaw as the wisest could nonetheless end in complete disaster when the hand of time moves and reveals the final outcome. |
|
| Wendy Mathews – The Day You Went Away Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
As far as I know Wendy Matthews was first to perform this song. It was successful on the Australian charts, but not phenomenally. My first interpretation is the most obvious one - the lyrics point to the pining and loss felt by a rejected lover 'you're leaving me behind.' The rejected one is not angry or even destabilised, but aware of the way she was commited and cleaved to the one who spurned her 'I was only ever running back to your side'. Thus, it the lyrics evoke pain and dignity. The second interpretation is a lot easier to 'get' if you see the Music Video for the song, and a screening of the music video on the Australian Music TV program Rage has been uploaded to youtube. The music video repeatedly cuts to an old man whose facial expressions, looking up, painful acceptance in his eyes, indicates he is thinking of his deceased life partner. Considering the lyrics based on this, it is clearly about loss, but loss due to death rather than rejection. The 'you're leaving me behind' lyric takes on a new meaning in this context. Both interpretations are valid. And interestingly, both interpetations give the same meta-meaning to the song, that is the pain and dignity of an individual experiencing loss. |
|
| Coldplay – Clocks Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Like a number of early Coldplay songs (eg. The Scientist) Clocks broaches the way a deep emotional bond between a man and a woman indellibly imprints the soul, and the psychic rending that results when individual is faced with the unilateral termination of that bond the other. In The Scientist, that is clear enough. The lyrics in Clocks are very abstract, and there is nothing explicitly to even say it is about human interpersonal relationships. However, 'Tides that I tried to swim against; The closing walls and ticking clocks gonna; Come back and take you home' are abstract references to the loss of control a person feels when they get pulled into, or unwillingly expelled, from a deep love. 'Cursed missed opportunities' again can be seen as the frustration of an individual who faces loss of a relationship tey cherish, while they see that if they were only perfect the loss would not have crystalised. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.