| Regina Spektor – Machine Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I don't know about the war bit, but otherwise it seems to describe virtual communities (or blogging / facebook / myspace) pretty well. The facebook conglomerate is the mightier power, which "updates me daily" and "lacks my perspective". As a composite the community is both an entity in itself and the sum of the many people who have joined it. Anything the protagonist does is done to spy for the virtual community and this is part of the futuristic relationship; the description of her body makes it clear that this transcends the normal evolution as she becomes part of the machine, hence eyes can become bifocal and hands get sept-jointed. Maybe like a robot or a man-machine? Having sept-jointed hands to me is surely a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration. upgrading daily and wires without traces alludes to the manipulation that gets pushed down from the "higher power" which watches her every move. "Everything's provided / consumate consumer ..." a typical facebook scenario. Most people do not realize that on these platforms they are not the customer but they have become the merchandise themselves, the war is fought between the various media companies (google / facebook / twitter / myspace / flickr etc.) who "lack (my) organics" and "covets (my) defects" as these are the fodder needed to fuel the consumation of the "service" which is really just selling things and trading customer data (email addresses, private data, private content). The "friends in high places" can both relate to the "community friends" and the "big brother(s)" who sit and watch over the administration of these virtual communities. "Part of Worldy Taking / Apart from Worldly Troubles" shows that this situation is more about consumerism than about politics and that it is in itself artificially set up and not part of the real world "in my pre-war apartment, soon to be post-war apartment". Although the person has transformed into something new, the situation remains the same, life is still only happening in the apartment, and no real experiences have been made. I know this is a pretty daring interpretation but its also a very chilling and fitting one to me; I love the feedback of the piano strings when everything tries to burst! |
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| Eels – Woman Driving, Man Sleeping Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I used to think the Man in the car for a good while, but it is not mentioned in the song anywhere. Instead, the man wakes up and, finding his woman gone, walking and knocking on doors, looking for her. "man sleeping ... in a large apartment house" only made sense after I accepted this interpretation. The main picture describes the solemn feeling of the woman on a journey "a little metal box under the stars"; although E cleverly never uses the word "alone" he describes it so well. I think thinking the man is in the car is a trap he has set up deliberately in the chorus "woman driving man sleeping". Also "there is no radio to play" to me suggests something about the nature of running away (and not about the imposed silence of a sleeping passenger). Like she took an old car and didn't really prepare for the journey. To me, it makes a lot more sense if man is in bed, woman in car; each of them get's their own piece section and only in the chorus the relationship is mentioned by what each of them does. Anything that would be common between them (such as man searching for woman, woman taking toll money from his purse, him reading the map etc.) is very carefully avoided. |
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| Eels – Woman Driving, Man Sleeping Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I used to think the Man in the car for a good while, but it is not mentioned in the song anywhere. Instead, the man wakes up and, finding his woman gone, walking and knocking on doors, looking for her. "man sleeping ... in a large apartment house" only made sense after I accepted this interpretation. The main picture describes the solemn feeling of the woman on a journey "a little metal box under the stars"; although E cleverly never uses the word "alone" he describes it so well. I think thinking the man is in the car is a trap he has set up deliberately in the chorus "woman driving man sleeping". Also "there is no radio to play" to me suggests something about the nature of running away (and not about the imposed silence of a sleeping passenger). Like she took an old car and didn't really prepare for the journey. To me, it makes a lot more sense if man is in bed, woman in car; each of them get's their own piece section and only in the chorus the relationship is mentioned by what each of them does. Anything that would be common between them (such as man searching for woman, woman taking toll money from his purse, him reading the map etc.) is very carefully avoided. |
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