| Red Hot Chili Peppers – Monarchy of Roses Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I'm With You is filled with songs about the conflicts between promises/trust and sexual desire. You've got your straight-up horny jams (Raindance Maggie, Did I Let You Know) mixed in with confessions of breaking promises, losing love, wishing to start anew, often due to temptations of sex/alcohol (Factory of Faith, Even You Brutus?, Meet Me At The Corner). I think MoR sets the tone of the album; it's all about the conflict between religion and sex/drugs, and whilst the tone of it is trying to rise above traditional evils, there's a lot of symbolism that creeps in. There's obvious references to Catholicism and religion as people have talked about - this idea of the 'holy tears of Ireland' being the speaker's new cross obviously refers to switching to religion, as opposed to 'my former queen' - a women. Monarchy could be seen as referring to how ostentatious and highly structured the Catholic church is; it's rather monarchistic in how the head of the church is revered, and God is often referred to in kingly terms in scripture, etc. 'Roses' reminds me, personally, of the crown of thorns Jesus wore, as well as being an aristocratic flower. 'Crimson tides' - likely blood, referring possibly to holy war (crimson , as well as blood split in sacrifice on the cross etc. Then there's obvious vocabulary giveaways - words like 'saviour', 'crown' - I could go on. Likely it's Catholicism, as opposed to any other vein of Christianity, because of the church's views on sex before marriage, prostitution, gay marriage, etc. being rather conservative; in stark contrast to Mr. Kiedis' reputation & known views on the subject(s)... I don't really need to elaborate, do I? :P. Also, a lot of young catholic teenagers, being a pretty big & mainstream religion (hence 'several of my friends'), do participate in pretty uncatholic practice, but can 'cleanse' themselves through repeated confession - that idea's absent in protestantism, so it could also be acknowledging that aspect (and possibly a slight dig at it, although I honestly doubt it). The idea of conflict is probably most explicitly shown in the chorus. Mary = representative of the clean, catholic way. Sherri = likely a pretty obvious pun on alcohol. Religion is fulfilling (hence 'fill'), and uplifting (hence 'raise'); debauchery is not. Even Sherri's actions are fairly religious - 'break it down' could refer to previous sins and barriers, and 'spit it around' could possibly be referring to communion. Yet there's more conflict than meets the eye. 'Crimson tides through your fingers' could also well be blood on your knuckles due to a fight, and the reference to Pettibon later on, an artist with an interest in violence and punk culture (e.g. http://www.raypettibon.com/gallery/09.jpg - blood on your hands, eh?), perhaps implies that cutting off from this culture is more difficult than described. Lines as paradoxical as 'I will never taunt you/...I will always haunt you' show more difficulty, and don't exactly give a positive image of religion. As well as this, the whole song is littered with sexual terms, which undercuts this 'wholesome' message and shows an underlying... well, I'd say 'addiction', but that's definitely too strong a term. It perhaps implies that cutting off sexual ties is harder that it first appears, and makes the 'obvious' message seems naive. Like, for instance: 'Do you like it rough' refers both how to the pathway to recovery is difficult as it's an obvious sexual reference. 'Crimson tides through your fingers' could as much likely be a reference to fingering whilst on a period. The fact that Mary and Sherri are both women shows the speaker's fixation with them. Sherri 'spit it around' could easily just as refer to oral sex. 'Show us love before you go' and 'we all want the rose' - refers one last sexual action before committing to purity, with 'us' and 'we' being an implication of a particularly decadent affair, as well as showing how several people (men) are committed to one entity (a woman) rather religiously. Then there's 'monarchy of roses' itself. Rose can refer to a woman (e.g An English Rose), with its connotations of romance, love, passion and desire, as I think another commenter points out. It's this idea that female temptation is the ultimate, singular holy power, and impossible to avoid, even in references. I figure the last few verses definitely refer to 'one last time' before attempting to give up the beast - certainly, the song starts out more resolutely than it ends, with promising to stick to being clean during the second line, but succumbing by the end. 'I will always want you' - last line, is almost mournful in comparison to the optimism of the beginning. It probably marks a period of chastity or at least purer relationships which is likely to result in disaster. This idea of 'the story' (as well as referring to the biblical spoke) gives the impression that the speaker's aware that his future's been foretold and is, underneath, fairly sure that it'll result badly. It leads pretty nicely into Factory of Faith, at any rate, which is all about that initial promise, and some of the other linked songs which are about blatantly breaking it & others' trust, and the consequences. /unnecessarily long comment. |
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| Red Hot Chili Peppers – Punk Rock Classic Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Fairly self-explanatory. A sarcastic mockery of sell-out punk bands who are more interested in gaining money and publicity than what punk originally stood for - loud & unrestrained grassroots rebellion. Verses take first-person perspective of one of these sell-outs, making them appear pathetic and desperate. 'Punk Rock Classic' is obviously a sarcastic title, and the Guns 'n Roses riff reflects on how unoriginal and lifeless said sell-outs are (or it could be a knock at GnR themselves; I can't say I know enough about GnR to say). Of course, when Mother's Milk was recorded, the Chili Peppers were a rather unknown L.A.-centric band best known locally for wild live gigs and generally not giving a fuck about what other people thought of them. And at the time, MTV was actually pretty vital to mainstream success - unlike today, where Youtube's successfully knocked it out of the picture. RHCP have huge punk influences despite never being a true punk band themselves, and were arguably funk-punk until BSSM came out, which dropped the gritty speed in favour of cleaner, slicker production. And in the result, landed huge success. Ironically enough, RHCP have pretty much lost all of the relentless noisy punk-funk which first defined them in favour of a more mainstream-accepted alt-rock. It's possible to argue that RHCP themselves have sold out. I'd be fine, for instance, with By The Way being a short detour in playing with warm-pop sounds (and By The Way is a decent record by itself and does experiment with some beautiful guitar playing - unlike the more generic but heavier SA), but since the release of Stadium Arcadium and I'm With You, I doubt they'll ever stray from generic alternative-rock (god, what a fucking mockery of a term). RHCP garnered huge play time on MTV over the years, have appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, have had several of their albums reach platinum, have made several songs each album very conscious of them becoming hit singles - they've done everything they've mocked here... by softening their sound. It's really suspicious. Just goes to show - don't write an rip-roaring beast of a song taking the piss of sell-outs if you intend on selling out yourselves. |
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| The Silver Jews – We Are Real Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I think as much as anything, and all the messages about what is real/fake, there is a lot of commentary on the music industry. There is reference to the way music is played and performed and a plea to musicians to drop the superficial and theatrical antics that is common in music, particularly this verse:- 'We've been raised on replicas of fake and winding roads and day after day up on this beautiful stage we've been playing tambourine for minimum wage but we are real, I know we are real.' Raised could be taken two ways - talking about the way that music was (the music they were raised on), or literally raised, as in, touring around whilst on show. Yet there's not hate of the music itself, hence 'beautiful stage'. The idea of 'tambourine... minimum wage' is obviously a cliché, hence why it's followed by a 'but'. This is also re-enforced with the line, 'All my favourite singers couldn't sing'; there's a lot of criticism about the norms of the mainstream music industry in this. Silver Jews have commented in interviews that this isn't just a homage to the likes of Bob Dylan, but also a reminder to people that what actually constitutes as singing isn't always as so, and like all things, is relative to taste. "Singing" is singing, regardless of the inverted commas. This also comes into the line 'Won't soul music change' - as people's tastes change, so will what is regarded as good music. 'Shot of sugar' probably is a cocaine reference, which also adds into the ideals of traditional musician's identity - and it makes me wonder if the narrative is referencing drugs earlier in the song as well. It's explain a lot about 'souls going strange/ Once a day, Twice a day...', although I sort of wonder if that's a side effect of the musician's life in general. I think there's a feeling of disorientation and loss of identity with performing, at least, and the 'we are real' is an attempt to assure. Things of beauty are related into musical ideas (birds of Viriginia in threes). Yet there's a laid-back approach towards it 'is that the problem that is beautiful to me?', for instance. Regardless of all this supposed superficiality, the narrative remains real, and perhaps there's not a problem with having buttons like mirrors in convenience stores, or tacky/fake things. Sometimes there's personal meaning in something tacky. I think that's also an angle this song is trying to take. I think there's a lot of double meanings in this song, and it's a real interesting one since there's plenty of valid and justified interpretations one can take. |
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