| Matthew Good Band – The Rat Who Would Be King Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I've enjoyed this song for years without contemplating or even really knowing the lyrics. The quality of the sound alone was enough alone to evoke a painful and haunting mood but the lyrics really drives home a great portrait of the singer. The song is a disturbing love letter to an ex. Before the relationship he saw himself as the blind squirrel. The proverbial "nice guy" who never gets the girl but it this case somehow did. But of course once he did, they were pretty much fucked. And his acknowledgment of that is perhaps his most self-aware moment. After the relationship has ended, he is the rat, something unwelcome that is resilient. And in that period he fantasized about a world when plague or disaster left him and his ex the only two remaining because then of course she would be with him. But since then he has settled down a little bit and she has allowed him back into her life as a friend where he has bided his time watching her other relationships thinking that if he can wait them out she will eventually have him back. But that hasn't worked bringing him to the grenade with their names scratched on the side. That is not a romantic metaphor. That is a threat. He is no longer fantasizing about plague bringing them together but is contemplating murder-suicide. But he's not quite ready for that yet because "love is not enough". And so he goes into a second verse that describes his disconnect with the rest of humanity. And by the end he's still saying "love is not enough" but I think that someday it might be. I think it's great in the same way as The Catcher in the Rye is at creating audience empathy for a disturbed narrator. |
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| Islands – Never Go Solo Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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My favourite song from this album. I thing it is a message to potential detractors who might criticize the album for diverging from the band’s previous sound. The songwriter cannot help but go where inspiration takes him. And he knows that the songs will resonate for those that feel as he does. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – The River Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Absolutely my favourite Springsteen song. Makes me well up a little inside every time. I prefer to take the lyrics entirely literally. Somehow it sullies it for me to think that the river is a metaphor for sex. I also like to think that there is a resiliency to the characters. Despite the lament for missed opportunities due to the rushed marriage, I sense the narrator still loves Mary. He is just as aware of her pain as his own. When he takes her back to the river in the final verse he is choosing to recapture some of the romance that he's let slip away in the intervening years. |
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