| Look Left – District Line Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Well, I actually wrote these lyrics (amazing to find them here, actually, though I know this is one of Pepper's more popular songs). Long story short, the song is about someone I fell in love with when I lived in London. I lived in Richmond at the time ("the end of the District Line"). A lot of it is just mixed-up metanyms about my experience ("Kentish town's too far" refers both to the distance from Richmond to that stop, and to an incident where someone I knew went "too far" with something in a pub). A lot of it is puns ("Waterloo's defeated me" and "may I have your seat? my heart is weak"). The line "in Richmond shines the Star" is in reference to the Royal Star and Garter home, which was a landmark that helped me find my way out of Richmond Park one night when I stayed way too long. The "vulpine mien in the sylvan scene" was the loud chorus of urban foxes that were barking that night. |
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| Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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It sounds like a stream of consciousness memory of being a child, told in a poetic way. "I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats" I think that line is pretty well interpreted as children in heavy winter coats. "With scarves of red tied round their throats to keep their little heads from falling in the snow" The stream of consciousness jumps to an image of snow men, with scarves tied around where the head would go to hold their heads on, but the red on white imagery leads to the next jump in the stream of consciousness: "And I turned 'round and there you go And Michael, you would fall And turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime" Michael, whoever he is, has fallen and injured himself, perhaps fatally and perhaps not (I couldn't find any reference to a Michael Pecknold or his alleged death so the story about it being Robin Pecknold's brother may not be true). It's more of a series of memory snapshots about childhood winter in general, with the exception of a specific memory brought on by the colors of the red scarves on the snowmen. |
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| Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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To me, it's pretty clear: this is a folk song about living in our times, and how a lot of folks my age, who were too young to get in on a good life, are feeling now as the problems deepen. Robin Pecknold is only about 2 years younger than me and has probably seen this firsthand at some point. "I was raised up believing I was somehow unique Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see" This is what we were fed as kids back in the 90s, the idea that we were all special, and that all we had to do was hold onto our dreams and work for them and we'd be rewarded. Times were good and optimism ran high. "And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me" This is the reality we face now. Those of us who get anonymous, low-wage jobs in call centers or factories as a "functioning cog" are the lucky ones. "What's my name, what's my station, oh, just tell me what I should do I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you Or bow down and be grateful and say "sure, take all that you see" To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me" This is about our dilemma: we can either keep trying to ingratiate ourselves to the banks, the government, and the police state (the "armies of night") that have let us down, or we can be left asking "just tell me what I should do?" "If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak" We're watching our freedoms erode at a rate that we often find difficult to accept or express, but we still feel the need to speak out. "If I had an orchard, I'd work till I'm sore Someday I'll be like the man on the screen" These two lines say a lot. "If I had an orchard..." I've found myself thinking that a lot. Just a few thousand dollars for a plot of land and some cherry trees. It's a response to the Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers who had it made while the pickings were good, who think that my generation's misfortunes are because we don't have their work ethic, and blame us for being broke. "Someday I'll be like the man on the screen," as in all these successful, happy career men with a McMansion and 2.3 children. The American Dream, now seen mainly on TV screens and played by actors for the sake of propaganda. I think the meaning of this song is crystal clear to anyone who has actually lived it. |
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