| Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill Lyrics | 1 month ago |
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I think the biggest misconception people have with this song is that it’s a prayer of sorts, or a blasphemy (wanting to trade places with God). But you know how that goes. Meatloaf was told repeatedly that, by the end of his song, no one would know what he wouldn’t do for love, but still a lot of people don’t know what “that” is! Kate Bush said she at first wanted it to be a deal with the devil, but that wouldn’t fit the flow of the song, and that probably would have come off as a little bizarre. My interpretation is that the song is about a woman about to get married and having second thoughts. The building is a church. A lot of churches are built on hills, so that’s easy. She’s with someone who has hurt her a lot and although she isn’t going to back out of it, she wishes he could understand her point of view if only briefly. |
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| Bad Religion – Slumber Lyrics | 10 months ago |
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I don’t think this is supposed to be completely sarcastic or a consolation. Bad Religion lyrics don’t typically peddle hope, but it is true that each of us has a chance to make our life impactful. In the sense of human life lived moment by moment, our lives do span a significant time. As a band, BR spans a significant time. But in the sense of geological time, that’s different. The part that throws me off is “we pitch in to help it die” which could be a reference to the song “Watch It Die”. BR lyrics are sometimes self-referential. This could be a reference to how the “plastic mirth” of capitalism is a quantifiable destructive force. I don’t think the conclusion is hopeful but it is sympathetic. The consolation seems to be against existential dread the nervous drive to create significance and meaning in response to the fear of death. In other words: Stop worrying about today or tomorrow, you’ll die eventually but if you get to live tomorrow, make it the best day you can. |
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| Bad Religion – Faith in God Lyrics | 10 months ago |
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@[Punk2R0ck3Prncss:53403] @[Punk2R0ck3Prncss:53403] Bad Religion has always been very confrontational about what they think are false and destructive beliefs and tendencies in the masses. Start from the beginning line, "It's all right to have faith in God..." yes, a lot of people read the song as being just anti-religious, but actually it's pro-critical thinking. "you're living on a mound of dirt, but you can't explain your reason for existence so you blame it on god." -This is about creationism, religious thought-terminating cliches, and abusive theology (Calvinism and the doctrine of Total Depravity). You blame your misunderstandings about reality, your frustrations with life on God, thinking that you can never achieve happiness or discover purpose because you're waiting on some trumpet from heaven. "so much hatred in this world and you can't decide who's pulling the strings so you figure it's god." You are born into a storm of hatred, you get caught up in nationalism, racism and other bigotry, thinking that God wants you to hate certain people, you get marched into the army, you chant the pledge of allegiance, you sign on the dotted line and you kill for this system of bigotry that you settled for. "your whole life foreshadows death and you finally realize you don't want to die alone so you'll always have god." This is a memento mori, a reminder to make something of your life so that this empty consolation won't be the only thing left for you. This is basically giving "I'll be done being a selfish bastard when I can no longer act on my worst impulses," and that's no way to live life. "there's people in the world today who say they're Jewish, Christian and such, they're all ignorant fools. they'll tell you you can't have your own way unless you pay money and dedicate your life or you'll be damned in hell. don't be feeble like all of them, you have your own brain full of thoughts and choices, so use it don't let them use you." Speaks for itself. Don't be another follower with a bent back looking down and afraid of knowledge and afraid of your own thoughts, is what he's saying. Greg Graffin wrote about overcoming the limbic system in his "punk manifesto". The doctrine of hell as many religious institutions preach it is meant to scare the wayward back into the pews, and to scare their coins back into their coffers. It's not just religious groups that use the human limbic system to their advantage anymore though, but politicians and influencers trying to sell you stuff. Huh "rabid atheist" - Greg actually prefers the term naturalist and is agnostic. He's just a human being, but as much as you hate them apparently, you can't deny that the lyrics of Bad Religion are brilliant, thought provoking and original. I'm a Christian today. But to tell the truth I am glad I discovered Bad Religion in my 20s, at a defining point in my life when I could have either settled for a normal life with my brain and thoughts dictated by the world we live in ... or chose a different path. I'm glad I chose to question things instead of settling for predetermined answers. |
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| Social Distortion – When the Angels Sing Lyrics | 10 months ago |
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The lyric is "Who am I to question you?" not "I like to question you." Questioning God is not an enjoyable pasttime of folks. Even theologians and preachers would rather declare what they think and believe instead of deliberately inquiring of God. Punk rock isn't just an image of callousness and violence. The truth is it comes from people cast off by society so there is a strain of deep sympathy and conscientiousness beneath a lot of these songs. There's a lot of music out there that's just about touring or about abstract things like consciousness or pop music that's directed straight at the ego, sensuality or at people's desire to divide up and form cliques, parties, nations, etc. There's a lot of music that's played just to isolate people from their troubles by entertaining them with music that has all the complexity of a nursery rhyme (Christian rock, contemporary, etc.). And then there's punk rock which is honest and truthful about the realities of people with all their inner neuroses, feelings, complexities. We don't always have all the answers to our present day to day drama, and sometimes it's the strangest things that awaken us to that transcendental reality of what exists beyond our present. I think that's the theme of the song. Let yourself feel God's presence in all those moments. It's not your typical punk rock song, but that's why it had to be written. |
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| Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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12 x 35 = 420 Good job bypassing the censors, Dylan. (Drug references in the past would get you from being in a band to being banned really fast.) |
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| Bad Religion – Don't Pray on Me Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[ShesMyAlcatraz:52234] Well, I think as a Christian you would probably understand the meaning of that passage being that Jesus came to cure our spiritual hunger. Jesus didn't send manna down from heaven like God did with Moses and a lot of Christians take this and other statements like "the poor you will always have with you" to mean that the Church ought to give zero shits about alleviating poverty. In the Gospel story, Jesus was being tempted by the Devil to turn stones into bread as part of the three temptations (the second one being to attempt suicide and the third being to bow down to the devil in exchange for worldly power. So the New Testament story is a little misinterpreted in this song, but Gurewitz means it in context of the church's actions in society I think viz a viz women's rights to abortion, human rights and the imperative for society to provide for the poor (and the failure of the Church to do so). | |
| Bad Religion – Don't Pray on Me Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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To help you understand the meaning of this song: "The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world." - Karl Marx This is that part right before "opiate of the masses," and blah de blah. Anyways, I think Greg Graffin was quoted once saying that religion stood as a symbol for the band for many things it seeks to criticize. Not for itself but for something within human nature that drives it toward its own self-ruination, like the thanatos or death drive of Freudian psychology. The first part of the song speaks about the gross violations of human rights based on color. George H.W. Bush was a former director of the CIA "the company" so this is a reference to him putting pressure through various channels on Rodney King to call for peace without restitution for the wrong that was done to him. The second part of the song is about "doing it" whether it's exploitative sex, murder, assassination or colonization, again touching on the thanatos that drives us to ruin ourselves and others. The third part touches on the topic of abortion and, I believe, rape as well. "Lay hands off her body" suggests a pregnancy a woman doesn't want because it was forced on her, the irony of course being that right-wing Americans want to ensure the will of the rapist comes to pass through the birth of his child and having to raise that child in shame rather than the woman resuming her autonomy over her body and being able to recover from that traumatic experience and have a normal life. The fourth part speaks to the "miracles" of God which would be seen as horrible tragedies in the media if they occurred today. Voltaire once said "those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." If you believe in a God who truly killed all the firstborn sons of Egyptians in an act of genocide, then actually going to war and committing genocide isn't a far cry. FYI: There is no archaeological evidence of the Exodus taking place, and from Cairo to Jerusalem is about 470 miles / 750 km which is about two weeks of walking with rest and breaks for food. It doesn't take forty years. Jews know this of course ... but to them the traditions and customs matter more than the supposed events that prompted them. But let us ignore the humanistic rationalizations of those within a certain minority religion and focus on how Christians read the Bible like it's yesterday's newspaper ... and think about how it's always the right wingers who want violence to occur to those they believe are enemies of God, instead of wanting people simply to be fed and clothed. I don't think this is a direct criticism of Jesus as a person but of people who take all the wrong lessons from religion, people who would rather see a bomb dropped than a hungry person fed. The end refrain being "don't pray on me" as in "don't prey on me" - revealing the true meaning of "doin' it" in the second verse. Dimmesdale (literary mistake, perhaps) preyed on Hester Prynne being a single woman seeking solace while her husband was away. Mark David Chapman preyed on the fame of John Lennon, trying to see depth where it wasn't there and eventually took his life out of anger that his man crush wasn't interested in him. Jack (John F. Kennedy) supposedly had an affair with Norma Jean Mortenson / Marilyn Monroe, and the fallout from that basically led to her killing herself. The final example of preying was is how John F. Kennedy's policy got us into the Vietnam war, and all the lives that were lost as a result of that. |
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| The Gaslight Anthem – Teenage Rebellion Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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La petit mort or the little death is an old euphemism for orgasm. So, when he's talking about dying every night in her honor, he means he's fantasized about her to the point of completion and then lingered in a state of limerance about her. He knows he can't form a relationship with her and imagines that someone else is going to get to her first. Teenage rebellion isn't about rebelling against his parents but against the reality he knows, fate, destiny, God, whatever is in the way of him getting to be with the girl he's in love with. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Head Over Feet Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Songwriters often compose a first draft of their lyrics that is deeply personal, and sometimes this may strike the listener as offensive, or perhaps the censors as inappropriate. I think this is one of those instances. Consider the lyrics: Your love is thick and it swallowed me whole You're so much braver than I gave you credit for That's not lip service Doesn't make all that much sense right away. Seems kind of retroverted like an ee cummings poem, right? Well, actually it probably is about "lip service", because she hints about him reciprocating on her and "holding your breath" in the next lyric. Following this with joyful harmonicas pulsating back and forth and it's pretty clear what's going on. Shift around some pronouns and fill in the blank (since "love" is often used as a stand-in for certain other words in pop music) and you get: Your **** is thick, and I swallowed it whole I'm so much braver than you gave me credit for. Best friend with benefits, indeed. Alanis isn't afraid to sing about raw sexuality, but I think with this song she or one of her producers realized she took it a little too far with her original lyrics for the 1990s. |
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| Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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The song begins in the moment that starts a nuclear war. Ten thousand miles is the distance to Russia. The graveyard is the airplane itself, which might get shot down. The first verse talks about the journey of the plane to its target. The misty mountains are clouds. The second verse talks about the state of the society that allowed us to get to the point of a nuclear war - all its perversities. America in 1962 was a land of nationalism, racism and fear. The baby with wolves around it is the white American child about to be brought up, "raised by wolves" to become a violent white supremacist. The highway of diamonds represents dreams and wealth that were unattainable to people outside of a certain elite. The black branch with blood dripping represents the violence against black bodies. The room of men with bleeding hammers, a courtroom where justice is miscarried, and the white ladder "all wet" aka the white society's myths it built up into an ideology of white supremacy. (Grab ahold of any Goodwilled encyclopedia set from the early 1960s and it will expound in detail on their theories of scientific racism. It will also tell you there might be plant life on Mars.) The third verse begins with a reference to Tsar Bomba, "thunder that roared out its warning" the largest nuclear test ever commissioned. It was set off in the Arctic far away from civilization but it still blew out windows in Finland, hundreds of miles away. Americans were scared to death of Soviet bombs after that test. If bigger bombs were made, it would be theoretically possible to use maybe five hundred to a thousand to exterminate a whole nation's population. The drummers and the whisperers represent Communists and the anti-nuclear movement that was to come in the 1970s. The rest of the verse expounds on the victims of American society: those who hunger, people who are truly unique and original, and those whose profession is humor itself. It's hard to clown about a nuclear threat, after all. Fourth verse. A lot of people think the young woman was "Napalm girl" ... nope. This was written many years before that war. Her body was burning because he was in love with her like that. The little girl giving him a rainbow was just some random child, maybe related to his girlfriend, probably unrelated to any social movement. Probably a way to tie in some innocence before the next line. "A man wounded in love" could be wrong but this is possibly a reference to homosexuality being illegal. (I don't think this is connected to the rainbow thing, because gay people in the 1960s used feminine-associated colors like pink and purple for their movement.) The man wounded by hatred is likely Medgar Evers, a black activist who was the topic of another Bob Dylan song, who with his family was the recipient of a thousand death threats before he was shot in broad daylight by a white supremacist in Mississippi. His killer never saw a day in prison for the murder ... until he was re-arrested in 1994. The white man walking a black dog could be seen as Death personified walking Cerberus, but I think it's symbolic of the treatment black people faced under white supremacy in the South in the 1960s. FIfth verse. The pellets of poison are either a.) the uranium pellets that get put into fuel rods which go into the reactor or more likely b.) bullets. Black is the color of the majority in certain parts of the country, none is the number of votes they had at the time. The executioner is the Ku Klux Klansman hiding behind a police uniform, or the school teacher, or the street sweeper, that you will never know harbors such feelings. The hard rain is the reckoning or the purging Bob Dylan thought our society was going to face for its racist past. In his mind the end would come through a civil war or a war between our country and the Soviet Union. |
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| Tom Petty – Southern Accents Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| It's about a middle aged alcoholic hobo. He dreams of what he'll do when he gets out of jail. He's not nostalgic about the South -- he's grieving about his mother, who used to pray for him in a heavy accent. | |
| Marc Cohn – Walking In Memphis Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| Marc Cohn captures, in song, some scenes of a musical and in some ways spiritual pilgrimage he made to the city of Memphis. It's an outsider's view (he's Jewish, from New York City) of the city that is the heart of southern music. He feels welcomed to the point that when asked if he's a "Christian child" he says "I am tonight." | |
| Bad Religion – Strange Denial Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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This song follows the course of many others on the album which are very critical of American history and its economic system of capitalism. The "mutinous enemy" is a reference to the colonists in rebellion against Britain. The reference to the "blackcoats" means puritans and religious revivalists who are a perennial feature of American pop culture. I'm not sure what conflicts he is referring to if not America's many wars. Perhaps he is calling attention to our ongoing political battles, and "weighted as a murder trial" is a reference to our topsy-turvy election cycle. A strange denial of our history is taking place as we ignore the errors of our past. Ignoring the impact of slavery, we perpetuate racial injustice. Ignoring the impact of religious puritanism, we perpetuate religious bigotry, hatred of LGBT and scientific illiteracy. Ignoring the causes that led to the creation of our capitalist economy (wealth collection through wage and chattel slavery in its founding days) will perpetuate the class conflicts that make our political system dysfunctional and render our "enlightened" Constitution brain-dead. The lonely insistent whispers are those of the homeless, addicts, punks and other "outcasts" of society. |
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| Seal – Prayer For The Dying Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| When I was growing up, my friend's mom was a nurse at the local hospital. This was the mid-1990s, in the worst of the HIV epidemic. All it took was one little prick from a "careless needle", and one year later she died of AIDS. | |
| Bad Religion – The Biggest Killer in American History Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| It's right there in the song: fear. | |
| Bad Religion – Flat Earth Society Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| I think the Flat Earth Society is about the "ivory tower" of academia that exists to keep knowledge privy to a chosen elite. The insularity of their organizations keeps them isolated from the masses who are intellectually adrift, while at the same time fostering a dogmatism that is similar to religious dogmatism. | |
| Bad Religion – How Much Is Enough? Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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It's about the promise, or really, the conceit of America. The conceit that there will always be a frontier, that the economy will grow forever, that resources are infinite, that exponential population growth is good, and that the "golden age" in which we live will never come to an end. The more we believe in this selfish conceit, the quicker our downfall will come "as we blow ourselves away". A good number of Bad Religion's songs are about man and his negative effects on the planet, for example "Kyoto Now", "Modern Man" and "Unacceptable". |
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| Bad Religion – Faith in God Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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@[Cherub:44362] Rock Greg's not saying "don't believe in God" but instead learn, discover, and make up your own mind instead of making quick assumptions and relying on prejudices, like an ancient heathen attributing thunder to Thor or lightning to Zeus. Learn what makes the weather happen, learn psychology and figure out your own mind instead of relying on religion as cheap (or, not so cheap) psychotherapy, study politics and history so you don't fall for religious-fascist propaganda ("who's pulling the strings"), and learn to embrace your earthly mortality and make the best of your time to make the world a better place instead of dreaming about how much better things will be in heaven or fearing hell. If you can do all those things and have faith in God, then more power to you! |
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| Strike Anywhere – Chalkline Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Strike Anywhere songs talk about everything all at once sometimes. Thomas is basically drawing "chalk lines" on the ground as a conspiracy theorist would between conservatism, religiosity and purity culture, militarism that seduces men into fantasies of killing and their inevitable product of violence against women. We live in time polluted by the remnants of fascism as expressed in the Jim Crow era of our country. The men who grew up privileged in this era are trying to drag us back into the society that raised them in comfort vs. the discomfort of black, brown and indigenous people and women. Resist MAGA, resist fascism. |
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| Alabama – Song Of The South Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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The song gets its title from a popular movie produced by Disney in 1946 based on the Uncle Remus stories told by a freed slave on a plantation in the Reconstruction era. (The movie contains some racist tropes, which is why Disney pulled it from its collection online, but most white people weren't bothered by that in the 1980s when this song was written.) The importance of the movie is only that it dates the song to the Depression and WWII era. The songwriter's father is a World War I veteran. Southern Democrats aka Dixiecrats are characterized as racists today for supporting the Jim Crow laws, but most of their supporters voted for them because they had to, for their economic policies favoring poor farmers. The songwriter is basically characterizing his father as salt-of-the-earth. Southerners characterized economic times with agricultural metaphors as during this time most of the South was rural. High cotton meant a boom time, short cotton meant a recession. Weeds being tall meant a lot of people were begging for very few jobs and trying to get handouts. This was the middle of the Depression. Many Southerners can trace their family line back to sharecroppers who leased land and gave the landlords a cut of the profits. (My great grandparents were all sharecroppers.) Hence "we all picked the cotton, but we never got rich". The songwriter's father lost the family farm because he had to care for his wife who was sick. The county got it and auctioned it off to someone else. Roosevelt was seen as an economic savior. He created the various New Deal agencies including the socialized utility project TVA which electrified Appalachia and put millions of Americans to work. TVA still supplies millions of rural Tenesseeans and Alabamians with power. The songwriter's dad got hired by the TVA and afterward they got to buy the conveniences of modern life. It's a historical song, basically the "American Pie" of country music. It portrays the changes that created the New South in a positive light. The line about buying a Chevrolet and a washing machine ends with a musical flourish. There's nothing negative about Northerners in this, at all. The reference to Gone With The Wind is just another movie to date the song to the Depression and War era. After all, "ain't nobody lookin' back again". Nobody, even in the very rural South, wants to go back to a time before washing machines, when our economic destiny depended on cotton prices (and Jim Crow, Dixiecrats' racism). The "Dixie" melody is probably the song most associated with the South and its problematic history, hence its incorporation in the song. Today at best that would be considered tone deaf, but there was no ill or racist intent originally. |
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| Radney Foster – Old Silver Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| Old Silver is about Radney Foster's grandfather (this is the true part) who drove his grandma crazy. (This part is the speculation.) When his grandfather died, she went to the funeral, cried her tears, and skipped town. She was a formative influence in his life and when she left, he missed her dearly. But she had to get away from both of them because she saw too much of Old Silver in him, and thought he was irredeemable. | |
| Collective Soul – When The Water Falls Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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This is one of my favorite Collective Soul songs. It could be that he is just cherishing his daughter's early moments and curiosity, but I think there is something deeper to be heard in the lyrics. It seems that the lyricist is trying to say that in the innocent days of our youth we begin to ask the questions about very weighty, discomfiting things, like death. His little girl isn't bothered about the water cycle, but maybe about a pet or a relative that died. The first line is "picture perfect child of her sex" not "of innocence". |
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| Strike Anywhere – Chalkline Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| Strike Anywhere is genius. These guys have studied or come across some serious theory to be so class-conscious and aware of the sources/causes of oppression to women and the working class. Anyways this song is a very simple statement piece against rape culture and the violence it generates in society. How is this connected to war? Well, there is no toxic masculinity spurring violence without a toxic femininity forced on women. Without sexual violence and submission to rape culture norms like purity (crosses) and idealized beauty (dollar signs), women would not need protection from men by other men. This notion of protecting or obtaining objects of femininity that need protection is at the root of America\'s gun violence problem, which is largely perpetrated by men. Men looking for more noble means to "protect" get recruited into the military where they are sent off to fight wars. Therefore: End rape culture, end war. | |
| Hootie & the Blowfish – Let Her Cry Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| This is less of a song interpretation and more some random disconnected thoughts on Hootie, but bear with me. Let Her Cry is my favorite song by Hootie and the Blowfish, probably because it\'s so easy to play on the guitar. This is also, arguably, Darius Rucker\'s first popular entry into the world of country music. A lot of people want to argue that Hootie is a southern rock band, or pop rock, but in my opinion, they were always country. But this was back when country did not easily accept Black artists - small exception for Charlie Pride (RIP). Much country music in the 1990s featured blues riffs and rock \'n\' roll. (Nowadays country music tends to borrow more from rap and hip hop when it wants to add \'color\' to its sound.) Darius Rucker grew up in Charleston and his family went through the troubled 1990s which was both a bad and a good time for Black Americans. On the one hand it was an era of overcoming boundaries but also it was in the middle/end of the crack epidemic, which was fostered by the CIA importing drugs to pay for guns for anti-Communist militias in Central America. The song "Running From An Angel" from the same album seems to be about one of his family members who fell to the wayside due to drugs. It goes unstated in "Let Her Cry" but it is probable that the girl uses harder drugs than marijuana (\'she went in the back to get high\'). Some people say that it was Darius who was the wild one and the girl had to break up with him, which makes more sense. Reverse the genders in the song and it all falls into place. He loves his mother, dearly, which you can tell from the song "I\'m Going Home" about her passing, on the same album. So the line about her loving her father the most is really Darius\'s about loving and missing his mom. Anyone from the 1990s knows that REM and Michael Stipe were a big hit in the alternative scene, and the influence of Stipe and REM was probably the one reason Hootie and the Blowfish didn\'t emerge as a full-on country band. But this song in particular, with its slower tempo, seems to have rather been inspired by "She Talks To Angels", another song about drugs by the Black Crowes. | |
| Hootie & the Blowfish – Let Her Cry Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| This is less of a song interpretation and more some random disconnected thoughts on Hootie, but bear with me. Let Her Cry is my favorite song by Hootie and the Blowfish, probably because it\'s so easy to play on the guitar. This is also, arguably, Darius Rucker\'s first popular entry into the world of country music. A lot of people want to argue that Hootie is a southern rock band, or pop rock, but in my opinion, they were always country. But this was back when country did not easily accept Black artists - small exception for Charlie Pride (RIP). Much country music in the 1990s featured blues riffs and rock \'n\' roll. (Nowadays country music tends to borrow more from rap and hip hop when it wants to add \'color\' to its sound.) Darius Rucker grew up in Charleston and his family went through the troubled 1990s which was both a bad and a good time for Black Americans. On the one hand it was an era of overcoming boundaries but also it was in the middle/end of the crack epidemic, which was fostered by the CIA importing drugs to pay for guns for anti-Communist militias in Central America. The song "Running From An Angel" from the same album seems to be about one of his family members who fell to the wayside due to drugs. It goes unstated in "Let Her Cry" but it is probable that the girl uses harder drugs than marijuana (\'she went in the back to get high\'). Some people say that it was Darius who was the wild one and the girl had to break up with him, which makes more sense. Reverse the genders in the song and it all falls into place. He loves his mother, dearly, which you can tell from the song "I\'m Going Home" about her passing, on the same album. So the line about her loving her father the most is really Darius\'s about loving and missing his mom. Anyone from the 1990s knows that REM and Michael Stipe were a big hit in the alternative scene, and the influence of Stipe and REM was probably the one reason Hootie and the Blowfish didn\'t emerge as a full-on country band. But this song in particular, with its slower tempo, seems to have rather been inspired by "She Talks To Angels", another song about drugs by the Black Crowes. | |
| Līve – Selling The Drama Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| "Selling the Drama" is about rejecting traditional monotheistic Christian belief for a syncretic New Age spirituality. The most telling line is:\n\nAnd to Christ, a cross\nAnd for me, a chair\n\nThe seminal work of New Age spiritual teacher Ram Dass was a book called "Be Here Now". It features on the cover a mandala with the word \'REMEMBER\' printed four times in the four cardinal directions, with a plain, ordinary chair in the middle. So it is pretty clearly a reference to a book that changed his thinking about spirituality.\n\nHe draws upon the Christian teachings of hell, sin and fear of God and contrasts them with Eastern religious concepts of karma, dharma and yoga (spiritual discipline).\n\n"It\'s the way we sing that makes \'em dream" could be referring to the 5th chakra centered in the throat which is associated with self-purification. This is the first chakra associated with spirituality and moving further up one goes into more ethereal planes of existence (according to the esoteric traditions of Hinduism). Indeed, the song is about self-purification from these concepts that he rejects and elevating to a different form of spirituality. He describes being indoctrinated and converted to Christianity as \'rape\' and talks about being \'scarred\' by its theological constructs.\n\nA clue to why he feels that way about Christianity is probably in the line "and to burn, a love that has a name" which is an obvious reference to homosexuality, \'the love that dares not speak its name\'. So, probably either the singer is gay himself, experimented with his sexuality at one point or knows gay people who were hurt by the church.\n\nLive\'s other songs often touch on this rejection of traditional religion and embrace of New Age concepts. | |
| Bad Religion – God Song Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Bad Religion songs that seem to speak about religion in blasphemous ways such as this one usually belie their true meaning .. NOT religion-bashing per se but conformity-bashing. Consider "American Jesus" which if you take it at face value, the song blames Jesus for creating the KKK, nuclear bombs etc. The give-away lyric is "and I'm fearful that he's inside me". Bad Religion is comprised of a lapsed Catholic (Brett Gurewitz, I think) and several agnostic atheists, so it wouldn't make sense for Jesus to be inside them in a psychic/spiritual sense, right? Same thing goes here. This song calls itself "god song" but it isn't about God. It's about government. Reference the song on Suffer "Voice of God Is Government". Consider that the song references an English poem that references a popular superstition that Jesus visited England and bestowed his authority on the British monarchy. Where did America get its form of government? --- from Britain. Here's the giveaway lyric: "anthropocentric god" - a god who places man at the center of its universe. Anthropocentric doesn't mean human-created, but human-centered. This god isn't Yahweh (hebrew Bible) or Jesus (new testament). Both of them may well have been created by man, but they certainly came up with a lot of rules that aren't well accommodating of human needs and realities, so neither Yahweh nor Jesus is an anthropocentric god. In the second to last lyric, replace "religion" with "nationalism" or "patriotism" and you start to get the bigger picture. In the final lyric, governement is described as a god and "austere" (stern, plain, forebidding) and an impasse to the future evolution of mankind. |
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