| Filter – Take A Picture Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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Just listened to this song from back in the day. Great song. And I feel now, a bit more knowing, I feel like I have a better grasp on what this song is about and why it works so great. At least for me. I think it's about vulnerability. And how bringing yourself to a good new place can feel strange, and wonderful, and frightening. So yes, other commenters are absolutely right in the clear literal meaning of the song. It's the writer recounting an incident on an airplane where he got drunk and sent a rather flippant, defiant and funny picture to his father. But also it's about having realized one's success: >Awake on my airplane ...and how new that feels, as if he has no armor or defense against this good thing: >My skin is bare ...and how that isn't necessarily the whole story either, nothing is perfect. Other people have claim to his skin--his image, his identity. It could be fans, it could be the machine of the music industry, this could be others: >My skin is theirs ...and he feels really fresh and new. Like he can start entirely over, and do the rest of his life from a new blank slate >I feel like newborn ...and that this is really who he is, he doesn't have to be what he was before this point. Because he's awake on this airplane, which is not just anyone else's airplane but HIS: >I feel so real And he wants to remember this feeling later. Because at some point the airplane will land and he will be back on the ground, maybe no longer (metaphorically) high. But this feeling is real too, and he wants to have some reminder of it so he can recall this good place and get back to it. Next is his clearest message to his father: >I don't believe in your sanctity your prophecy >I don't believe in sanctity or hipocrisy >Can everyone agree that no one should be left alone >Can everyone agree that they should not be left alone ...But in this moment he is free and can look at it. And this is renewing, >And I feel like a newborn And also being real, it's frightening and hard and something to struggle with: >And I feel like a newborn (kicking and screaming) ...as he grows forward this is experience to a new place. And sheds the past of his own life with defiant joy: >Hey dad what do you think about your son now? What a beautiful, simple, true and heartfelt song. |
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| Mastodon – Steambreather Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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@[ideamonkey:28113] Also following up to note that the title itself "Steambreather" relates to breathing in vapors, which means both getting high and taking in things with no substance at all. It also can refer to various methods of meditation that involve breathing in a way that changes consciousness, and thus can **seem** to alter awareness - but don't necessarily actually change anything in reality. |
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| Mastodon – Steambreather Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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I think this is about how we can try and seek for a meaningful purpose by thinking about it - but this ultimately doesn't work, because it's not actually engaging with life. This song itself seems to me to be from a single point of view of a spiritual seeker who is not realizing what he needs to do to actually be spiritual and fulfill a real path for himself - and instead is on the sad path of a follower, which is in this case betraying his own spirit and purpose. So he's speaking to a leader "Outside the Nazca lines" - who seems beyond the mysteries and thus a master of them. The narrator sees him in white (pure) and hopes the master can make everyone fruitaul. >You know I see you all in white >Hoping you'll grow the fruitful vines >An array to give us life The goal of being fruitful - doing things that are of value to others with our own lives. Note here the protagonist is hoping *someone else* will do this. As it turns out the protagonist in these lyrics is afraid to do this himself. A problem for the protagonist, and really for all of us, is that no matter our intentions we still will always have violence inside. This is a core part of our natures, and that can't be erased with just reflection. This chorus seems to support that: >I wonder who I am >Reflections offer nothing >I wonder where I stand >I'm afraid of myself By staying only in the hypothetical spiritual possibilities and never committing the narrator never really learns about himself, and remains afraid of himself. So the song's protagonist climbs within the "cosmic eye" - takes refuge in a spiritual higher view that can be either real or fake, but in either case is not engaging with real material life. So here "forgive the enemy" - often a worthy goal - in this case means *not engaging with* his own self. For the protagonist, this path ends up being subservient to some spiritual leader. Because watching the leader fall would be too frightening ("made me want to run away", but helping the leader attain power would be soothing and reaffirming ("made me want to stay"). So the protagonist stays at the foot of the mountain - never daring to actually commit to something in the face of uncertainty and actually climb to a higher understanding. Instead he falls there at the base of the plain - separated from his own spirit - like a dead tree that could have been fruitful. I think this is born out by the video as well, and adds an extra layer of creepiness and insight as well as dark humor to it. In many ways a very deep and truly spiritual song. |
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| Blue Öyster Cult – Astronomy Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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The above comments are absolutely correct for the songs intended meaning by the artist. I just wanted to add a separate meaning that occurred to me that I like: An astronomer has just found out that a meteor, perhaps a chunk of an ancient moon, is headed directly for the Earth. It will destroy the entire planet, some time around or before midnight, and there is not one thing that anyone can do about it. So, with just a few hours remaining for the entire human race to live, he goes to dinner with his daughter and spends his time with her without telling anyone that they're all about to die - because why ruin everyone's last moments? And this astronomer enjoys his dinner with his daughter as best he can, keeping his knowledge to himself, and living in the bittersweet moment. |
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| Oasis – Wonderwall Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[dblentendr:22236] This absolutely should be at the top as it makes the most sense. I'm actually here because I just found out about the existence of the movie Wonderwall, with it's soundtrack done entirely by George Harrison of the Beatles. I had only heard that word "wonderwall" one other place in my life - this song. I had fuzzily thought that song was declaring someone was like their "Wonderwall", which seemed to mean someone who was great but also lost to them like this movie and album which fell into obscurity. I've also then read Noel saying this song was about "an imaginary friend whos gonna come and save you from yourself". This set of thoughts of yours brings all of that together. Thank you. |
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| Prong – Rude Awakening Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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From the time of the release of this album and it's really well-done retro-Russian look, I have taken this entire album as a meditation on the shattered illusions of post-Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe. This song, also the title of the album, really seems to speak directly to that. It also speaks to pushing forward anyway, acknowledging the pain whil also being determined to strive anyway. A powerful song, an underrated album, by a very underrated band that might be one of the best bands in metal. I've always appreciated how their lyrics speak to things that are real and situations that adult humans find themselves in while trying to do right, make sense and strive for truth. Lyricist/guitarist/singer Tommy Victor earns the lion's share of that credit. |
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| Clutch – Easy Breeze Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I think the lyrics are saying, from this widow's perspective, that we don't recognize how easy life is, most of the time ("an easy breezy wind at your back"), and if you don't know what that means, then you haven't really hit hard times yet. Most people really haven't 'hit times hard enough to realize how good they really have it. And I think the "R O Y G B I V", which is referring to all the colors of the rainbow, is talking about the real vibrant beauty of life and reality. It's saying that, even if with all the pains and troubles of life, the world is not only beautiful but funny and for that reason even more beautiful. |
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| Clutch – What Would a Wookie Do? Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I think in general, the lyrics are talking about how we humans are involved in all this unnecessary personal struggle and drama, chasing each other around like greyhounds and rabbits, while ignoring what we're doing to the rest of the world. So while we keep hoping our war will be over and death will be done someday - that day approaches in another grimmer form. And so eventually, while we're messing about with all this nonsense, from the forests (aka wild nature) will come our rectification. This is in the form of the implacable righteous wookie. |
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| Clutch – What Would a Wookie Do? Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Agree re: sorting. I always thought it was "Victorian cross", aka the place he's describing has vaguely old-school pre-Nazi fascist symbolism....but on closer listening, I agree it has to be drawers or chores. Chores sounds closer to it, but makes less sense than drawers....maybe there's some rare word like "choars" that they're intending. Agree that it has to be Hephaestus and not "Ole Festus". Also, sounds like and has to be "bouncing raver". |
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| Megadeth – Peace Sells Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this is about how everyone wants to be treated peacefully (they're "selling peace") but no one wants to *treat others* peacefully (they're not "buying" peace.) That, to me, is what's so great about the ambiguity in the lyrics. The narrator is completely justified with what he wants, is totally frustrated with the situation, and might even want to contribute to overall peace - but if he's the only one being peaceful while everyone is being aggressively judgemental and not understanding of his situation, then this peace would be useless. I don't fully agree with that worldview, but I understand it and it resonates with me. As do so many lines in it. I'm always taken by the multiple layers of meaning in a seemingly simple line like: "What do you mean I ain't kind? Just not your kind." <- Where the narrator is responding to unkindness by being unkind, and dividing the world into different kinds. Did Dave Mustaine intend that level of recursion, or is this a way I'm interpreting it? I don't know. But it is a great song. |
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| The Who – Eminence Front Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I agree it's also about cocaine - but it's not *only* about cocaine. It's about people being fake because they're afraid to be real, and being willing to go after people who threaten to shatter their illusion. In my opinion, anyway. : ) | |
| The Who – Eminence Front Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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It's about how people can put on airs as if their material wealth and ciruumstances have truly solved all their problems and answered all their fears. As if they're really above everyone and everything ("Eminence"), but it's really just a Front. And thus a put-on. Because they really just want to "Forget they're hiding" - from fears, insecurities, weaknesses, and maybe even their mortality. And the way that they maintain this front, is to treat their lives like it's a care-free party, and abuse any who are not part of their lifestyle OR who threaten to reveal the shallowness and emptiness of their party ("Come and join the party - Dress to kill"). But everyone eventually grows older, and/or hit a rough patch in life. "The big wheel spins" (luck changes), the hair thins (people become older and no longer so able to coast on their youth), fame dwindles ("news slows") and with it money ("shares crash, hopes are dashed") - but even then the desperate attempt to put on an Eminence Front continues, and they'll still aggressively go after anyone who brings them to reality so they can maintain their own, desperately needed front of superiority and splendidness. |
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| Prong – Controller Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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To me, this entire album "Rude Awakening" is about the challenges faced by Russia and other ex-Soviet nations during and after the fall of Communism. So this song is about the mindset created during the Soviet regimes to control people, and how it can persist in the culture through the damage it did even after the Communist government itself had fallen. Of course, it also reads as a straightforward description of dealing with psychotic authority in any form, including that authority within ourselves - that inner mirror of outward authority that can become ingrained within us, like Stockholm syndrome. That if we're not careful, can continue to hold us back and constrain our lives. |
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