submissions
| Morrissey – Mountjoy Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This song references the Irish writer Brendan Behan, who served time in Mountjoy Prison as a young man for activities related to the IRA. |
submissions
| Morrissey – Art-Hounds Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Opera is dramatic, musical, epic, larger than life, and often tragic. Those are the elements I took him to be applying to his own life with that line. |
submissions
| Morrissey – Kiss Me a Lot Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Apparently "Kiss Me A Lot" is the English translation of the title of a Mexican bolero standard, "Besame Mucho", although the songs are different. |
submissions
| Morrissey – World Peace Is None of Your Business Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This is basically a musical version of Russell Brand's interview with Jeremy Paxman that went viral in October 2013. Morrissey and Brand are known to be friends so it's not too surprising that they share similar political sensibilities.
Brand: "But it’s not that I’m not voting out of apathy. I’m not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now and which has now reached fever pitch where you have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system, so voting for it is tacit complicity with that system and that’s not something I’m offering up."
Morrissey: "Each time you vote you support the process."
You can watch the Russell Brand interview here: http://youtu.be/3YR4CseY9pk |
submissions
| Morrissey – Smiler With Knife Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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"The smiler with the knife under the cloak; the stable burning with the black smoke; the treason and the murder in the bed." -Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale" |
submissions
| Jack White – Want and Able Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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According to a Jack White interview, this song is supposed to be the second in a trilogy, the first of which was the White Stripes' "Effect and Cause". The third song will presumably be called "Demand and Supply". |
submissions
| Jack White – Lazaretto Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Not exactly sure what this song is about, but "every single bone in my brain is electric" is a great fuckin' line. |
submissions
| Jack White – Three Women Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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A modern take on Blind Willie McTell's Three Women Blues. And yes, "she hauled my ashes" means exactly what you think it means. |
submissions
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Pretty sure it's "I see Robert Johnson with a 10-dollar guitar
Strapped to his back looking for a tune" not "tomb." That completes the devil at the crossroads narrative of the second verse. Except Cave manages to subvert even that, by suggesting that Johnson might be so good he can actually beat the devil ("Don't know who is gonna rip off who.") In the real story, we all know it was the devil who beat Johnson, who died young after being poisoned by a jealous husband. So the notion that the outcome is unknown is provocative. Maybe it suggests that art has the power to defeat chaos? After all, Robert Johnson's story and style are still being evoked in contemporary music, which gives him a sort of power that transcends death. So maybe he did win his bargain in a sense. |
submissions
| Jack White – That Black Bat Licorice Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This amazing song seems to have a sub-textual obsession with, among other things, the Roman Empire. He rhymes castrum doloris (Latin for "castle of grief," basically an elaborate funeral bier) with Horace (the Roman lyric poet), casually mentions a Roman hypocaust (a sub-floor heating chamber), and then mocks the Romans for changing their names because they lost (to the barbarians, presumably). So that's why they go by "Italian" now!
Licorice, incidentally, was given its name by Dioscorides, Roman physician and botanist. Coincidence? I think not!
By the way, if you've never seen a Jack Chick comic, Google around until you find some because they are unintentionally hilarious. "Dark Dungeons" is my personal favorite, warning kids of eternal damnation for the sin of playing D&D.
Now state the same damn thing with the violin! |
submissions
| Jack White – Entitlement Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Jack White tells the kids of today to get the hell off his lawn.
He also offers some excellent parenting advice: If everything is given to you, you end up cheated of the satisfaction that comes with actually earning something. |
submissions
| Jack White – Temporary Ground Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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LoserNo1's version of the lyrics is more accurate than what is currently posted.
Temporary Ground is about mortality and the ephemeral nature of reality. As Heraclitus said in ancient times, "You can never step in the same river twice." The universe is constantly in flux, which leaves us self-conscious creatures in a constant state of uncertainty and doubt. Yet at the same time, this perpetual change is the source of beauty, curiosity, surprise, artistry, invention, and all the things that give life meaning.
The ending hints at a more cynical direction, stating that "the old explorers had it easy" because there was so much still to be discovered (although none of it truly "new" as there is nothing new under the sun). Now with all our science and technology we have nothing left to discover except the ultimate cause of reality itself, which may finally reveal our quaint notions of being at home in the universe as nothing more than an illusion.
Powerful stuff. |
submissions
| Nightmare Of You – I Want To Be Burried In Your Backyard Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I think kblp025 is right on with the opiate angle. As for the metaphorical car crash, I think it's a form of dark humor, similar to (and maybe inspired by) these lines from The Smiths "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out":
And if a double-decker bus crashes into us
To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us
To die by your side, well the pleasure, the privilege is mine
These guys are pretty clearly fans of The Smiths/Morrissey as there are references all over their songs, this being one of them. The joke is part schoolgirl melodrama and part self-deprecating humor. If you like this kind of stuff you should definitely check out some of Morrissey's lyrics.
Great song! |
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