| Right Away, Great Captain! – Right Away, Great Captain! Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I always saw the captain as a metaphor for his artistic ambitions, his drive to make music and express himself. I'm not sure if the whole album fits this interpretation, but I think this song fits pretty well. He's trying to balance his desire for happiness and companionship with his desire to be a great artist, which requires him to be lonely and to explore his unhappiness. | |
| The Shins – New Slang Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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If I had to pick one word to describe the emotional feel this brilliant song, I would go with "nostalgic". There's a lot of longing for the unattainable past. James Mercer said that he wrote this song at a time in his life when he'd been in Albequerque for too long, and all his friends wanted to do was binge drink and party. He wants to get out and look for other things and see where his talents will take him, but he has a nostalgic reluctance to leave. This song is his reminiscing over his past in this town, as he's making ready to go. Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth Only, I don't know how they got out, dear Turn me back into the pet I was when we met I was happier then with no mind-set "Gold teeth" is a metaphor for his musical talent. The "dear" he's addressing in the second line is, I think, a teenage love; someone he'd fallen for before he became jaded and cynical. The last two lines are pure nostalgia, for a version of his past self that he feels distanced from. A pet is happy and docile, obedient and complacent. He misses the blissfully ignorant version of himself who didn't over-think, and the easy joys he could indulge in; "I was happier then with no mind-set". And if you took to me like a gull takes to the wind Well, I'd 'a jumped from my trees And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well The chorus, dressed up in its beautiful and obscure imagery, is I think mainly a daydream of what his life would have been like, if things had gone differently. Everyone does this: thinks back to a time when they'd had a decision to make or had been presented with an opportunity, and wondered what would have happened if things had turned out differently. For the speaker of this song, it's a girl. He thinks that, if only this one girl had taken to him, he would have been his lifeline out to a better life. New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries Hope it's right when you die, old and bony Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall Never should have called But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely I struggle with this stanza. Haven't a clue what the stripes are, or "the dirt in your fries". I think that dawn breaking "like a bull through the hall" might be hangover imagery; so he's given in to the binge drinking, and called his friends to go party, and he wakes up the next day shameful and regretful. Godspeed, all the bakers at dawn May they all cut their thumbs And bleed into their buns 'til they melt away As someone before me suggested, this could just be about lashing out at the town, at what the narrator sees as the drudgery and pettiness of their lives. I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find Without a trust or flaming fields, am I too dumb to refine? And if you took to me like Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well This last stanza seems to have some sort of reconciliation with the small town; like he sees now the benefits it offers. The "good life I might be doomed never to find" sounds to me like he's walking around the town, and seeing family scenes and little domestic happinesses, and wondering if he's making the right choice by leaving. This has to be the most all-around (lyrically, musically, its subject matter) beautiful song in recent history. The only other contender I can think of is "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea". |
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| Seabear – Libraries Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This song is perfectly the bittersweet melancholy of waking up in bed next to someone you love and there's a bit of fog rubbing its back against your window but it only increases the feeling that you two are alone in the world and scatters the light around the room so instead of sharp rays of sunlight blinding you or overheating you its more of a gentle way of easing you into the day, but bittersweet because you know your love won't last, either it burns itself into the ember of companionship-love or dies and either way you know that mornings like this aren't in infinite supply, so you enjoy it while knowing it might not come again. | |
| The Barr Brothers – Old Mythologies Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Great lyrics, they read like poetry. Some thoughts: The title, "Old Mythologies", comes from the W.B. Yeats poem "A Coat" (see below) about how a man can only control his own, and shouldn't worry about pleasing others. "Just a lonely impulse of delight" comes from the Yeats poem “An Irish Airman foresees his Death”, in which a WWI fighter pilot, who only signed up for the service out of boredom, predicts his own death at the hands of the enemy. Great song, love the vocabulary and poeticism of the lyrics. How often do you hear the word "erudite" in a song? I can't tell you what the song means, but at least I can place some of the references. W.B. Yeats' "A Coat": I made my song a coat covered in embroideries out of old mythologies from heel to throat; but the fools caught it, wore it in the world’s eyes as though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, for there’s more enterprise in walking naked. |
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