| Regina Spektor – You've Got Time Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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The short version: this song is mostly about the frustration of being stuck in one place in life, having plenty of time to ponder where you could have been going instead and watching everyone else pass you by. Most will likely recognize this song as the them song for "Orange is the New Black", a show which has the main character serving time in prison. Naturally, the lyrics fit pretty perfectly for this kind of setting, but of course it could be thought of in more broad terms of being stuck in one place in life. "Think of all the roads / Think of all their crossings / Taking steps is easy / Standing still is hard..." When you're stuck in life, "you've got time" to think about where you could be going in life's many paths, and how difficult it is to just be sitting still. "And everyone is waiting, waiting on you..." I kind of think of this as tongue-in-cheek, in a way. Take the main character from the TV show, for example. She has friends and her fiancee on the outside, who are "waiting" on her, but they can't realistically just sit around waiting on her. No spoilers, but generally speaking in that kind of situation, they still have their own lives to live and things to do. In real life, when you're stuck in the same place, other people are going to move on. "Remember all their faces / Remember all their voices / Everything is different / The second time around." People change over time. You remember people as they were, but if they're moving on without you, it's not going to be quite the same. |
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| Story of the Year – Is this my fate? He asked them Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This is an attempt to break down the lyrics and figure them out while being completely objectively (as best as I can) on the issue of homosexuality. It is my attempt to make it as clear as possible, even in areas where the meaning might be obvious. Of course, these are just my opinions. The last paragraph is a summarize if you don't want to read the whole thing. The song later makes a reference to sexual orientation, so it can be presumed that the song as a whole is within the context of sexual orientations that aren't heterosexuality. For the purposes of discussion, I'll just use the term "homosexuality" but this should also encompass other orientations such as bisexuality. It is also worth noting that, according to Wikipedia, "the band has stated that the inspiration came from Ryan Phillips' brother and how he was discriminated against just for living his life and being different." "Do you really fucking think that it's a choice, a way of life plagued by discrimination?" A popular argument against homosexuality is that it is something a person chooses. The opposing argument is that homosexuality is something that a person is born with. (For some reading on this topic, check out the Wikipedia article on "Biology and sexual orientation.) This song believes in the latter argument, and saying that with homosexuality comes a life plagued by discrimination, and thus people wouldn't chose such a life if it was, indeed, a choice. "You're narrow-minded, quick to judge with bible belt tunnel vision." Considerable opposition against homosexuality comes from Christianity, or at least certain sects of Christianity. These lyrics call their views to be narrow-minded and quick to judge, with "tunnel vision" in this context being another way to describe being narrow-minded. The Bible Belt, as Wikipedia puts it, "is an informal term for a region in the south-eastern and south-central United States in which socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of the culture." This geographical area is much more likely to be overwhelmingly against homosexuality, and the song is calling them out specifically. "This is ignorance! Failure to evolve is failure to us all When will you learn that this is where we fall?" The song is calling out the stance against homosexuality and discrimination against it as ignorant and that failure to move forward on the topic means doing wrong by everyone. The song then asks when people will learn that this ignorance and failed evolution will lead to the downfall of our society. "'Is this my fate?' he asked them They answered, condemning him to burn Rejected, forsaken for being fucking born" This is a scenario in which a gay man is being condemned to die by some group due to his homosexuality, which the lyrics reinforces as something a person is born with and thus the condemned man had no choice in his condemnation. "I can't believe that this is still a question that needs an answer A bigot's eyes judging lives based on the sex of who you fuck" The singer expresses disbelief in the fact that this debate hasn't already been settled; instead, intolerant people are deciding the lives/fates of others based on sexual orientation. The use of the word "fuck" in this line (and possibly earlier in the song) could perhaps be described, as the website TV Tropes would put it, as a "precision F-strike" in which the word isn't used very often, and therefor when it is used, it's used with much greater effect. In context, I would argue that this "precision F-strike" is used to add weight to the ridiculousness of the idea of "judging lives based on the sex of who you fuck." The rest of the song is pretty straightforward and reinforces the idea that people are being "judged and condemned to burn" and asks "when will you learn?" To summarize, this song as a whole is pretty straightforward. It takes a very aggressive stance in the idea that homosexuality isn't a choice someone makes and that to condemn a person for something they have no control over is ignorant and a failure as a society. The song also briefly points the finger at religion as the source for this way of thinking. |
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