| INXS – Three Sisters Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I just watched Season 4, Episode 1 of the excellent Travel Channel (U.S.) series "Expedition Unknown", "Plummer's Gold", about a legendary quartz and gold deposit (or "reef") in the Australian outback. The exact location died with with Harry Lasseter, or more likely, as proposed in this episode, with the prospector Mr. Harding (first name unknown). Records show Harry was in England during the years he claims to have visited the reef without and then with Harding, so the new theory is that it was actually Harding who had discovered the reef, and Lasseter appropriated the story. Per a 1983 Canberra Times article, however, seen at http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/116408077 and http://www.lasseteria.com/HOME/NEWS.htm, the whole story of the reef was a hoax perpetrated by two camel-train drivers to make some money. In any case, the guy who thinks the reef is real and was discovered by Harding took host Josh Gates to the location of a huge 13-mile-long quartz reef in the outback (in eastern Australia rather than western, as everyone else thought it was). Along with the matching description of the reef, the researcher believed he'd found the right place because he'd found good candidates for the landmarks near the gold deposit that Lasseter is said to have described, primarily the Three Sisters, "three hills which he said could not be mistaken. They looked like three women in sun-bonnets talking to one another." The triple peaks the guy showed Josh could indeed be interpreted so (though the "sun-bonnets" are a lot more clearly suggested than the "women talking to one another"). In any case, that's my guess for the origin of this song's title. "Three Sisters" is not the most unique phrase, so it may be a coincidence, but this seems like the kind of thing that might have fired Tim Farriss' imagination. Arguing against it would be the lush, almost "tropical"-sounding environment the song conjures in the mind, with all the bird calls and such. Doesn't really bring a gold reef in the mostly barren outback to mind (unlike, say, "Kiss The Dirt (Falling Down The Mountain)"). Although per Wikipedia, the kookaburra, one of the birds heard during the song, is "found in habitats ranging from humid forest to arid savanna". The spoken line at the end of the song, "And that's all she wrote" doesn't really provide any support one way or another, though it could refer to Lasseter's untimely death in the desert after being abandoned by the rest of his prospecting team, and the subsequently uncertain location of the Three Sisters. |
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| Cocteau Twins – Fifty-Fifty Clown Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Also, I should have noticed during my original analysis that "SMILE AND FACE YOUR WIFE ANGRY" could also refer to the wife being angry, e.g. because she suspects that her husband is cheating, and him wearing a smile to try to smooth things over. Dan Harkless http://harkless.org/dan/ |
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| Nitzer Ebb – Getting Closer Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Cool, they now allow longer usernames than when I joined, so the lyrics now say "edited by Dan Harkless" rather than "DHarkless". Dan Harkless http://harkless.org/dan/ |
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| Nitzer Ebb – Getting Closer Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| There doesn't seem to be any way to edit old comments, so I'll just note here that thankfully, since my last comment, the site has been updated to allow you to edit the "Wiki", as they now refer to it, so I have just removed the spurious information about Billy Joel being the songwriter and have added the correct information. Also, I see I was being too pessimistic in thinking that the content licensor would never approve my updates to the lyrics, as I see that has since happened, so the "edited by DHarkless" is now accurate. | |
| Squirrel Nut Zippers – Ghost Of Stephen Foster Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I was listening to a bunch of Squirrel Nut Zippers CDs the other day to cheer myself up, and for the first time the probable true meaning of this song struck me, and I was like, "Holy crap...". This song isn't just a fun, weird, fantasy romp. The thing that opened my eyes is the extremely Yiddish sound of the fiddle portions of the song, something not typical for the Zippers. While I think that eowynne is right that the song _can_ be interpreted as commentary on the plight of African Americans at Stephen Foster's time, and Foster's lack of acknowledgment of this, I think "Camptown ladies never sang all the doo dah day, no, no, no" really refers to the ladies of Jewish death camps circa WWII. "Gwine to run all night / Gwine to run all day" then appropriates the black vernacular to refer to Jews having to run to escape from the Nazis. I just realized right now that "If we were made of cellophane, we'd all get stinking drunk quite faster, ha, ha, ha" most likely refers to starved interned Jews' skin becoming as thin as cellophane (I think I've heard that phrase used before in that context), and its certainly true that you would get stinking drunk a lot faster with such low body weight and a long-empty stomach. "The Hotel Paradise" refers to meeting Stephen Foster in heaven. The rest of the lyrics are fairly obscure to me, but "Rooms were made for carpets" could certainly mean that only carpets and the like should be locked up in rooms, not humans. "Towers made for spires" could mean they should be used for decoration rather than as internment camp guard towers. (Also, "Ships were made for sinking" could refer to the deserved sinking of Nazi ships during WWII combat, but that one may be a stretch.) Further evidence for this interpretation is the tolling bell, shortwave radio whistle, and terrifying bass bowed strings that open the song before the Yiddish music comes in. I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only people to realize what this song is really about. (I haven't seen the music video in a long time, so not sure if there is any support for this interpretation in there, but probably whoever funded the video wouldn't have wanted to present a dark literal vision for such a catchy song.) Thank you, SNZ, for writing such an amazing song -- stealth political / humanitarian commentary songs are so much more affecting than the typical wear-it-on-your-sleeve ones. Dan Harkless http://harkless.org/dan/ |
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| Nitzer Ebb – Getting Closer Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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A tricky one. Sounds like some personal / autobiographical stuff in there. The only thing that's fairly clear to me is that the "I know what you buy / I'm not gonna try" stuff is about some sort of illegal drug(s). BTW, this absurd site currently says '"Getting Closer" as written by Billy Joel'. Billy Joel also has a song by that title, but he didn't write this one, dumbasses, and despite all the different "Edit Lyrics", "Edit Wiki", and comment options, there's no way to submit a correction to basic song data like that. Also, it's inappropriate that the site currently says 'Lyrics submitted by PersonMan92, edited by DHarkless', because my edits (I added the "call-and-response" lines) do not show up -- it said when I submitted them that they would have to be approved by the content licensor first, which I assume will never occur. In the meantime, lyrics.wikia.com has the missing lines. |
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| Cocteau Twins – Fifty-Fifty Clown Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Yeah, in their earlier work Elizabeth Fraser even sings lyrics in her own made-up language(s), so one can hardly be forgiven for not getting most Cocteau Twins lyrics (and yet the vocals are often the best part of the songs, an amusing dichotomy). Not sure if Fraser's earlier lyrical abstruseness came more from a place of extreme creativity and throwing off the yoke of predetermined language, or more from a place of insecurity, but the results sure were pleasing. I loved that with the incredible "Heaven or Las Vegas" album (go buy it -- it is currently available as a download from multiple vendors, and CD), though, that getting some of the lyrics could be a part of the Cocteau Twins listening experience. As much as this song was one of my favorites on the album (well, cassette for me, originally -- oy), though, its meaning remained a perfect mystery to me until today when I was feeling lousy and had a sudden urge to listen to it as I thought it might make me feel a little better (it did). Cocteau Twins song names are so obscure as to be equivalent to New-Order-style arbitrary nonsense names, so I had to try a couple of possibilities, but I quickly found the one I was looking for. And on this listen I understood the "Motions aren't in the shape that emotions are" line for the first time, which prompted me to look up the rest of the lyrics (none printed in my CD insert), and I think I get most of it: FIFTY-FIFTY CLOWN The title refers to the guy who's the subject of the song. "Fifty-fifty" refers to him splitting his time between his wife and his mistress, the singer. He might also have bipolar disorder -- not sure about that part. "Clown" is being used in a pejorative way here, I think, though it could additionally refer to the performances that the guy puts on in managing his situation of secret infidelity. "Fifty-fifty clown" might have an additional shade of meaning in self-referring to the singer, who might see herself as a clown for only getting to have companionship half of the time because she's gotten involved with this married dude. I FEEL REWARDED ON BEING SO UGLY, EH The singer and the guy just had good sex, yet the singer still feels unattractive and insecure (is the wife beautiful but frigid?). There may be an additional shade of ironic meaning in implying that because the singer is perceived as less attractive, she is unmarried and thus easily available as the second half of this tryst. OH, AND YOU'RE A LONE SHADOW The guy is emotionally unavailable. Even when he's physically present with his mistress (or his wife), his mind is elsewhere. SMILE AND FACE YOUR WIFE ANGRY HIS LIFE DON'T DESPISE WHAT'S IN EYES HE SKIPS SO AS THE SEASONS TO COME AS A BREEZE HAS AGAIN, AHEAD Some difficult stuff in there -- best to take it as one chunk. So there's a reference to a "fifty-fifty" dichotomy again with "Smile and face your wife angry". This could be referring to the guy being smiling and happy with the singer yet sliding immediately into anger as he sees his wife afterwards. Does this and "He skips so as the seasons" refer to him being bipolar? I dunno, that one's kind of an out-there interpretation, but I thought I'd include it. The dichotomy instead could be between a disingenuous smile plastered on the guy's mug as he faces his wife, and the anger he feels toward her in his heart. "His life don't despise what's in eyes" is a really tough line to interpret, but it could refer to the fact that the singer feels that she can easily read the guy's constant covering up and resulting stress in his eyes, but that the other people in his life aren't sensitive enough to detect this in his eyes and so find him out. (Maybe.) "To come as a breeze has / Again, ahead" goes along with the "seasons" line that preceded, but also would seem to compare the cheating guy's visiting habits to a breeze, whose comings and goings are unpredictable. WE'LL RUST, OUR NOSE DUST A FINE GARD WITH PLEASED AND, OH ITS TRUE HILL CAN'T COMFORT THE BRAIN HE MUST COME AS HE WAS AGAIN, AHEAD Another one hard to interpret except as a chunk (and even then). But I think we're in third-person perspective (as narrated by the singer) at this point, in the guy's head. "We'll rust, our nose dust" seems to be the guy despairing at what he sees as quickly looming death (with a little biological detail, that while the bones "rust", remaining but discoloring over time, the cartilage and flesh of the nose crumbles to dust). "A fine gard with pleased and, oh its true" -- huh?!? What kind of grammatical crack is Liz on here? Okay, looking up "gard", I'm thinking in this sense it's an archaic word for "garden". This is a very weird line, but my best interpretation is that the guy is taking some comfort ("oh it's true") despite his despair that he has a wife who keeps a fine garden, and he also has great sexual pleasure in his life ("with pleased"...?) thanks to his mistress. But the little hike he took up the hill he likes has failed to ease his irritated mind, so he resigns himself ("Again, ahead") to facing his wife in this mental state. AND THIS IS SAFE, FLOWING, LOVE, SOUL AND LIGHT MOTIONS AREN'T IN THE SHAPE THAT EMOTIONS ARE This was my key to maybe kind of sort of understanding this song. I think we're back in the head of the singer at this point, and she and the guy are having beautiful sex. For this time, all is well. These motions (could be things like kisses and hugs in addition to the loving sex) are soft and flowing, not spiky like the difficult emotions lying under the surface. Bipolar swings would make for particularly spiky emotional shapes, but again, I might be reaching on that part. GOOD MORNING MYTH TO SOMEBODY I CALL IN LIGHT Another of the trickier lines, but perhaps the singer only gets to see the guy during daytime hours, when he can get away with it because he should be at work? (Potentially another element of the "fifty-fifty" theme.) "Good morning myth" could be a reference to another dichotomy, that between the cheerful good morning that the lovers greet each other with, which belies the difficulty and perhaps inevitability of doom in their situation. I dunno, those are my thoughts. Again, amazing song off an amazing album by an amazing band -- go buy it (don't steal it). - Dan Harkless |
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