| A Silver Mt. Zion – Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!) Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[olp89:3524] Efrim Menuck and over ASMZ members are avid anarchists, as they've stated in interviews. This is especially evident in "Movie, Never Made". "Let our crowds be fed on tear gas and plate glass" is in reference to protests such as the Battle of Seattle, and "let's kill first the banker and his professional demeanor, let's televise and broadcast the raping of kings" is in reference to a bloody revolution. |
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| A Silver Mt. Zion – Take These Hands and Throw Them in the River Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The title of the song is taken from the book "King Leopold's Ghost". To give some context, Leopold was a Belgian king who enslaved African people of the Congo for slave labour in the rubber industry - and the practice of cutting off hands and throwing them in the river. The book ties up with a chilling description of how Leopold's ghost still haunts our modern world... in government buildings and police stations. I assume Menuck is relating this concept of the looming presence of long-gone tyrants to the inescapable tyranny of the modern day. |
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| Radiohead – Pyramid Song Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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The start of the song to me is the wretched and confused cries of a man who clings onto the memories of the material world he is now painfully slipping away from. He reflects on the experiences of his life, both the good and the bad. His jumping into the river is his letting go of the string that was keeping him alive, and then slipping into the water which is the next world he is entering. He sees the world as it was, is, and will be. He sees those that have died, are dying, and will die. As indicated in the video, the whole world is submerged in water. This is the river he has fallen into... death. But there's no indication that it's good nor bad. There's an emptiness and mysteriousness to the song. The cold voice of Yorke speaking of this world is not of fear or joy. There's something eerie about the lack of knowledge we have... there's something frightening about slipping into the black abyss which is this song. Like death. We know the resistance of the main character of the song. Death is ominous and intimidating because of how little we know about it, our uncertainty, much like how we feel about the song (which is why it is so haunting). The character has finally dove into this river... this world of death and jumbled visions and he sinks deeper to depart to his final destination. The character is now in the world in which he departs from the reality is once knew, and is now sinking deeper into the abyss which is his complete and irreversible departure from the material world. The black eyed angels he speaks of could be many things. They could be lost souls such as him drifting, they could be beings guiding him down, or perhaps the black eyed angels are demons. A black eye is a dishonorable reputation, so I in no way doubt that these black-eyed angels are beings in this next world that are demons... dishonored angels. The astral cars could be the stars or instructions that guide him to the place he is unsure of. Or perhaps the astral car is the vehicle that the character takes form of to get to this place... or the one he uses. Regardless, the astral car is whatever is guiding him. When I think of a moon, I think of something revolving around something else. Now, stars can also be traced to constellations, which can be traced to Roman and Greek mythology, which shows all throughout the album, including the cover. The cover has what appears to be a weeping minotaur and constellations behind him/it. Perhaps these constellations represent the system that connects the world together. Stars can also represent a network that traces back to one server or unit, so perhaps this person is being led through these intricate systems that lead back to one central location. Perhaps the place that these moons and stars are revolving around are in fact the system that everything traces back to. Everything... existence... our world... all of the solar systems out there... they are all just intricate systems and networks that revolve around this one energy or existence which is death, or the world we go to one day. The moon full of stars is, in fact, everything that connects to this one source of energy, life and death. The astro-car is the being that assists or temporarily takes form of our main character to lead him through the intricate systems and to this one central location of energy that everything revolves around. Now, the figures that this character used to see could be many, many things. A figure can obviously be a number. So, as he is passing through the system, he is seeing all of this energy traveling through these complex systems, all of the figures that he saw when living in the material world. The figures could literally be anything. Perhaps these figures are both body-related figures and number-related figures. I say this because perhaps these figures are the energy of the people that have and will die. He is seeing all of the figures he used to see... everything he used to see. As he drifts away, he sees everything he used to see. He sees people, places, objects, animals, everything. All of the characters "lovers that were there with me" simply represent the people he had seen in his life. He is nostalgically reflecting upon the days of the material world. Lovers are people who have sexual and/or romantic with other people. Now, romance or sex can be important things in a person's life, so perhaps this romance or sex that this character is thinking about are the things that he most remembers. The character is remembering the romance of the life he once lived. One could interpret the sex or romance that is going on in a character's life not to be the human beings that he was literally having intercourse and romantic bonds with, but rather, his overall relationship with life. The character is thinking about everything that ever affected him. Now, since anything can be traced to anything, as he passes through these intricate systems, he is seeing the energy that caused what gone in his life to happen, which is the romances that he experienced, with money, fame, power, fun, etc. etc. etc. So, basically, everything is one. We are all one. We are one complex system, and that is inevitable. So, these words and lines throughout the song are repeated over and over. This is him passing through the complex systems, which is essentially what the whole song is. Near the end, Yorke states that they all went to "heaven in a little row boat". The row boat obviously represents the vehicle he took. The lovers, which again appear in this part of the song, are him making his final departure into the next world. Him and the joys and hardships of his past life are now entering the source energy from which he came. The song fades out with the haunting lines "there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt". Somehow.. these lines are comforting. He has finally left his fears and misperceptions of death that he had upon first falling in, and now has no doubt or nothing to fear. He is now one with the darkness that he once feared. Now, the line "all my pasts and futures" which was said earlier in the song opens up the whole meanings and allows for more interpretation. I believe the line means that death can open up life. Perhaps he is being reborn into another being, another world, another dimension, another solar system, another existence. All his pasts are what he was, and his futures are what he will become. Everything is an endless cycle of moving energy that is distributed from one source out to the revolving worlds that surround it and connect through stars. But the song may not be about literal "death", a person's heart stopping and their life or energy that was in them slipping away, but rather, perhaps the song is about all of the death we experience in our life. Every death we ourselves experience opens up new possibilities and awakenings. The death of our egos can lead to discovery of purpose and our true selves. Death to our inability to hear others or reason with others can lead to connections with others. Death to our concepts of religion can lead to spiritual awakening. Death to our inability to question a politician or other authoritative figure that lead to the destruction of our destructive wall of ignorance that separates us from truth. Perhaps death is rebirth and rebirth comes from death. Everything is the same, everything is energy, everything is everything, everything is recycled, everything is everything and everything is energy of everything that is ultimately interconnected from one source and is spread out to everything that exists through layered networks and intricate systems (stars). We jump into the river, forever and forever, continuously being recycled, for all of time and existence. One connection I made throughout the song was that most of the imagery that is described can be traced to the culture and mythology of ancient Egypt. The river could be the Nile, the lovers could be the pharaoh's wives, the black eyed angels could be crocodiles, etc. Now, the clues in the song seem to represent things that had gone on in Egypt, and what is Egypt known for? Pyramids. Now, what did the pyramids mean? What did they represent? The pyramid meant power. The massive and grand structure of the pyramids showed the power of the king. Now, the king was said to have been the son of Ra, the sun. Now, the pyramid could represent the sun rays from when Ra supposedly came down from the clouds. So basically, the pyramid represents supreme power. Since the song establishes that everything is an intricate system tracing back to one supreme power, I assume the song is about the journey to and from this supreme power (pyramid) that goes on forever and ever. The song is sung by a man who is in the stage of drifting towards the supreme source energy, which he has been and will continue to do for the rest of existence. |
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| Radiohead – The Bends Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I believe this song is about how a quick rise to celebrity status leads to uncontrollable ego and the intensity of suddenly having people worshipping you and cheating you. While you rise in the eyes of the public, you sink lower and lower in your internal emotion state. "I WANT TO BE PART OF THE HUMAN RACE!". This line has so much more complexity and depth then most people can imagine. As you become a known figure in the world of pop culture, you become less of a human, and more of an object. Your only worth in the public eyes is making content that appeals to your senses. They don't care about your family life or how you feel about social issues (unless of course there is some sort of controversial element or themes correlated with this person's political/social/religious views and/or family life. Those who write for gossip sites and magazines don't care anything about how you feel, or really that you are a human. They just nitpick, and nitpick, and nitpick. They don't want to portray celebrities as humans or organisms capable of human emotions. They are shooting targets. Each hit means success. Each flaw or inaccuracy you point out in people is like getting a bulls-eye. | |
| Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| The lyrics indicate that the song is about how artificial our world is. The denial of a flawed relationship, caring about a celebrity whose image is purely that of exaggerated gossip from columnists, and even all characters on television and the internet. We cover our eyes from the ominous and hard to categorize world out there will technology and people who live the way we do. We shield our eyes from pain and sorrow with false memory and happiness. We live in a world of fake plastic trees. | |
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