| La Dispute – Stay Happy There Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The first time I heard this song (before the album was released and therefore out of context) I thought it was about the narrator's lover who is depressed and suicidal. The line "set the knife down and forget where I'd left it, making breakfast, put coffee on the stove then scour every counter for the knife" make me imagine the narrator misplacing the knife and freaking out because he's afraid his lover has taken it to use it on herself. Several lines support this idea: But doesn't it seem a bit wasteful to you? To throw away all of the time we spent perfecting our love in close quarters and confines? Isn't it wasteful? (he's trying to convince her not to waste her life by taking it) and It's alright I will fix whatever is not the sweetness in your eyes Just sit down Please Sit down Here at the table and we'll talk (he's pleading with her to let him help) The "woman on a ledge" may or may not be the lover but it definitely points towards depression/suicide. Now, I can't find any other reference to this theory on the album; however, we don't have any better explanation as to why the relationship fell apart either. Any thoughts? |
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| La Dispute – Scenes from Highways 1981-2009 Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Probably the most confusing and also one of my favorite songs on the album. Jordan is in love with the pronouns "I" and "you" which always makes it difficult to figure out who he is talking to or about, but that's his style and it works. I reached the same conclusions as parttimelovah: The story jumps back and forth between 1) the narrator and his lover on their road trip(s) through the desert referenced in "For Mayor in Splitsville" and "Stay Happy There" in the present day (2009) and 2) the narrator's father driving alone trying to escape his crumbling marriage when the narrator was a baby (1981). Thus, this song connects the past to the present, and illustrates that through this family's history the open road has been as integral a setting as the rooms of the houses they lived in. I would like to point out that the couple in HUDSONVILLE, MI 1956 and THE CHILD WE LOST 1963 isn't the narrator's parents but his grandparents, and their children are the narrator's father/uncles/aunts. The album covers three generations. It's interesting that the narrator's father worked at a hardware store in his youth. Jordan has stated in interviews that he he and his cousin Brad (the drummer) work (or at least used to work) in a hardware store in Grand Rapids, a fact that made it into the song "Edward Benz, 27 Times" from Wildlife which is based on a true story. |
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