| David Bowie – Song for Bob Dylan Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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It is only the chorus which switches from commenting on Bob Dylan's return to the fray as a cultural force to describing a 'painted lady from the brow of the Superbrain' that confuses things here. When Dylan wrote his 'song To Woody' on his first album (a tribute to Woody Guthrie) he didn't mention outlandish or symbolic women, only a few of Woody's contemporaries, other troubadours etc. For me 'the brow of the superbrain', which equates to me with the term 'highbrow' is a reference to the upper classes, and their 'educated' view of life, which is often vapid, dismissive and cynical. I think Bowie is saying that this painted lady, who represents these highbrow critics and their ilk, maybe high-class groupies he'd come across too, and other 'camp followers' in rock could be put back in their place by the more street-cred songs Dylan wrote, with their deeper wisdom and acerbic wit. Bowie is already sick of highbrow critics and followers, journalists with their dumb questions and their disdain for what they'd call dismissively 'pop culture' and lowbrow, just like Dylan himself was (and is). |
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| Toyah – Ieya Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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The word Ieya is just a contraction and variant spelling of the end of the word 'Messiah' - Mess-ieya… The first first simply introduces the Messiah, a space being, a perfect sphere etc. The second verse introduces 'the beast' - the traditional adversary of the Messiah, which could be read as the devil, lucifer, Satan, etc The rest of the song seems to be a suggestion from 'the beast' that the Messiah 'mates' with it. Cue lots of sinister mumbo jumbo from Madame Toyah, 'Zion Zuberon' indeed. I ask you! |
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| Arcade Fire – Wake Up Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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The lightning bolt is an accepted symbol in social/cultural anthropology for a shocking change. This change is usually the result of seeing the world as it really is. In other words it's like having the 'scales fall from our eyes'. You see a deeper meaning to your life, you see that you can change things, but you have to speak the truth to do that. The narrator of the song has come to see the normal day-to-day world as meaningless - the adult world, in other words - and is saying they realise that they've lost the vitality and creativity of their childhood. As the great man said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." |
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| Elvis Costello – Pony St. Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| The song might as well be called 'Crap Street', since it's Cockney rhyming slang: 'Pony & Trap' for 'Crap'. There is a very nasty couple and their daughter in the lyrics, and the mother is referred to as a 'martinet' - a 'strict disciplinarian' apparently. Once we have the picture of a dominatrix basically with a father in 'disco dresses' and a daughter in 'lace and leather', we have a sexually/socially dysfunctional working class family. The only question left to answer is that of the identity of the narrator? It seems a bit lazy to say it's Declan himself, but why not, he's escaped that working class trap by becoming a successful singer/songwriter, and he really is 'the genuine thing but for you it's just history'. | |
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