| Bruce Springsteen – Shut Out the Light Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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This is one of Springsteen's beautiful, understated little songs which manage to say so much. I agree totally with the interpretations from tjtros and pencil neckd geek, you've nailed it guys. I think Moonpig is wrong about the 'button on her blouse' and the 'kids out of the house'. She is making herself pretty for him and making sure they won't be disturbed when he gets home, and also possibly making allowance for not knowing how he's going to be when he first comes through the door. Everyone rallies round in classic American style - Dad waffles about his old job, his car is buffed up, his Mum is so happy to have him home again....but he isn't home, he's standing waist deep in an unnamed river and all he sees is where he's been. Everything else just bounces off him. Sorry to write so much, the guys above said it all in half the time. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Really pleased to see so many comments about this amazing song. My take is that Atlantic City is pictured as in meltdown, the hoods setting up a massive power struggle and the forces of law n order way too thin on the ground to handle it. This is the backdrop but it is NOT what the song is actually about. For me the song is about a guy, a hopeless hapless loser who is tired of losing. 'Down here it's just winners and losers and don't come out on the wrong side of that line. Well I'm tired of coming out on the losing end'. He's got debts and he's got a relationship that has gone cold and his desperation leaks out of every line of the lyric. Imagine being the girl on the receiving end of 'Our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay'. Locked into a hopeless situation he has a mantra - everything dies, baby, that's a fact but maybe everything that dies some day comes back. This refers to their love as well as the 'favour' (ie 'hit') that he has signed up for. it doesn't sound to me like he believes any good will come from any of this and he knows his mantra is straw in the wind. 'Put on your stockings babe, cos the nights getting cold' suggests more than just the meteorological situation, she's going to need plenty to get through this loveless trip into the maelstrom where 'the sand turns to gold'. It's going to be a long cold trip, and the sand's only going to turn to blood. So.. this song is about deperate acts in hopeless situations and, like so much of Bruce, it's about why men do the evil that they do. I think... |
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| Van Der Graaf Generator – Arrow Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Another piece of genius writing from Hammill. I agree absolutely with Dobbo, this is a song about death, running through life, scrabbling every which way to escape the inevitable.It's on your tail, your options narrow down and it impales you in the end. (cf also the arrow of time and 'Time's Arrow' byMartin Amis) | |
| Van Der Graaf Generator – Scorched Earth Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Peter Hammill is a genius lyricist, no question. I think this song is about not giving in to a dull work life, not signing up with the man. This is a recurring theme with Hammill, that it is better to plough a lone true furrow through life rather than put on a suit, take the money and give in to corporate lifestyle, even at such a cost.. | |
| R.E.M. – Hope Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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This is an exceptional song hidden in an album of desperately unexceptional material. It speaks clearly to me from the point of view of someone awaiting a critical, risky operation for a life threatening condition. He has seen alligators being killed on TV and they are 'hog-tied and accepting'. Part of him wants to achieve that level of acceptance by crossing his 'DNA with something reptile' but he just can't. He looks for hope in religion, but knows 'it's allegory' and looks for hope in Science, tries to 'bridge the schism', looking for deliverance and salvation. Looking like an idiot as he claws desperately for something to tie a future onto. He would happily trust the doctors 'Their procedure is the best' but he saw someone else from his ward undergoing the same procedure and he 'bled til sunday night', 'the intern was a mess'. He wants his future back and 'go out Friday' 'go forever'. But all the alternatives are fraught and 'he's weakened by the sight of it'. The music does parallel Leonard Cohen's Suzanne but it is a fairly obvious melodic line and REM have a long track record of creative, original writing behind them so it seems unlikely that there was any plagiarism. Lyrically there is no connection. I cannot listen to this track without getting goose bumps, so powerful, intense. was Stipe in hospital around that time himself? |
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