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Sun Kil Moon – Pancho Villa Lyrics 6 years ago
Kozolek sings about four boxers in the songs of "Ghosts of the Great Highway." The recording is melancholy and meditative and I think it summons recollections of driving great distances and day dreaming on subjects that captivate the songwriter. Pancho Villa like Salvador Sanchez, Benny Paret and Duk Koo Kim died young. All four were dead before they were 25. Paret and Duk Koo Kim died in the ring or shortly after sustaining catastrophic injuries in now legendary bouts. Villa died from a combination of dental surgery anesthetic, ensuing infection following a drinking bout with friends and then fighting despite his condition. Sanchez is the one who did not die due to injury in the ring. Kozolek is singing about courage, loss, memory and the death of warriors. He's a poet and these songs carry meanings the differ depending on the listener.

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Al Green – Belle Lyrics 7 years ago
Al Green mixed the sacred and profane in his music from the beginning. The ecstasy his singing conveys is both sensual and spiritual and one might wonder where one begins and the other ends or if they coexisted in Al's music. I think they did but this song is shows listeners the process of Al Green's conversion. Ultimately his zeal for the house of the Lord consumed him. That is how it goes.

submissions
Sufjan Stevens – Dear Mr. Supercomputer Lyrics 8 years ago
I doubt that Sufjan often tries to clearly state his ideas or objectively relate his personal story in his songs. Rather he free associates symbols and themes that are meaningful to him hoping that the spirit will guide him and speak. This song is yet another expression of Sufjan's devout countercultural Christianity. Its time signature and breathless delivery mock our frantic, distracted lives, diffused through social media into a virtual reality for which we depend on machines. This is contrasted with his faith, and the irony of his own inconsistency is here too. Love this one too.

submissions
Peter Frampton – Lines on My Face Lyrics 9 years ago
@[BrufordRules:13714] I never understood what Frampton was saying there either before today and can't say I like the real lyric better than what I thought it was either. Why doesn't he need her to be his wife after he married her? He doesn't seem to want the relationship to be over, so it beats me.

submissions
Sufjan Stevens – The Lord God Bird Lyrics 9 years ago
What a lovely song! To think Sufjan was invited by NPR to come up with something for the occasion of a radio piece about Brinkley, Arkansas and created something as fine as this leaves me in awe of his talent. Although I agree that the song is just about the simple subject of the ivory billed woodpecker and the community where it was rediscovered, there is something of the sacred in so much of what a person of faith like Stevens does and it resonates here as well. I think he calls it the "great God bird" rather than "Lord God Bird" because it sings better, but it is kind of interesting that he chose to diverge from the actual nickname of the bird.

submissions
Sufjan Stevens – All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands Lyrics 9 years ago
@[byebyebirdie58:9531] I'm the same, if by Christian music you mean the attempts to create a Christian popular, contemporary or rock music. I love Bach though, the Faure requiem, Haydn's masses and countless hymns and folk songs with religious themes. I love Sufjan too. There is no one else like him. People compare him to Elliot Smith, who I also liked, and I understand the comparison but whisperery vocals are not total correspondence on the most important levels.

I can understand people who don't like or have faith liking Bach or Sufjan, but there is necessarily a barrier there I would imagine. Sufjan is often ecstatically praising or honoring his creator and if you think that is bunk maybe you can credit him with sincerity but I'm not even sure of that.

submissions
Sufjan Stevens – Springfield, or Bobby Got a Shadfly Caught in His Hair Lyrics 9 years ago
Like everyone here, I'm fascinated and moved by this song. The lyrics are on one hand very specific and on the other mysterious. Like a lot of great Sufjan tunes, "Springfield" is a sad song with a current of wry humor throughout. He can be a very clear, and often tells straightforward stories in his songs, but on other occasions relies on allegory and metaphor so much that it is difficult to be sure what he means. This is one of the latter. When he opens up by saying "I don't care to say/What I failed to recognize" he is telling us that he's going to be obscure.

Many people are saying that this song is about an affair with a woman, and I agree but its very brief--a one time thing. There appears to be a wife and infidelity too, but I'm not absolutely sure. The reference to his father tells us more about the narrator, that he's alienated even from a parent.

"The morning papers made the most out of nothing at all" tells us of the world we live in, and puts us on Sufjan's side. He's brilliant and beautiful here. I want this song played at my wake with a montage of photos from my life projected overhead. It's open to interpretation in a way that is very, very cool.

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