| Lou Reed – Perfect Day Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| There is a reason that so many people have written with so strongly about this song's meaning - it's because the song refuses to spell everything out for us. It's not that meaning isn't there, but for those who don't understand poetry, it's subliminal or unconscious. The artist is operating at a deeper level than us, and tapping into out unconscious selves. This is what good modern poetry does. Lou's teacher and mentor at Syracuse University was the mighty Delmore Schwartz, and I hear his influence in this song. The words are as simple as any could be, and the meaning comes directly from the content. For example, consider the verse, "Such a perfect day/feed animals in the zoo/then later a movie too/and then home." Think about the poor little animals in the zoo for a moment, their beautiful little faces behind bars as you reach out to them with your hand. On one level, this is an outward expression of the narrator feeling miserable and trapped, but it is also universal - we are all caged animals living in these big cities. Also, think about the length of this verse. Thirteen words, and that's his whole day - gone in a flash. Animals, movie, home. This is not stated, it doesn't say "the day flies by" - it is WITNESSED by us in real time. The perfect day where he could forget himself is gone in an instant, as perfect days are. And then we are back to the reality of our lives, and in the case of this song, home, and the night. The night is never mentioned. But by God is it inferred. Addendum: there is a Delmore Schwartz poem titled, "Tired and Unhappy, you think of Horses," which reminds me very much of the animals in the zoo. It expresses, to my mind, the desire of the "you" of the poem to be free - to run over the hills will grace and freedom. But can horses ever really be free? They may run over a hill, but almost all of them are fenced in, and designated as someone else's property. Some seem free like the Brumbys of Australia, but they are still at the mercy of human will. And so are all of us. | |
| Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Perfect Skin Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Yep | |
| Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Perfect Skin Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[paul157534:23445] Are you me? I'm wondering if I wrote that. LOL Its exactly what I would have said. |
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| Beck – Diamond Bollocks Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| "Hear that lonesome whistle blow" is Johnny Cash, "No direction to be known" is from Like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan, and the third one (I think) might actually be listed wrong above. I think it's the line "In a scene or would have been" from the song "Paintbox" by the 60's psychedelic incarnation of Pink Floyd. | |
| Lloyd Cole & The Commotions – Perfect Skin Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Weird that there's not a single comment on a song which has such witty observations and poetic lines. "She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin, and she's sexually enlightened by cosmopolitan." That's as good as a Tom Waits line, or Morrissey. | |
| Big Star – Kangaroo Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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He rubbed himself off against her arse at a party. LOL. I came against You didn't say excuse Knew what I was doing It's the most honest, raw lines of teen angst I have ever heard. |
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| Neil Young – Harvest Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| The lyrics create such clear images in the mind, yet the meaning remains defiantly opaque. I can only suggest that this song was not meant to understood literally, perhaps in an effort that it might have some significance to whoever reads their own story into it. Harvest is one of the most haunting song that I have ever heard. | |
| Neil Young – Cortez The Killer Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Neil has made it very clear that he wasn't literally talking about the conquering of the Aztecs. To quote the great side-burned one: "What the fuck am I doing writing about Aztecs in "Cortez the Killer," like I was there wandering around? I only read about it in a few books. A lot of shit I just made up because it came to me." Nevertheless, the music seems to capture the very essence of hate and genocide and loss. As one reviewer put it, the song "flows like lava" - a river of grief, if you ask me. | |
| Neil Young – Cortez The Killer Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[DangerBird:19039] In Neil Young Under Review, one of the gentlemen suggested that it "flowed like lava," which I thought was the best description I had ever heard. It took me years to like this song, whereas songs like Ambulance Blues I liked immediately. You've got a great list there. I'd have Out on the Weekend and Harvest in there myself. I loved his simple, vulnerable acoustic tracks. But then again, I've always loved clinically depressed music. LOL | |
| Joy Division – Insight Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| RE "I'm not afraid any more/I keep my eyes on the door." These lines imply to me that he was afraid of life, rather than death. But he is not any more - because he keeps his eyes on death, and the fact that he can end it any moment he chooses. He is no longer trapped; the door is always there. I think this is consistent with the experience of suicidal ideation for most people. It's life they can't face; death appears to them as a release. | |
| Godley & Creme – An Englishman in New York Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| The Strange Apparatus in this song is New York, as viewed through an Englishman's eyes. I also think that it is more broadly about the human mind, which can bring such a bizarre, scary, side-show of a place into existence. Such a shame no one would comment on such intriguing, dadaist lyrics. | |
| Mazzy Star – Look On Down From The Bridge Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[Psychedelia:18637] I was just thinking the same thing, that I would love it to be played at my funeral - but then I guess I won't be the one grieving, and everyone would need something differerent. If you like this, look up the poem, "I depart as air" by Walt Whitman. He talks in the present tense, as if he is experiencing his own death. Its so beautiful - sad, yet victorious. |
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| Mazzy Star – Look On Down From The Bridge Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[Psychedelia:18638] I was just thinking the same thing, that I would love it to be played at my funeral - but then I guess I won't be the one grieving, and everyone would need something differerent. If you like this, look up the poem, "I depart as air" by Walt Whitman. He talks in the present tense, as if he is experiencing his own death. Its so beautiful - sad, yet victorious. |
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| Mazzy Star – Look On Down From The Bridge Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[Psychedelia:18636] I was just thinking the same thing, that I would love it to be played at my funeral - but then I guess I won't be the one grieving, and everyone would need something differerent. If you like this, look up the poem, "I depart as air" by Walt Whitman. He talks in the present tense, as if he is experiencing his own death. Its so beautiful - sad, yet victorious. |
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| Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Elton John – Rocket Man Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I think this is a good example of how lyrics or text of any kind, when not taken literally, have an infinite number of interpretations. Think of holy texts. We will never all agree! And when the words are accompanied by song, the meaning becomes even more elusive, because music points to a truth beyond words. All you can do is listen and wonder. This lack of definitive meaning is the very reason why you can hear a song like this so many times. Personally, this song leaves me with the feeling of a small man who is out of his depth in the world, but whose dreamings are as vast as the universe itself. | |
| Television – Venus de Milo Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[tyler11:10665] I was going to say something similar, about falling into the arms of love when love has no arms. I think it's a way of saying that love might feel great - it might well be the best thing in the world - but that it won't carry or protect us from life on life's terms/ hard times. This I think is a typically punk idea. | |
| Talking Heads – What a Day That Was Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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@[Deodata:10564] It's a pity no-one else has anything to say about this great song. How is it about the band? That's what I want to know. |
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| Talking Heads – Life During Wartime Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[O2BKewl2:10370] Yes it feels that way to me too. It feels like the end of the western veneer of civilisation | |
| Laurie Anderson – Walking & Falling Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| No comments? Well I'm proud to be the first! This is such a meditation, this "song." I think it is about the way the heart falls and catches itself. We need to believe in one another to cope with life, but then we also cannot help but doubt other people, to doubt their love, or that they really are there with us on our journey in life. We all fear being truly alone in the universe. | |
| The Modern Lovers – Girlfriend Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Those words, "A girlfriend/that's something that I understand" - they feel like such a deep expression of love. But why? Well, because love never can be explained logically. Love is an intuitive thing, traditionally the domain of poets, but ultimately something which we all understand on a gut level. Here he has pared it down to a single common word: "Girlfriend." That's punk poetry at its best. This song really captures the feeling of how everything seems to make such simple, perfect sense when you're in love. | |
| The Modern Lovers – Dignified and Old Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I love this song too. There's something brave and tragic about it; I picture him holding someone who has O.D'd or something, saying "Don't you die now" (as he says at the end of the LP version). It chokes me up, yet at the same time it's almost humourous musically - the cheerfully rocking chords, all the "Hey kids." Songs that are funny and tragic and brave and tongue in cheek all at the same time are few and far between. Perhaps hand in glove by the smiths. | |
| David Bowie – Five Years Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I'm a lifetime student of writing, and one of the things you learn very quickly is that detail = evocation. So it's no surprise that this song makes you feel as if you are right there, as he pours out all the things, people, actions, etc. he witnesses. And by listing them, he gives them importance. Suddenly all the small things become terribly important, almost shining - as happens when faced with mortaility. | |
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