| Bruce Springsteen – Spare Parts Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Thank you voodoochilde for your comments and for summarizing the story. A story so deceptively simple, told kind of unemotionally, yet it has made me cry when I heard it and sometimes even when I talk about it. The reason I think--Bruce leaves so much unsaid, but the power of the song lies in imagining what goes through Janey's mind as she decides about letting her son drown...or getting back to living. Many of us have gone through moments like that, although probably less dramatic. But we faced a similar dilemma--do you just give up and say "this part of my life isn't worth it...it's too hard," or do you say, "I made a bad mistake but I need to fucking deal with it and its consequences." A long while back I watched a movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales, about a guy who had killed maybe dozens of people in the Civil War and the first few years afterwards. He finally gets a chance to live in peace with some people he met later and a woman he loves. Someone, I forget who, has a line, "It shall be life." The ring and the cash, I think, represent the positive inside us that keeps us caring and loving and trying to do our best for ourselves and those we care about. The key is getting in touch with that part of ourselves. |
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| Tom Petty – Crawling Back To You Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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It took me awhile but i love this song. So much pain, but the hope endures. My interpretation is a little strange---I feel he is writing about illegal aliens coming across the US border to work. They are talking about the USA when they say "crawling back to you." The jobs they get are really bottom of the barrel, for instance, plumbers' helper's helper or...chambermaid, changing sheets in motels day after day, for low wages and non-existent benefits. And always the fear of the INS catching them and sending them back across the border--"The ranger came with burning eyes..." the chambermaid can't do a thing about it except sneak back in, one more time...that is reality. The storyteller sounds like he stays drunk a lot of the time to ease the pain of the monotony, the loneliness, the uncertainty...but he knows he is making more money than he could ever dream of making where he came from, Mexico or Central America. Pretty much every day sucks but people keep telling him there is an opportunity to grab here...he pictures the USA is saying to him, "everything's gonna be all right if I believe in you." And day after day, he keeps crawling back. |
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