| Collective Soul – Precious Declaration Lyrics | 3 months ago |
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All right, I have a take on this that I haven't seen yet. This is a song about a divorce, and it's a divorce that the singer is exceedingly happy to be done with, ready to start a new life and move on in whatever direction he wants. Feels so good, it's like salvation. "Hitched a ride to the peaceful side of town Then proceeded where thieves are no longer found" Going to a divorce arbitration. No lawyers allowed, only a judge. "Can't crash now I've been waiting for this Won't crash now I found some encouragement " Getting near the end of the proceedings. Maybe this is the last meeting before making everything official. So close. "Precious declaration reads Yours is yours and mine you leave alone now" The "precious declaration" is his divorce decree. It let them both leave with their own assets, which is how the singer wanted it to go. "Precious declaration says I believe all hope is dead no longer " Our first clue that this divorce is a happy one. He's felt like all hope is dead, until this day, when the decree was signed. "New meanings to the words I feed upon Wake within my veins elements of freedom Can't break now I've been living for this Won't break now I'm cleansed with hopefulness" He's able to see things for himself now, not filtered through someone else's eyes, and he feels better for it. It's a sign he's embracing his freedom, all the muck from his past gone and replaced with hope. "Once I jumped thru hoops of fire High and far as you required I was blind but now I see Salvation has discovered me" He tried very hard to make her happy, jumping through hoops of fire for her if she asked. He didn't realize how trapped he really was, but now he's free, and feels great! |
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| Olivia Rodrigo – Brutal Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| I feel like this is a coming-of-age song, and she's singing about how after all the work she did to stay on the "good" side of her teen years, she's now entering adulthood and it's WAY harder than she thought. None of the things are the way she thought they'd be, and people are even more mean and less patient than they were when she was younger. Now at 17, she's started to get treated more like an adult, even if she isn't quite an adult yet, and finding out that, yeah, it really IS brutal out here. | |
| Tom Petty – Swingin' Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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Tough nut to crack. I think the song is ultimately about the loss of a dream because life happens sometimes. The girl in the song is trying to make something of herself, probably as a performer or singer of some kind due to all the swing-band name drops in the song. She begins hitchhiking near a highway, probably because her car broke down, which puts her at a very low point. She's been knocked down once already. But she didn't give up. If she can't drive to where she's going (to take her shot at her dream) then she'll hitch. The young woman has been through some trying times already, despite her young age. Some kind of "hell" she experienced in Vegas... it doesn't matter what it is, just that in that case, she didn't go through it alone, her mother in law was with her. That's a bit representative too, because sometimes, our bad times are on display for others to see. The woman finally gets to where she's going and takes her shot. But it doesn't work out how she wants. We know that because of the last name that's dropped: Sonny Liston. All the other name drops were swing band leaders or musicians. This is how we are supposed to understand that she's trying to get into some kind of performing arts as a singer or musician, even though that's just symbolic of whatever it is that's in your dreams. "She went down swingin'" like all these famous swing band leaders, most of whom died doing what they loved. Except for Sonny Liston. Liston was a boxer, and famously got his *** handed to him by a young Muhammad Ali (when he was still going by the name Cassius Clay). Ali knocked Liston out cold with one punch. So if this young woman went down swinging like all these swing band leaders, that just means she was dedicated to her art like they were. But to go down swingin' like Sonny Liston means you lost pretty hard, which is what Liston is now famous for. You didn't accomplish what you set out to do. But you get up, and you try again, or you move on to something else. So she took her shot, and she went down... swingin'. |
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| Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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This is one of those few songs that has little to no subtext. It's all right there on the surface. The first verse is a preview of the end, and of what is eventually going to happen to our lusty biker. Then it backs up a bit, and we see that earlier he was trying to score. He was upfront with her about just wanting one night, and then he'd be off like a bat out of hell. And so he does, but he's so distracted by the woman he just spent a night with that he isn't paying attention to the road, hits the curve and crashes his bike in a ditch. He's battered and broken and dying. And here we get our one little piece of symbolism: his heart breaking out of his body and flying away (like a bat out of hell!). Obviously, hearts don't generally behave this way, which is how we know we're dealing with symbolism. His heart is doing the same thing to him that he just did to the girl he romanced: it flew away like a bat out of hell. And yes, he dies at the end, quite grossly, "starting to foam in the heat." |
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| Steely Dan – Josie Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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Song seems to be about a group of friends who are awaiting the return of the wildest one among them, a girl named Josie. Josie was the life of every party, sexually available if it suited her, and she could convince other girls in their circle to be as wild as she is. The first verse seems about a beach party they're planning, while the second verse sounds like they're planning a "night on the town," both with Josie in tow. The singer expects that sooner or later his entire group of friends will have a chance to bump uglies with Josie, because she's not super discerning. The line about "prays like a Roman," I think that's a sex act. "Prays" as in, on her knees, and "like a Roman" referring to the pantheon of multiple Roman Gods. It means that Josie isn't going romantically to be tied down to one person, she's gonna "pray" to all of this circle of friends eventually. Best guess. Sounds like Becker lyrics. He always wrote the shadier stuff. |
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| Joe Walsh – A Life Of Illusion Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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I have a very different interpretation of this song. Most of this song was written in 1973, many years before it was finished and released. But something terrible happened to Joe in 1974, and I believe when he finally sat down to write the lyrics to this song, it was on his mind. In 1974, Joe's eldest daughter was hit by a car and killed while on her way to pre-school. The strain led to the end of his marriage at the time. After his daughter's death, he felt like nothing at all mattered anymore, and everything he'd achieved up to that point was just a meaningless illusion of success. So much of the lyrics seem to allude to the death of his daughter without ever actually saying so. The first verse is stating his disillusionment, wishing that he could ignore it and just learn to accept where he's at in life, but he just can't. The second seems like the most direct reference to his daughter, an unexpected tragedy: POW! Right between the eyes. If you've ever lost the most important person in your life, suddenly and unexpectedly, you'd know that this is exactly how you feel like you just got punched in the face, by Mother Nature herself. And man can she HIT. Life punched him right between the eyes. It's not anything he can fix, it's just the way life goes sometimes, and there's nothing he can do about it, further adding to the idea that success and happiness are illusions to Joe, at the time. But then the third verse seems to be telling us that there's no end to this feeling, and you simply have no choice but to learn to accept things that you can't fix, or you'll drive yourself nuts. Can't spend all your time looking for solutions that don't exist. In the end, Joe had a plaque and a fountain installed in the Boulder CO park where his daughter used to enjoy playing. After his divorce, a few months after the accident, Joe started dating Stevie Nicks, and while their relationship was fraught with ALL-PRO levels cocaine abuse, she also found a way to open his heart again, and wrote "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For you?" to Walsh, which was an incredibly sweet and touching song (read the lyrics. Wow.) meant to tell him that she wasn't the only person in the world who loved him, and to convince him not to give up. Unfortunately, their relationship was sunk by the coke, and one of the last times she spoke to him, she told him "don't come around here no more!" And she said that to him while Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics was in earshot, and he took that phrase and co-wrote a song with Tom Petty called, "Don't Come Around Here No More." But many years later, Nicks still referred to Walsh as "the love of her life." |
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| Phish – Sample In A Jar Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Elihu refers to Elihu Abrahams, father of Dave Abrahams, who was a frequent songwriting collaborator on a number of Phish songs. No idea what "Leemoor's bed" refers to. The rest sounds like a guy who got drunk to drown his sorrows about a failed relationship, and he had a friend take care of his drunk ass and take him home. The song's title, "Sample in a jar" refers to, figuratively, a piece of sh*t, because when you get THAT drunk, to the point of needing friends to manage you, that's what you feel like, a piece of sh*t, not only because of how drunk you are, but because of how guilty you feel about imposing on your friends, and putting them in a position of having to look after you. |
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| Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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@[Scheherezade:33874] Yeah I think you're pretty darn close. Here's what I'd add: Verse 1: no notes Verse 2: "Fingertips have memories..." He used to be in a relationship, and his sexual desires were being met. But now he's not, and he's remembering the things he and his ex used to do, and of course it makes him horny (a little bit naughty), but when he tries to reach out and form a sexual connection with someone else, nobody is interested ("I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, but no one ever does") and this lack of desirability is contributing to his mental health problems. Chorus (I'm not sick but...): no notes Verse 3: (Been around the world...), the only thing I'd add is about the "I don't even own a TV." I think that line is suggesting that he has disdain for people who spend all day in front of the TV and never go out. Those are the stupid breeding people he's talking about. And he doesn't own a TV, implying he doesn't see himself as one of them, but then again, they seem happy, and he's not. So he's torn between the intellectual knowledge that he's better off by not watching TV all day, but the emotional trauma of feeling isolated. Verse 4: (Put me in the hospital...) Yeah, he checked himself in because he knew that he didn't feel right, but when the doctors asked someone close to him to describe his symptoms (from an outside perspective), they overplayed the symptoms, betraying him while he was vulnerable, and made the situation even worse. So now he's committed, can't trust his friends, not getting laid, bored, and isolated EVEN MORE. The pressure builds... Bridge (Publish 'zines, rage against...): no notes. Verse 5 (Paranoia...): Now the narrator trusts no one, so as you said, he's going to "go underground" with other people in the same situation, which shows that he's finally found a group he belongs with: outcasts. The irony here is that in order to find somewhere he belonged, he had to completely turn his back on society. The big holes reference is, I think, intended to convey that there turned out to be a LOT more people like him than he ever expected. Gotta make some big tunnels for that many people to "go underground." Verse 6 (Hear the voices...): I think here, he's saying he's still messed up in the head, but he feels more secure now, having found other people who share his predicament. They're sort of all crazy together, but in saying that, he's found a degree of relief and healing. Not TOTAL healing, but a certain degree of tolerance knowing that he isn't really alone after all, and never really was. There's still agony at not feeling right, but the irony of finding other people like him is a big surprise to him. |
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| King's X – We Were Born to Be Loved Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[radioheadster:33550] After listening to it some more, yes, I'm sure it's 4/4, but there's a three or 4 spots where they toss in a single bar of 6/4 just to confuse everyone. I love that stuff. | |
| Soundgarden – Outshined Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I saw Audioslave years ago in SF, and they performed this song. Chris talked about it before they played it, and said that he wrote it the day he woke up and learned that the US was sending troops to the first Iraq War. He didn't get much more specific that, but just said that watching that happen on the news is what put him in the headspace to write Outshined. | |
| Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I have heard the rumor that the title is supposed to be referencing a butt-hole, or anal sex. Not buying it. But there's a detail that I see often left out of many of the top explanations. The song is about his first sexual relationship. Sex is implied several times, right from the first verse. Every verse has at least one thinly veiled reference to sex: 1. "Down in the hollow, playing a new game." They are young and have known each other a while, been friends for a while, but have recently become sexually active, and as it always happens, once you start having sex with someone you really like (or love), you want to do it all the time. It's a "new game" for them, they start spending more time doing that than the other things they used to do together for fun. Their relationship is growing up along with them. 2. "Going down to the old mine with a transistor radio." Why do a boy and girl go into an old mine together with some tunes if not to be alone and get some nookie? 3. "Hiding behind a rainbow's wall" More need for privacy. Do these kids do anything else?!?! 4. "Making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you" - There's a theme that keeps repeating: a young couple that needs privacy, but doesn't really have any place to go, because presumably they are still young and living with parents. So they have to keep finding places together away from home in order to get busy. Down in a hollow, down in an old mine, behind a rainbow's wall, and in the green grass behind the stadium... the song is about a sexual awakening, but without a safe place to have sex. So they find places in nature where they're afforded a degree of privacy, but in his memory, that was part of the fun. They actually enjoyed the uniqueness of having sex in different places, the thrill of almost getting caught. The relationship was very formative, and when he sees her later in life, he's overcome with feeling and joy at his own memories of the affair. He doesn't mention how it ended, and this is deliberate, because the good memories far exceed the bad. She is, to him, "the one the got away." We've all got one. |
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| King's X – We Were Born to Be Loved Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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The first part of the song, up to the background spoken word, is just about rising above a bad upbringing. When you grow up, you have to let go of some of the stuff holding you back. It's the only way to really find love in the world, even if you're screaming inside from all the damage done to you. The spoken work part is largely autobiographical. Doug Pinnick had a very lonely childhood, raised by a "fire & brimstone" preaching grandmother who constantly berated him and told him that nobody loves him and that's why both his parents abandoned him. There are other songs where he alludes to his past: Over My Head and also Picture are a couple. But he's saying that he's proof that you can rise above. "Happy endings are no just for TV" because you can find happiness after a rough beginning. It does no good to point the finger after a certain point, because you've just gotta work on yourself, internally. |
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| King's X – We Were Born to Be Loved Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[radioheadster:32057] I think it's just 4/4, but they almost never hit on the downbeat. Lots of up-beat notes to give it that funky feel, and some of the pauses aren't counted at all. Feels like they recorded this live in the studio while looking to one another for visual cues. | |
| King's X – (Thinking And Wondering) What I'm Gonna Do Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I think this song is about depression and how a depressed person can sometimes be drawn to people who end up taking advantage of them. "So would you take me for a ride And let me know I'm still alive" It's saying "I want you to quicken me again, make me feel something." The up/down cycle of depression can be maddening, especially when you've been in a rut for a while, you'd give ANYTHING to feel something different, and that can end up blinding you to people who really don't have your best interests in mind. "Oh, sometimes I wish I didn't Have an answer or a clue to anything All this wondering and this thinking and wondering And this thinking and wondering what I'm gonna do" When in such a position, sometimes it can feel like ignorance is bliss. "If only I didn't know about people what I know now, I might be able to give people the benefit of doubt, and still have hope for a positive relationship." "So many reasons to believe, yeah I am so easily deceived, oh" You WANT to open up. You really really do, because the loneliness only makes the depression worse, but... you also are now super cautious about who your trust, sometimes TOO cautious, which only reinforces the loneliness, and makes the depression worse. It's a hard cycle to break out of. Basically the entire song is about the push-pull of personal relationships while you're dealing with depression. You want to be around people so you're less lonely, but then someone comes along and abuses your trust, so you shut down, but that only makes you more lonely and depressed, so you reach out again, only to be disappointed again, then shut down again... and on and on. All this leads to overthinking. "All this thinking and wondering what I'm gonna do." |
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| Rush – The Body Electric Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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The song is about individuality, a recurring them in MANY Peart lyrics. It's saying that the real answer to the questions "What am I and why am I here?" cannot be valid if they come from someone else. Only the individual can answer that question for themselves. If someone else is telling you what you are and why you're there, then you're not an individual at all, you're just another robot. A slave. For a robot, the answer to "What am I?" would be "property," and the answer to "Why am I here?" is "to serve." But to humans, those answers would be different for every person. In reality, you are what you do, and what you decide to be, for your own reasons. At the end of the song, the robot is reclaimed by his machine masters. He cannot escape, because he has no will of his own. He wanted to be human, but he can't ever be as long as his "code," his "program" was written by someone (or something) else. We, the humans, must all write our own "code" and program ourselves, every minute of every day. The moment we surrender control to someone else, we are reclaimed by the machine, and become nothing but robots. |
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| Talking Heads – Psycho Killer Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I think Byrne mentioned once that he wrote the song about a serial killer that thinks he's a sophisticated person, because he speaks French and doesn't ALWAYS kill people. That sounds like an allegory to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Telltale Heart," where the killer telling the story constantly tries to convince the reader of his sanity by repeatedly saying things like "Look how clearly I can tell this story, could a crazy person do that? Look how well-spoken I am. That's not something crazy people are, amirite?!" All while describing a murder he's committed for precisely no clear reason at all. |
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| Spock's Beard – June Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I have no idea what the songwriter meant with these lyrics. They're too ambiguous to say for sure what he meant without hearing his explanation. What I THINK it's about is a tour that was taking place in the beginning of summer. Sounds like he's singing about a show the band played. The tour was a lot of fun, and marked a first big success for the band. "Sun... never went down at night" sounds like they were up late, playing for a crowd, and having a great time. The crowd encouraging them all the while to keep playing. As for the Prince and the drummer and fire girls, and why any of them would be trying to keep someone else's guitars in tune, I have not a clue. |
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| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Wooden Ships Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I mostly agree with the nuclear war suggestions. To me, the second verse is the most significant: I can see by your coat, my friend, You're from the other side Just one thing I've got to know Can you tell me please, who won? This verse lets you know the state of the world. Two people from opposing sides of a global nuclear war meet up, but the war was so vast and its destruction so complete and utter, that even the survivors can't tell who won the war, because not enough people are left alive to claim victory, and no civilization left to celebrate the end of the war. Most (or maybe all?) of the survivors live on wooden ships because the land is too irradiated. I think the "silver people on the shoreline" is an allegory for what nuclear war theorists refer to as the walking dead. They've gotten a lethal dose of radiation poisoning, but they haven't died from it yet. The people from the ships can only watch in horror as the "silver people" keel over and die, knowing that they represent most of humanity, and that the same thing is happening all over the world. Only the people who were on wooden ships have survived. The survivors struggle to find food that is safe to eat (the purple berries). Eventually, the survivors on the ships realize there's nothing they can do for what's left of civilization, so they set out to find a safe place to life, maybe an island somewhere. "Guess I'll set a course and go..." He still feels the pull of the mainland where he is from, but he knows there's nothing left for him there anymore. He's sad about it, but he knows he has to leave. |
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| Yes – City of Love Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| The prose in this song is a bit all-over-the-place, but I think it is about, like one poster said, prostitution in the big city. But it's also a personal tale about an otherwise "good man" who is tempted to play with a prostitute, and he thinks he is clever and quick enough to get away with it, so his wife won't find out. But she's smarter than he is and is following him. She sees what he's up to, sees him sneaking out of the dark after his tryst. The ending, "No woman, no cry" is a Bob Marley reference to a song of that name, where he advises a woman who is crying to forget about the past and focus on her future, whatever she may decide to do. Good advice! | |
| Yes – Shoot High Aim Low Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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There were at least two occasions when American Marines invaded Nicaragua, and one of them, in 1912, started at a port town called "Bluefields." That's the part of the song that Jon Anderson is signing about, and everything else the rikdad said about that part of the song fits in just right. But Trevor's lines seem to be about something else entirely. Trevor is singing about sitting on a beach in a car with a girl and trying to get laid, but I think the twist is that the car is parked on the beach at Bluefields, years later after the amphibious assault. "We sat for hours on the crimson sand, he sings. People died there years ago, and now Trevor is basically singing about trying to the most life-affirming thing that a person can do, in that same spot where people died. Shoot High, Aim Low indeed. |
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| Yes – Where Will You Be Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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I heard Jon Anderson talk about the meaning of this bittersweet song when I saw them live for this tour. It's about his belief in reincarnation, and that we are all connected. It's possible to love someone beyond life, to have your soul and theirs fall in love, and when that happens, you're connected forever and when you are reincarnated, that person will still touch your life no matter where they are. The bittersweet part is that when this type of love survives reincarnation, we might not be able to find our soul mate again in this life, because maybe they got reincarnated on the other side of the world. Hence, "Where Will You Be?" as the title. But even though they're across the world, and even though you'd never see them, you are still connected to them, and you will eventually be reunited. That's what Jon Anderson said anyway, paraphrased. |
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| Arrested Development – People Everyday Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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This song is basically a lament about black-on-black violence. They set up an relatively idyllic scene, a day at the park, listening to tunes, running into someone you love and being pleased about it. The song goes out of its way to highlight the contrast between the speaker's more traditional African cultural roots, and the more boorish behavior of a couple of drunk "tough-guys" at the park. The song is actually kind of sad. There's a part after most of the lyrics where you can hear the background singers saying "Why, oh, why, oh why, oh why?" In other words, why do people who should have solidarity together decide to mess with one another like this? I think the author is saying that this type of division is PARTLY responsible for why it often feels like African Americans cannot seem to get ahead even when they are trying as hard as they can, and how sad it is to be pulled down by people who should want to see you succeed. Great song. |
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| Stevie Ray Vaughan – Look At Little Sister Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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The song leaves a bit to the listener's interpretation, simply because it never says EXACTLY what little sister is actually doing in the back yard. But we can extrapolate: I doubt she's having sex in the backyard. That seems a tad too explicit, though it's still possible. I started to think about the question, "What do teenage-ish girls do in their backyards that might disturb their older brothers?" Well, sunbathing nude or skinny-dipping in the pool would certainly qualify, but that doesn't track with the line "Shakin' like a tree/Rolling like a log/That ain't all." So here's what I think is going on. Yes, she's the singer's YOUNGER sister, because "little," but she's growing up and starting to fill out, and now she doesn't look like a child anymore. She's a young girl on the cusp of adulthood. I think what she's doing in the backyard is dancing. When she was younger, her dancing around in the back yard was no big deal because hey, kids might dance around in the back yard. But now, she's older, and starting to develop a woman's figure, and when she dances around, now it's become the kind of thing that a lot of men might want to watch. The line "that ain't all" sort of implies to me that her dancing has taken on a more sexualized or sensual style, maybe dancing like a stripper or something, or just dancing REALLY provocatively. What would the neighbors say when they see her? What will people start to think about her when they find out she likes to dance sexy? "Stop little sister, gettin' carried away." That's what I always thought the song was about. |
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| Alice in Chains – I Stay Away Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[speed114:22766] You wrote this comment 11 years ago. Now I'm wondering how it all turned out. | |
| Pearl Jam – Even Flow Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[Stevvveo:22765] He was being a bit hypocritical during that speech, don't you think? How do you think Vedder and his band arrived at that concert venue that night? They didn't walk, and they didn't drive themselves, and they weren't packed into a VW Beetle like a clown car. I'm willing to be they arrived in Limos. Or if they didn't that night, they have since. | |
| Phish – My Friend, My Friend Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I think this song is about being tempted when you're married. "My friend, my friend he's got a knife, a statement from his former life When he was easy but alone beside him was an empty throne" He's a married guy, and the knife represents his past when he was still single. It's a statement of his former life when he had no "queen," no wife to sit beside him. "But what of silver silken blade, affix his gaze, his features staid Grasps the handle, clips the cable, one steps up, sits at his table" So he's married, but ah, he's still got this knife that reminds him of being single. He's getting ready to cheat, so he "clips the cable" connecting to his wife, and almost immediately, "one sits at his table" which is a woman looking to fool around with him. "My friend, my friend, he's got a knife My friend, my friend, he's got a wife" Trying to balance the scales, with his wife on one side, and the knife representing his independence and "lost" freedom on the other side. "My friend, my friend, the clever ruse, persuasion through his thoughts peruse" He's thinking of ways to persuade the new girl into bed with him. "A hidden relic from his past that wasn't there when he looked last" The girl is someone he used to know, or date, or sleep with. He's starting there, even though he really did try to put her out of his mind when he got married. "He feels it ticking like a bomb, feeding fear, assaulting calm" Now that he has basically committed himself to stepping out on his wife, it's giving him panic attacks. He knows he's about to do something wrong. "Takes the object, starts the game, moves it closer to the flame" The Object is the woman he's trying to bed, because he doesn't really care about here. She's just an object to him. "Starting the game" means he's started trying to woo her, and "moves it closer to the flame" refers to him escalating things with her, pushing her as good as he can to get her into bed. "My friend, my friend, the clever ruse My friend, my friend, he lights the fuse" Every cheater has a ruse they tell their spouses to make it easier to cheat. His is particularly clever, and so he "lights the fuse," he sleeps with the other woman, knowing that it is basically inevitable that his wife will find out. When fuses burn out, a loud BOOM usually follows. That boom will be the sound of his marriage exploding. Just my take. I didn't research to find out if the lyricist has actually said what it means. |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I guess I have a simpler idea of what this song is saying. The top poster pointed out that under the surface, there are allusions to 60's culture, the older vs. younger mentality of the time. But there's some surface level stuff here that's getting missed a little. Some folks think that the "Mrs. Robinson" in the song is in a mental institution. I never read it that way. I figured she was an older lady going into a retirement home. It seems to line up with that, to my eyes. We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files We'd like to help you learn to help yourself Look around you all you see are sympathetic eyes Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home This sounds exactly to me like what you might hear if you're moving into a retirement home, and you really don't want to move in, but you don't have a choice because you need the help caring for yourself. If you've ever known someone in that position, a parent or grandparent, it can be an incredibly humbling and deeply humiliating experience for them. Hence the "sympathetic eyes" and the suggestion to stroll around until she feels at home, because it's the last home she's ever going to have. Hide it in the hiding place where no one ever goes Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes It's a little secret just the Robinson's affair Most of all you've got to hide it from the kids I always thought this was a reference to some prescription drugs. "Mother's little helper," if you will. And they allow her to have some pharmaceuticals to help her adjust (sedatives and anti-depressants, etc), but because the place is probably staffed by younger people in the 60's, she's got to keep it all locked up and hidden or the young people running the place will steal them for themselves. Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon Going to the candidates' debate Laugh about it, shout about it When you've got to choose Every way you look at this you lose This always seemed like a sad verse to me. In her advanced age, this is the only way she can expect to spend her personal time, on organized trips like this one to hear a debate between some candidates. The sad part is that no matter who she chooses to vote for, it's not going to help her life in any way. She's still going to be stuck in the care home, still waiting to die, and she'll still have very little hope for anything better, no matter what the candidates might promise. The last chorus referencing Joe DiMaggio is a bit of lament for past times that she misses. But "Joltin' Joe" has gone away, and times that she thinks of as better for her are gone, and nothing will be "better" for her ever again. Yes, it's also a picture of 60's culture like Viking said, but seen through the eyes of a retiree that doesn't really relate to it anymore, so she's placed in a home because she doesn't fit in and isn't able to contribute or care for herself anymore. |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[LeChatNoir:21945] I assumed that it was not a mental institution, but an old-folks' home. Like a retirement home. "Stroll around until you feel at home..." because now it IS home, and she's not going anywhere. | |
| Extreme – Rest in Peace Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I have a SLIGHTLY different interpretation of what I think Cherone was going for with these lyrics. The real key to the meaning is the line "Straight to the heart, Peace can't be bought, That's where you start, Not all around." I think he's suggesting that peace is a very difficult thing to achieve on a large scale, and saying things like "make love not war" isn't going to change any government's mind, as they will simply ignore you. He's trying to say that we, as individuals, need to live our lives peacefully in order to achieve a lasting peace, and that it's impossible to "make" someone else come around to this point of view if they're not ready for it. To become a more peaceful society, we all must come to the conclusion that peace is better, but we must come to that conclusion on our own, as individuals, and then actively make the choice to live peacefully. Cherone is into individuality as a pathway to peace. The only part I disagree with is that we have to come to this decision on our own, in a complete vacuum. Saying "make love not war" has never been intended to be a political policy. When you live in a large civilized area, like a city, the whole point of so many people living together in one place is to rise above our baser instincts and try to be a better society. The more peaceful we are, the more we can accomplish. "Make love not war" is a cultural suggestion, intended to get people to think about trying to be peaceful and diplomatic before they resort to anger and violence. Take the suggestion or leave it, but I don't think that's absurd at all, though I admit it typically falls on deaf ears. |
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| King's X – A Box Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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I think this is a song about the dual nature of depression. The song was written by Doug Pinnick, who has spoken publicly about his battle with depression. The "box" he s your room, or your home, the place where you are the most comfortable. When you're depressed, you often just want to stay there where you don't have to deal the pressures of the outside world. You can free your mind and think, say, and do whatever you like. A place to run and hide, a place to free your mind... But there's a flip side to it. It can also become a prison. When you decide to stay home and not face the outside world, not to "be bold," then nothing ever happens, you experience "nothing new," which often exacerbate the depression. There is no room inside a box, no room for new things, no room to grow. |
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| Bon Jovi – Blaze Of Glory Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[Legia1916:15386] I think it means that even though he's not STARTING a fight, he always finishes it. Like a gunfighter that doesn't draw first, but is so fast that when someone does draw against him, he's still fast enough to draw second, and hit his opponent before he gets his. In other words, he's such a good gunfighter that no one can beat him, even when he's not drawing first, he still wins. | |
| Rush – Heresy Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Peary wrote about these lyrics in the tour guide book from the RTB tour. It was my first Rush concert and I still have that tour book, though not in front of me atm, so I'm paraphrasing what he said. The fall of Communism made a lot of people happy, but it made Neil Peart MAD. Not because he approved of Communism, but because for years the people living in those countries had wear ugly suits, drive nasty cars, and drink bug spray to get high.... and it was all a mistake?! We were all so proud of ourselves for being on the "winning" side of the Cold War, but he felt that our victory dance was like telling those people living in those Eastern Bloc countries that didn't do anything wrong that the 50+ years of suffering they endured was all for nothing. That's a very heavy price to pay for some mad man's misguided ideology. And that waste of life and time and resources is the ultimate Heresy, which he refers to in the title. There IS a reference to consumerism, in that people could buy the things they want and "borrow for a little more." Not American consumerism per se, but the kind of free wheeling consumerism common to Western nations, while it has its problems, is still preferable to having nothing to buy at all, and so it became all that we could do for them in the end, to export our brand of consumerism so they can, finally, buy things we take for granted like toilet paper, napkins, aspirin, make-up, and for once they had a choice. So he was saying it was good for the people that he Wall fell, but also that we shouldn't overlook the terrible, awful cost to those people of our "winning" the Cold War. |
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| Bon Jovi – Blaze Of Glory Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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The song is pretty obvious on the surface, a parallel of the movie Young Guns 2, about living life as an outlaw. BUT!! (And this your big but), there is, in my opinion, a lot of subtext to these lyrics. They are among Jon Bon Jovi'd best lyrics. In addition to the outlaw theme, this is also about being someone that lives life on the road, nomadic, like Bon Jovi himself. It's about being an outlaw and also being a rock star. It could also refer to a life of homelessness, but some of the lines don't really imply that. The first four lines of verse 1, about waking up, the earth being last nights bed, clearly about outlaw life, but also a metaphor for that moment when you wake up not being sure of where you are, probably very common when you're on tour, and the cities all start to blend together. And then not knowing where you're going or where you've been, more similarities with rock star life. Devil on the run is about the bad rep most rock stars have, six gun lover could just as well be six-STRING lover, and they are candles in the wind because their careers are often bright and short and easily taken for granted and lost. The second verse is largely referring to the audience and his fans that made him a star. Fans brought him into the world of fame and fortune (and also infamy), and they gave him the life he has, for better (money) or worse (constant travel). He's very much a "wanted man" because all his fans want a piece of him, but he's too wild to be caught or tied down at this stage. The chorus' most important line is about going out in a Blaze of Glory. One day his career will peak, and then it'll be over very quickly. Not Jon Bon Jovi specifically, but a generic new young rock star. You can love him for a while but sooner or later he won't be what you want and you'll stop loving him. Such is the career path of most successful musicians. "Never drew first but I drew first blood," I think refers to the fact that he made you love him without ever meeting him, through his music. He marked you in a way, made a space for himself in your mind without ever knowing you. A lot of the next verses refer again to the short but very bright trajectory of a career in rock and roll. Will I have a long successful career? Will I be able to find and keep a lover with a life on the road? The final verse expresses his hope that if he ever gives up this career, this touring life, he hopes that he'll go out BIG, even if it means dying like Hendrix or Joplin or Cobain. Better to go out on top than fade into obscurity like Spinal Tap. Oddly enough, there's an Eagles' song that plays on these exact same two themes in one song like this, it's called "Certain Kind of Fool," written and sung by Randy Meisner, from the Desperado album. Actually a lot of that entire album is playing with these two themes, outlaw and rock star, but Certain Kind of Fool does it really well. |
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