| Thurston Moore – Benediction Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[jouhei:21712] As a matter of fact, he worked on this song while they were going through their separation process; Kim later revealed that they began separating after she found out Thurston had been cheating on her. | |
| Thurston Moore – Benediction Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[Deliriousmintii:21711] I don't think so at all. (My interpretation is above) | |
| Thurston Moore – Benediction Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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The song is about the pain of separation; the lyrics "you better hold your lover down/tie him to the ground" do not refer to tying down in the literal sense, but rather intend to express the desperation one feels when their lover decides to leave. That is: one is helpless to do anything about it when a person they feel incredibly attached to decides to leave; there is a strong feeling of wanting to 'hold them down' as to prevent them from leaving, but you can't. The music itself is very delicate and tender, as a reflection of deep fondness and love-- almost like the singer is treating their former lover in an inhumanly gentle way. In that sense, lines like 'hold your lover down/tie him/her to the ground' come off with their true intent of tenderness, and not actual forcing in the literal sense. What's more, it sounds almost like the singer is telling the lover who had left him to be sure that her next relationship does not fall apart like her relationship with him (the singer) did; (that is: again, this is the desperate feeling of presumably trying to hold on to them so that they won't leave you, even though of course there's nothing you can do to actually keep a person from leaving). It is revealed in the third stanza that he is telling her this because of how much it had hurt him when she had left him-- that is, something along the lines of "I hope you never have to feel what I had felt.") She is so dear to him that even after the fact he cannot wish ill upon her, even after he had been hurt by virtue of her departure. The line "simple pleasures strike like lightning" refer to how when a relationship is at its end, you think back to your everyday life with that person, and these seemingly mundane memories now fill you with the most profound sense of heartache and longing-- it was your simple day-to-day life that had made for the fondest memories of your relationship. They 'strike like lightning' because the longing and heartache that they produce are so powerful. Around the time Thurston was writing this song, he and Kim Gordon were going through a separation-- it had later been revealed that Thurston had been cheating on Kim, which was what initiated the separation. Perhaps the imagery in the lyrics about a purely 'good' person as the former lover is a reflection of his guilt about his affair, which had brought an end to a 27-year marriage; in the end, he keeps repeating "I know better..." which perhaps can be seen as "I brought this on, even though I know better." The words are uttered in a very delicate, tender, and somber way, as though in the emptiness that remained after what he had done there is now only melancholy and the resigned awareness that what he had lost was his own doing. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Chicago Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[omgitbekristina:18657] With all due respect, I can't help but disagree; I feel like your interpretation is perhaps more like what you would like to see personally, or what you feel is romantic-- but not really what the song is about. To me in this song the notion of 'falling in love' rings much more of idealism, not the literal falling in love with a person. Stuff like road trips to big cities in a van/sleeping in the van and 'crying for freedom,' 'giving your clothes to the land,' or 'crying for the land' rings a lot more of the young people who attended protests and fought for what they believed in. There's also the repetition of how he 'made a lot of mistakes' which also emphasizes the sort of sweeping belief in justice and what's right that young people have, without really understanding what the real world is like yet. I think there's nothing in the song to suggest that it's romantic in nature or that the guy moved around for women he fell in love with; in songs like that you'd usually hear stuff personal or specific to the person who's the love interest, or memories the person had of them, usually they'd directly address the love interest in the song... I feel like you took the phrase "I fell in love again" too concretely. |
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