submissions
| Gomez – We Haven't Turned Around [DVD] Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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Everyone wanting to join a movement to blame someone else for the world's troubles. "We haven't turned around" to look at ourselves and how our attitudes, beliefs, and actions propagate and perpetuate the problem. |
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| Arcade Fire – The Suburbs Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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Pretty terrifying song, when you go through what it describes in real life. Especially when you realise the suburbs aren't created in isolation, as an evolution of an origin, by previously Iron Age tribesmen. They are in fact a political and socio-economic plateaux, deliberately invented. Most folks never see it. And when you do see it your world crumbles and shifts rapidly. This song captures that moment of being unable to know what is actually real, while you quietly try to deal with an avalanche of emotions caused by the shattering of a foundational illusion. |
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| Tom Petty – Free Fallin' Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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The Girl is a metaphor for mainstream society. That's why in the video the Girl is viewed from different time periods - 1950s through to 1990s. It's all the same girl, she just asks him to do different things, to love him absolutely, follow her trends, and inadvertently lose himself. He doesn't say she's evil, or not worth loving, plenty of other people will. He just can't follow along with everyone else. He's free of the restrictions of thinking and being like society tells him to be. He has other interests, other things to do. He never really lands to settle down, because he is always exploring something else - he's in endless free fall. |
submissions
| The Naked And Famous – Girls Like You Lyrics
| 9 months ago
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First line clears up who this is about - a high-energy destructive girl. Usually people chase rabbits, a metaphor for energetic innocence that leads to some kind of enlightenment. No one sane chases whirlwinds, because everything they touch is ripped apart. Later down the verse he says: "How would you feel if nobody chased you?" He knows it's a dangerous game.
Seems he has tasted some of the trouble she can cause and now stands clear, but there's an interesting line that suggests something more: "What would you do if you couldn't even feel, not even pitiful pain? How would you deal with the empty decisions, eating away at the days?" Does this reproach illustrate a resentment not just towards her, but to himself, and against life itself? Not just in falling for it once, but now seeing through it and having to realise what can't ever be - the price of wisdom? It's as if he's annoyed the illusion is dissolved, because what's left isn't the kind of fire that excites him. He's forced to grow up, and right now just sees the initial expanse of dullness everyone sees when this sort of thing happens.
Girls like these are created by environment and culture, not born that way. This song mourns the loss of purity in beauty, and rages against what could have been. |
submissions
| Icehouse – Nothing Too Serious Lyrics
| 11 months ago
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What he's describing is pretty serious. There's the understatement, a bit of bravado, and because of that, it rates about a 6.0 out of 10 on the scale of "accidents". It's nice he survived with his life intact, though. |
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| Icehouse – Nothing Too Serious Lyrics
| 11 months ago
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What he's describing is pretty serious. There's the understatement, a bit of bravado, and because of that, it rates about a 6.0 out of 10 on the scale of "accidents". It's nice he survived with his life intact, though. |
submissions
| Icehouse – Nothing Too Serious Lyrics
| 11 months ago
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What he's describing is pretty serious. There's the understatement, a bit of bravado, and because of that, it rates about a 6.0 out of 10 on the scale of "accidents". It's nice he survived with his life intact, though. |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – O Children Lyrics
| 11 months ago
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Re: the controversial Harry Potter scene.
It is startling how so many people won't believe what his scene emphasises. I can understand young fans not seeing it, or being able, but adults? Snape is Harry's father, no question. The parts of the film that run from Hermione setting up camp and then running into the Snatchers in the first instance, when she is terrified and says, "...he could smell my perfume..." and the moment Ron returns to the camp with the Sword of Gryffindor is a reflection of what happened between Snape, Lily, and James. Important details are then repeated in the second Snatchers encounter, and the torture of Hermione by Bellatrix, and the memory vision Harry sees of Snape saying to Dumbledor, "...she still believes the child is his!" This is because to put it all together would have been too traumatic to recount, let alone what it'd do to the reputation of the films and the fanbase. The difference is that, this time, history did not repeat. The "mistakes" Lily, Severus and James made weren't a generational curse for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. There is no reason for Hermione to be so distraught that "he could smell her perfume" unless... Which makes Snape possibly the most tragic hero of the entire story, and Lily the most complex and untold. Dumbledor wasn't as flawed or as human, and only had to agree to die, like a mythic messiah. Snape had to meet his flaws, realise they couldn't be changed, tear himself apart and the ones he loved, and keep it all to himself to the moment he died.
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submissions
| Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[dawntreader:52277] can't comment on you being off base or not, but the bible does actually tell people to not make any vows, simply "let your yes be yes, and your no, no." If the song writer knew that then he'd be aligning with god in some way. Could be a comment on the kiind of unstable relationship he has with his "girl". |
submissions
| Robbie Williams – Bodies Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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RE: "Jesus didn't die for you. What are you on?"
This refrain appears three times in the song, from three different perspectives. Initially from the p.o.v. of a despondent person lost in despair, telling someone, "You say your god died for me and that'll be enough to get through all this? You must be kidding, it's hopeless." Then in the middle of the song the same person has moved further through their pain, and is re-examing the claim that "jesus really tried" for him, and he admits, things aren't as bad as they were, there may be some hope yet. Then finally at the end he has completely worked through the darkness of the past, and now he asks others still fighting but not believing they can win, "You say jesus didn't die for you (you say there is no hope?) What are you on? (there absolutely is hope!)"
That Robbie uses the idea of jesus as a metaphor means his final message isn't that everyone should sign up to their local church - though they could if they wanted to - it's that they can deal with their pasts, just like he did, and come out the other side ready for a new life, just as jesus "rose from the dead". |
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| David Bowie – Life on Mars? Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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A girl who chooses to follow her own version of love falls pregnant and is chucked out of the house by her Father. The metaphor of pregnancy is used as a "point of no return" for the description of post-war society values and behaviours, as she relates what she has seen during her life. From the mindless group think of the middle classes and their package holidays, to what we'd now call toxic masculinity, to homophobia, to inept policing, she can't even find something to connect with in what she thinks might be the better days of the Empire. Everything turned out to be the opposite of what it claimed to be, or was degrading faster than she could catch it. Finally she askes if there is a better life available elsewhere, such as on Mars. |
submissions
| The Cranberries – I Still Do Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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Life is taking them away from everything they knew as home, the beliefs, values and religion, the childhood ideas of a "good" future, in favour of something undefined, but more specifically urgent. |
submissions
| Garbage – Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!) Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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It would be about a cross-dresser if not for the final verse. The irony of all this desperation for it to only be about a politially correct ideal is that no one has bothered to understand what a cross-dresser is, not what they look like, not what's convenient, but what they are actually doing and are. |
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| Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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I know people want this to be a feminist statement, but it seems more like an artist trying to tell people she doesn't actually feel these emotions she portrays. When she touches on something that heals other people, she doesn't gain from it like they do. Her deal is with a devil of sorts, and she wants to swap her place so she can be more human, least of all because if she could, she thinks her passion would be enough to ovecome any obstacle. |
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| Queen – Radio Ga Ga Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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The difference between telling people what to think, and spurring their imagination. |
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| New Order – World Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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First two verses could be a description of a person who sees how the World is, has given up on politics as a solution, and found an alternative that's more constructive - "Hear me talk but never speak." Politics needs an enemy, it needs hate, and the narrator just doesn't
see the need. The Sun is the ever burning ambition of society to be elsewhere, to be master of everything, to always be something materially more. They can't entirely be absent from it, no one can, and the choice was to find this new way or go avoidably insane or "break", both psychologically and emotionally. It would be a waste of life. So they appear outwardly normal "sideways to the sun" while following their own path. At its height, their personal passion burns so brightly that soon no one notices the difference between them and the sun - their way becomes invisible to the suspicion of deviation. You can't buy it, or fake it, imitations don't last. It means you will always know you are somewhat divorced from society. When things get tough you can no longer run and hide in ready-made culture. That's the price you pay. |
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| Jack Johnson – Taylor Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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Seems to me it describes the mentality of an artist, not every artist just the one described. What they do (their form of art) is a precursor to developing who they are as a person. The problem is it pays really well, and personal development does not, in fact it will get them booted off the muscial money train, and the lifestyle precludes stopping to do the personal work. They know it ain't right and doing them damage, but they console themselves that once they get enough cash selling the stuff they should be working through they can make it to a place where they can be left alone to do their real work. |
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| Gomez – We Haven't Turned Around Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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Have you had enough of the killing of others? Are your values worth lives? Whose attrocities are greater? Do you only hear your god's wrath and never their compassion and peacefulness? When the dust from the bombs stop falling will it just reset, and your hate still be burning? Peace, once your enemies are done? Love once you've killed civillians for fun? What's it all for? So your parents are proud of you, finally? Enough. E-fucking-nuff! |
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| The Breeders – Iris Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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First heard this song in 1993, three years after it's release. It was on a compilation of tunes called No Alternative, which was produced by an organisation that supported equal access to healthcare - and especially involved in with AIDS relief at that time. All of the tunes on the album had some element associated with the reality of living with a serious or terminal disease and the social prejudice that followed. So while it may have meant one thing at its time of writting, it was later offered as relevent for another reason. Most likely the desperation in Kim's singing, being literally isolated and stuck and going through hell. |
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| The Stone Roses – I Am The Resurrection Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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Is it wishful thinking to say this isn't about any specific brand of religion, or has the song just been badly written and aged badly?
Since Ian Brown seems like the kind of person to say exactly what he wants in absolute terms whenever he wants, I'd have to back the idea it's more about a person becoming an authentic version of themselves.
If the song has aged badly, it's because as politics of any kind move closer to being a religion, and societal beliefs become more absolute, the only way for a sane person to survive is to reject it all and follow their own way of doing things. This is also reflected in the sentiment of the lyrics: die to the culture you were born into and resurrect yourself. |
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| The Who – Won't Get Fooled Again Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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One guy and his artform, stepping back from the insanity of politics and trying to make the world right. He rightly sees it's only people tearing each other apart. The methods and the reasons change, but not very much. As long as we hear the message and not mix it up with the performer/creator, it's as true today as it was in 1971. Probably alienated him from a lot of musical types back then. |
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| Massive Attack – Risingson Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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"It was never clearer in my era so"
sure there's a name in poetry for using words, that when spoken, sound like other words, and both meanings are true for what is being said.
"It was never clearer in my ear, or soul" |
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| Massive Attack – Risingson Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[peacefroggin:45388]
What did you make of "Sad we talk of how madmen think" ?
Taken in the context of the song i think its about them realising that the extremes of the scene (which they have been participating in) is ruining their perspective, which in turn is taking their music somewhere they don't want it to go. They are the "madmen" but can still remember when they weren't, so not totally gone. |
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| Massive Attack – Spying Glass Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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The lament of an urban Rastafarian, who finds that he can't shake the sensation of loneliness he finds on his path. He manages to let the wickedness of the world pass him by, even when he knows it's around him, but he can't reconcile the type of people he's around no matter where he goes. The modern mindset of conversational interogation that passes for "normal" would be anathema for someone whose life is dedicated to finding peace within themselves. |
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| New Order – Vicious Streak Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Contrast the sentiment in this song with Krafty. Nice to see things have moved along for the better. I bet we've all met someone like this song mentions. It's never gonna happen, and later, years later, when you thnk about it, its so sad they were so fucked up, and how, but at the time "Solar flare in the rising sun" is absolutely what its like. |
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| CHVRCHES – Clearest Blue Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Always thought it was "saved by clearest blue". Don't suppose it matters, since the meaning stays the same. Sounds like a person that often finds it very difficult to lose themselves (let go of their fears, hopes, goals whatever) long enough so that they can experience whoever or whatever they consider "divine". They sometines need their opposite, their muse, whatever you want to call it, to come get them and shake them lose of material concerns. Saved by the clearest blue, lifted out of the ordinary everyday into a reality where the persons real life happens. |
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| Pink Floyd – Hey You Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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I dont think you can understand this song without hearing the whole album. It'd be like finishing a graphic novel halfway through and thinking it was complete. The album The Wall was made at a time when concept albums and "Rock Opera" were still a thing, it was also a film, the two inseperable. The Wall of the story comes tumbling down regardless of how he felt during this song, regardless of his loss and fear, regardless of isolation, regardless of who was in or outside the wall. This song isn't the end, and is curious in that it disproves its own conclusions - hope was not required, or an concerted attempt at unity - and Hey You continues to disprove all the values and slogans of our modern society. Judging by some of the comments here, people will find that last point most disturbing, and find a new sense of hate for the Pink Floyd music of that era, or finally see the album as the art it is. |
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| Finley Quaye – Maverick A Strike Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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If it weren't for these lines:
If it ain't of no flower dew
It'll sure make you blue
It'd be a really simple, but small, song. But since it is there, the song becomes something really special. Instead of it being just one man saying how he'd like people to approach him, it becomes a dialogue via reflection between a man and his god, and a comittment to finding peace from this point onward. Sometimes the line between the man, the god, and the reflection is blurred, which is a really cool effect. Nice!
If it ain't of optimism
I will pay no attention
I like this line especially. It's good courageous advice for anyone who is struggling with themsleves, and how life goes. |
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| Goldenhorse – Wake Up Brother Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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I mean, at face value it sounds like a girl describing how much she loves her brother that she doesn't see much anymore, and what she feels when she gets news he's going to visit. She sees him in an old photo and is reminded, and sometimes in the media spotlight because of his work. He's either in a band, or a poet, something like that. I get that because of what looks like a reference to a lyric by Jim Morrison: We are like stone...
If you had a sister who thought of you like that, wouldn't your life be fantastic?
I like the way they've used these two lines, one describing a place, the other a kind of rhyming slang:
"And all around is green and yellow"
"You cool blue yellow" |
submissions
| The Cure – Pictures of You Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Remembering you running soft through the night
You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow
You screamed at the make-believe, screamed at the sky
And you finally found all your courage to let it all go
(I love this part) |
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| Lady GaGa – Alejandro Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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It's about a young woman so addicticted to cigarettes that she names them just before smoking them. They become her close friends for just a little while, and who can blame her. She got into smoking by watching her Dad, who is actually Jim Jarmusch. Then the evil urban hippies start printing health warnings and ugly pictures on the packets of her favourite brands and she can't ignore the health aspects anymore. She tries to quit, but becomes addicted to sex instead. It goes quite well for a while, but soon her bed replacement costs become prohibitive. Then she tries fashion design, and fair play, she does invent the largely impractical and illadvised Bushmaster Bra to some critical acclaim. But she just wants to go back to thinking about nothing and enjoying a good smoke. And she does. |
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| Prong – Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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This is like the ultimate example of having as much fun as anyone could while dying inside haha I remember when this was released it was a bomb drop and we would rock out to it and scream and jump. Yet we were living the pointless dark reality he's talking about, and didn't know it. They were shit days and I dont want them back even if it came with my youth... well... nah stuff that. I can still get the elevated feeling 28 years later though... AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHGHHahaha
I suppose as mature wordly wise oldboys now we can also point at the teeny tiny clue he leaves in the lyrics, the "sacrament never exposed" does exist, and we can sort of continue to enjoy it with the same enthusiasm, sort of, maybe, just for minute. |
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| Interpol – Barricade Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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@[pistolpete23:44498] You're right there is a lot in this song, and the Bees and Snakes lyric is one of those lines that contains so much in just a few words. In addition to commenting on the world surrounding a relationship, it is also about how people who hurt each other still need love to heal themselves. The sensation the lyric conjures up is both true and honest and also pathetic and dangerous, just like real life, not easily reconciled. |
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| Pearl Jam – Animal Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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A far more violent version of the ideas in Juliana Hatfield's, For the Birds. |
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| The Cranberries – Daffodil Lament Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Since this track comes directly after "Yeats Grave", I think it not too much a stretch to assume she knew about another poet of era, William Wordsworth. He wrote a poem about escaping from depression called Daffodils. Yeats escaped into politics and realism, Wordsworth into the inner spiritual life. I think what Delores is describing in Daffodil Lament is her choice to be free in the World of the Dafodils - a world of neither overwhelming dark emotions or empty politics, because everyday reality was often too much to handle. |
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| Paramore – Caught in the Middle Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Kind of a curious song for Paramore, since most of their lyrics contain certainty. This one seems to talk of a person old enough to figure out a lot of the deadends in life, while also unable to ignore who they like being the most, and also just sort of tired and worn out by everything, including the overbearing claims coming at them from society. Who they are and what they do and what society wants seems to be in conflict. When Hayley sings the little mantra about self sabtoage, her tone starts off like a children's nursery rhyme, and by the end, her tone is closer to raging at the stupidity of the idea, as a fully realised adult. Who is she sabotaging again? Which part of her life has to lose out? To whose rules and measures? Perhaps it's reflecting the pressures they are all under, since Paramore change and explore so freely, while no doubt people would want them to return to an earlier sound. |
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| Mazzy Star – Fade Into You Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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The lyrics outline how loving someone can begin something new where before there was nothing, just troubles and darkness. This is contrary to the popular claim that "people are unloveable until they love themeselves". In this song the narrator loves someone who has darkness and instability to deal with, and only because she loves them they're slowly able to get control of what's in their head and begin the journey towards accepting and experiencing love. For some reason its common to hear that this song is about unrequited love, but the song is called Fade into You, and not Fade Away from You. A union of sorts happens, not a seperation. |
submissions
| Björk – Moon Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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The actual music of this track is fantastic, and what intially attracted me to it, but I can't lose myself in the fantasy of the lyrics. A lot of people think it's about hitting rock bottom and succeeding anyway, but those are empty words reflecting an economic theory, and they haven't lived them. The actual lyrics talk about being touched by the hands of god, and feeling so peaceful it is as if, as if, all the pain and horror was ok. She says, as if, to emphasise the feeling of peacefulness granted by the gods. She does not say it was actually all ok and necessary, just tha tit feels as if it was. Then she loses herself in the blissfulness of peace, and talks about certainties shes doesn't have. Which is normal for humans to do, but it is only as if the best way forward is to fail. It is only as if the best way is to almost die. It is only as if to risk it all and fall is best. As if, not in actuality. We cannot be making claims of truth about life without considering the whole implications of what we are saying. Slavery, rape, murder, war, domestic violence, torture, terrible losses of all kinds, imagine if all of it was actually ok. Yes, now it doesn't seem so peachy, if you are the one having to live through it. |
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| Guided by Voices – Motor Away Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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I think it's about being somewhat self reliant, but without having any clue about what happens next, or being materially secure. Ditching cultural garbage slogans about life and simply living your own life. If that translates to not giving a fuck when viewed by those who never leave culturally condoned ways of living, then that's what it is. It's not about being reckless and stupid, but believing your own ideas of how you want to live whatever situation you have. Some of it is leaving behind those "once red lips" your own ambitions and pasions "to be something" and then you're free to be anything your imagination allows. Jesus, this explanation is longer than the whole fuckin song. |
submissions
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Today Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[Atagamay41:37638] This is how I see it, too. I don't see sarcasm in the lyrics, and despite Corgan saying he was suicidal, the lyrics don't reflect someone who is going to do it.
Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't wait for tomorrow
I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out
Before I get out
It sounds like he's chosen to put up a fight, give himself over to his art completely, rather than just give in a die. If he wanted out, he knows he could just get out, but he says before he gets out. That being the case, how does sarcasm fit? He can't wait for tomorrow's fight because it's his preferred new identity, not "Gee, I just can't WAIT to see how bad tomorrow gets..." More pugnacious than depressed, he's turned the inner pain outward against whatever imagined enemy it'll stick to. |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Today Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[Atagamay41:37637] This is how I see it, too. I don't see sarcasm in the lyrics, and despite Corgan saying he was suicidal, the lyrics don't reflect someone who is going to do it.
Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't wait for tomorrow
I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out
Before I get out
It sounds like he's chosen to put up a fight, give himself over to his art completely, rather than just give in a die. If he wanted out, he knows he could just get out, but he says before he gets out. That being the case, how does sarcasm fit? He can't wait for tomorrow's fight because it's his preferred new identity, not "Gee, I just can't WAIT to see how bad tomorrow gets..." More pugnacious than depressed, he's turned the inner pain outward against whatever imagined enemy it'll stick to. |
submissions
| Faith No More – Ashes to Ashes Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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The lyrics sound like they're describing one way to finish a messy relationship, with either a person or persons. The narrator, realising that it isn't possible to end on tidy mutually amicable terms says that if there is any doubt about who is to blame, they will take it, just to end the arguments and get closer to being free again. It isn't just that the narrator wants to be free of the relationship, but to refind what they are as a person in their own right, and not just in Western terms - new ambitions, hopes dreams and projects - but something much clearer and simpler. This is demonstrated in the image of an "ocean in front of a mountain": it's an old Eastern symbol of being the essence of yourself before anything creative is done. These sorts of images aren't a chance of words. Patton uses them again, in Last cup of Sorrow, for example. He says, "a snake between two stones". The snake is a well known transformative symbol i.e. to shed one's skin and begin again. In this case, trying to transform, but being stuck for options between a rock and another rock (hard place). Interestingly, the way to end the kind of relationship in Ashes to Ashes is like a part 1 to Last Cup of Sorrow's part 2. Sometimes you take the blame just to end it, and the fallout dies quietly away. Sometimes you have to know all the why and how of what happened, no tricks no lies no guilt no blame, before the loose ends stop haunting you and you can move on. |
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| PJ Harvey – Kamikaze Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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This seems like PJ Harvey's version of a song by Heart called, Barracuda. It's as if she's recalling an incident between a man in the music industry (there are hints as to who it was in the snatches of old song lyrics) and something he said that knocked her sideways, badly. This song is both her calling him out, raging and punching him in the mouth (one tooth, for an eye), and her escaping into her safe place. |
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| Massive Attack – Eurochild Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Since the way the song was made doesn't lend itself to a coherent background story, I generally hear only the sentiment: Of being someone oppressed by the environment and dominant culture, and being pushed this way and that by the need for self expression, in response. The opening verse sort of sets the tone. Its about a person who uses other people's walls for their art. This causes them serious anxiety, but not enough to stop them once the need kicks in. When that happens they change from a small animal hiding and consoling itself, to a fearless hunter of sorts, though never "top of the food chain" so to speak. The other verses go on to explain the extremes of their personality, how they try to stay balanced, and the frustrations of their work being misunderstood and appropriated, with the result that they remain outside of the society around them. Begrudgingly, as yet another consolation to an unchangeable situation, they say that having everything stacked against them turns out their best work. I don't think they believe it, but it pushes them forward at least. |
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| Massive Attack – Eurochild Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[jonathan6z:36306] yes according to massive.ie the word is plantiff, not planet. I also think the name 3D sismissively calls himself when he's being critiqued as a dj is stax, not stags. The verse falls in with the intro of "You look at me like some kind of a total stranger" meaning that the people who hear his music and identify intimately with can't even recognise him, what's in his eyes, or spirit, they just see his exterior. |
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| Nirvana – On a Plain Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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In hindsight a lot of lyrics reflect a particular psychological state. I don't know if trying to conveniently arrange lyrical statements is the right thing to do or not, whether it makes things clearer or is just fitting a meaning after the fact.
The lyrics in this one sound like the voice of his soul, so to speak. An inner knowledge of where he's been and why, how he coped, and where he's going. I sometimes wonder if he knew what he was saying or if he just went with ideas like, "with the lights out it's less dangerous".
The first verse suggests that before he knew how to make his art he got high to escape his problems. The best day he ever had was when he found out how to escape into his art (crying on demand). Now he's on a plain, meaning it's long straight landscape/path/method to... somewhere... until the end. Then he describes how he finds his material and what it costs him, and for some reason he or his soul hides what he's doing from himself for the fear of something greater. It must've been something worse than, say, a nervous breakdown. All the while in the background his soul says, sorry, I love my eternal goals better than your earthly issues. Then sadly, he annouces the end, and when it will be, if he continues being on this "plain". It seemed to happen that way, in hindsight.
Coincidence or not? A lot of artists say simlar things and don't arrive where they say they will, which raises more questions than can be answered conclusively.
In short it sounds like a letter describing the reality of the way he experiences his own art. |
submissions
| Dire Straits – Once Upon A Time In The West Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Check the first verse and ask yourself, given the time this song was written and where it came from, who had the ability to own a car and do whatever they wanted, and otherwise causing all sorts of problems for other people who had to walk, breaking the rules and getting away with it?
In the second verse, ask yourself who has the ability to sit on the fence on social problems and say it's too difficult to do anything, believing themselves to be somewhat protected by the way things are?
In the third verse he pleas with a female god-figure, even though he's a man, and in the seventies, it was a man's world. Then he admonishes some mothers for letting their daughters roam free. Who are the innocents do you think? Ask yourself why.
Like all the songs on the first two albums, this one is still looking for the deeper issues that cause so much suffering in the world. It's still subversive and relevent today. Today he'd be "cancelled" for not following the woke thought science, and thrown out of his own country. It's a good thing he made these songs back when no one was looking for a witch telling the truth. |
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