submissions

Beck – Gold Chains Lyrics

3 years ago

As a side note; I read an interview with Beck during the Mellow Gold era, and the interviewer asked what his favorite album was. His answer was the first album by the Bullet Boys. I don't know if you know who the hell the Bullet Boys are, but they were one of the very last hair metal bands to get signed, a bit like Jackal and Enuff Z Nuff. In other words, they were the dregs of the movement. But they had a very wild and over the top style, plus by 1994, they had the stench of yesterday's trend all over them. Flash in the pan and trashy as all hell. Beck has always had an affinity with things that were no longer in style but hadn't yet come back around as retro revival. He's always loved the thing that isn't cool anymore, seen as tacky, dated and slightly embarrassing. That's what Gold Chains is about. This song is a perfect example of how his mind works and why he's a genius.

submissions

Beck – Gold Chains Lyrics

3 years ago

This is such an interesting song. I think it would've been great on Odelay and I'd have loved this song on that album. The lyrics make me think of a lonely guy, full of ideas and enthusiasm, who's style is about 10 years behind the times. He's trying to create an 80s style hip-hop party, "tryin' to get together into some kind of scene" maybe he's a DJ and a fantastic breakdancer. The only problem is that it's 1996! I have to think this is semi-autobiographical of Beck himself in his early amateur days. He saw what was going on as a kid. Maybe he was too young to participate, and by the time he became a sort of Grand Master Flash figure in the 90's, those times were lost and gone. It's tragic. He can't get anyone on board with his style of scene he wanted to resurrect. But the charm of the song is that this doesn't seem to get him down because he's his own entertainment, his own best friend and his own biggest fan. It doesn't matter that other people won't get on board with his moves and his fresh beats, because he brings the party with him everywhere he goes. They can't danpen his spirits because he knows how cool he really is. We should all be like this. We should all go back home with our gold chains swingin'. Maybe you gotten beaten this time around, but there's always next weekend. And we know it eventually worked out for Beck because, if you grew up in the 90s, you immediately wanna dance when someone says "two turntables and a microphone!". That's was definitely 10 years behind the times, but it rocked the 90s. It didn't matter that that tune reeked of mothballs, we loved that about it anyway, I know I did.

submissions

Skid Row – Big Guns Lyrics

3 years ago

This song is fantastic for the genre of 80s hard rock. When every song has the protagonist as being this unbeatable ladies man, it's unique to have one where his charms have their limits. We see this again in Piece of Me where the lyrics say "I don't have looks, I don't have money". The narrative voice of Skid Row is at one with its narrative setting; "another misfit kid, another burned out town". I think the bravado and triumph of Skid Row is more meaningful because it's balanced against hard luck and a society where the deck is stacked against you. It makes their music not only more relatable to the average person, but unique in the landscape of macho, wish fulfillment fantasy that is the hard rock of the period.

submissions

Beach House – Turtle Island Lyrics

3 years ago

I always took this song to be about returning to a place of childhood imagination, where the narrator used to play and pretend. I think Turtle Island (the song) is a bit of a funeral dirge to lost innocence and wishing you could go back to that place. My wife used to have a recurring dream as a child about going to an underground world of gnomes where she would play and have a sense of belonging. One night she had the dream of returning to this place. But as she got to the entrance, she knew that a tiger had found its way under there and that she could never go back. There was no point. It may even have been dangerous. She carries that sadness to this day. I think the narrator here comes to a different conclusion. "How I want Olive to know that inside me she will always grow". To me, this is obvious. Olive is the turtle. And instead of being totally estranged from this imaginary companion, the narrator knows that she's still in there somewhere. Oilive will continue to live as long as the narrator is alive because they are one in the same. So instead of being completely sad, there's a bright side. Neither the narrator nor the imaginary companion are children anymore, but they are both still alive and vital. It's beautiful to me. It says that the sense of wonder remains after childhood. Even if it's less accessible, it doesn't ever really die. You can take heart that all the things you dreamt of as a child are still a part of you.

submissions

Black Sabbath – Back Street Kids Lyrics

4 years ago

This song describes me so much. I can remember living in a little house with a big yard when I was in 3rd grade. I had just discovered Guns n Roses (this was 1987) and I got several cassingles and an off brand Walkman. Now if they\'d just bought me a motorcycle jacket, I would\'ve been a complete person! I would walk around the big backyard and listen to those tapes for hours. Axl Rose was maybe my first glimpse of the world outside of school and my parents\' house. I would see those guys with long hair driving Trans Ams in local parking lots and I knew that\'s what I wanted to grow up to be. I\'m 42 now and I\'m still the same. Those days in the yard listening to music were forging my real personality. So this song describes just that sort of experience. I\'m eternally grateful that this is my life and I wouldn\'t change it for anything.

submissions

Judas Priest – Jawbreaker Lyrics

4 years ago

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that Grinder is about Rob predicting the gay App decades before it appeared. Look, they gotta write heavy lyrics to heavy songs. It makes sense they'd write a song about stress building up in the mind and finding its only way out through the body. That's what this song is about. Look, I get that some of you see gay men as sex-obsessed muscle men. That's what we call a stereotype. And yes, these do exist for a reason. The more shallow people of a population will always exemplify stereotypes, but Rob Halford isn't one of them. He actually has a personality that's completely separate from his sexuality. He'll tell you that he's a metalhead first and a gay man second. So the likelihood of Jawbreaker being a song about power, revenge, anger, dragons or whatever other heavy metal imagery is much higher than it being about gayness. To my knowledge, Raw Deal and Hot Rockin' are about the only ones that exist.

* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.