submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[mrrogers:48129] The Pepsi Pavilion where "Small World" debuted was in the same area of the fair as the alluded-to DuPont Pavilion. I'd forgotten that, had to look it up now on a map of the fair, but I went there a lot as a 10-11 YO New Yorker. If you came out of G.E. (a favorite of mine), one way was DuPont and the other was Pepsi and Kodak. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[Code:48125] Monkey Until very recently I heard the lyric as "Ann and Edgar are both getting old...," even though I knew a Ms. Ng back in the Bronx! |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[godofwine16:48123] Not only that, but at that time "anorexia" would've been understood by most as "absence of appetite", not as the psychologic disorder leading to self starvation, anorexia nervosa. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Ana Ng Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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It's a refutation of "Small World". That song at the Pepsi Pavilion (now on exhibit at Disneyland) at the 1964 World's Fair of dolls singing, "It's a small world after all," is refuted by a simple demonstration. Pick two people randomly at antipodal points of the globe. Chances are overwhelming that they've never met and never will meet. See, it's a huge world, after all! The singer is mocking all those dolls singing "small world after all" by this simple fact.
I suppose it might've become "small girl after all" (attested at some lyrics sites) because Disney might've asserted a copyright over singing even 4 words of their exact lyrics. |
submissions
| Duran Duran – The Reflex Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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I'll lay out my attempts at interpretation here just to show that yours is much better.
I saw this primarily as a rape fantasy. The reflex is the erection and the urge to rape that the first person feels about the second (an object of his affection in particular or just women generally). But there were also indications of a drug habit, as in selling the Renoir and TV set, that wouldn't make sense in terms of stalking a lady. So I considered the possibility that the first person wasn't a single individual, but a composite of all people with unsatisfiable urges. Definitely not about masturbation, since that's an easy one to satisfy and inexpensive.
But your explanation, the card-playing gambling nut, is a lot better. |
submissions
| U2 – Mysterious Ways Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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Couldn't it be simple? It's about a literal brother and sister -- probably an OLDER sister. It's saying, "Don't be afraid of a romantic relationship with a sibling. She's interested in you. It's all right."
Everybody's been looking past the obvious. |
submissions
| Wire – Dot Dash Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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I hear many of the words differently from what you've listed. Some listeners think it has to do with driving in fog, which is abetted by the art on the record sleeve, but I think at its most literal level it's either nautical or aeronautical.
Dot-dash, Morse for "A", in ship signaling code means "Diver down -- steer clear." "Dip, flash" would refer to the louvered ship's light signaling device. I think people have been misled by hearing "radiator" and "radial", when it's "radio for all" and "radio are still in control". "Radio are still in control" has its most literal meaning in radio navigation of a ship or plane: the radio operators are still in control. But it's also a metaphor for something sinister: control of the masses. And it also means, consideration of having this song played on the radio leaves "radio", the institution, in control of the lyrics being used. "I understand a hand moved me", meaning commercial influence caused him to pick lyrics that could be aired.
At the end it's not, "Courting death, so ill at ease," it's, "Courting death, so will I lose?" |
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