| Ride – Leave Them All Behind Lyrics | 10 months ago |
| It is written in the style of Pink Floyd’s metaphorical style of composition. I do think it is a metaphor for a person getting too deep into drug culture which was heavily prevalent in youth culture in the early 90s with the reverie of acid-house in the late 80s catalysing widespread drug use with ecstasy, mdma, lsd and cannibis becoming the cultural norm (as such, as the first track on the album “Going Blank Again”, it was the centrepiece of the album, being a distillation of the treatise they were conveying in the overall album concept about “the blank generation”). I think the song is using an acid trip as a metaphor/allegory for the departure of one from a state of innocence into ‘unknown territory’ of a hedonistic spiral which is brimming with danger. As a deliberately metaphorical piece, I think it is at the same time conveying the idea of the old self transitioning to the new, such as the loss of innocence and the inevitable compromise of one’s ideals to surrender to the reality of embracing a professional career in the capitalist world which for many of us necessitates a ‘shedding of who you were and what you believed’ in order to operate in the “adult world”. I see it in the latter interpretation as being similar to “Welcome to the Machine” by Pink Floyd off of their “Wish you Were Here” album. | |
| The Auteurs – School Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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Lyrically, this song is significant also, perhaps being one of the main stories underpinning the album on which it is a part (1 of 12 songs) - the controversial but largely misunderstood title "How I Learned to Love the Bootboys". Like his absolute classic "Unsolved Child Murder", "School" is written as a storyboard narrative, and like in 'Unsolved Child Murder', lines of narrative refer to various instances across past, present and future tense. I actually now think it is one of Haine's finest works. The highlight? The haunting synthesizers that rise over the existing musical arrangement that continues on in the song come in over it as a kind of surround-sound that provides a deliberately eerie atmosphere in the 3rd verse, heightening the recalling of a key past experience ("I am standing in the front-room with your mother and your father, I am talking with a man who says he baptised you, on the way back from the church, your brother got home early", abridged with then at the end of the verse the character in present-tense saying to himself "I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station" (a set of words repeated throughout the song). "School" appears to be a story of a boy having got involved with a firm or network of people, in which there are suggestions of white nationalism as was the social milieu in large parts of white-working class Britain in the 1970s ("Join the army or the National Front when you're 16, Mickey says you were undressed, easily led in the back field"), as well as hints of paedophilia ("Maybe I could come around, your brother's out - cop a feel"). The lyrics in the chorus "And the kids around the flats, the mums and dads, your uncle" conveys the character subject recounting the place of his childhood and growing up, looking back with ambivalence at that time with perhaps a tinge of sad fondness which he has left behind, followed by the line "I'm never going back, to your old school" reflecting his adamant stance as almost an exercise in self-reinforcing self-affirmation that he has made a firm break with his past. The first verse reveals the character's situation: "I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station, he will drive me past your house & the bridge and the precinct, later on he'll stuff my mouth with flies, sit astride me, I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station". Flies are used to represent rot, wasting away, decay, death, melancholia, so the image of having his mouth "stuffed with flies" conveys exposure to a fateful event that has done long-term damage. It is ambiguous. It could refer to a sexual assault ("sit astride me") or an intervention of some other kind which has engendered a malaise later on in the character. Certainly, the references to life on the estate he grew up in in evoking fond memories speaking of "kids around the flats, the mums and dads" conveys sad melancholy of harking back to something with a tinge of regret that he left all that behind but can never go back to it ("your old school"). If the kid has joined in with bootboys, it would have meant the severing of social relationships with scores of people he may have grown up with in the past. |
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| The Auteurs – School Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| This is a brilliant song. Musically, it is a very accomplished piece. The guitar parts are very well played, with some great hooks and very intricately played guitar work (particularly at the end). Alongside the cello, the guitar goes relatively unnoticed because the synthesiser and piano-keyboards are more prominent. Luke Haines' vocals are also excellent in this song, and he reaches falsetto in the 3rd verse (where he sings "on the way back from the church, your brother got home early") and at the end of the song. Lyrically, this song is a tour-de-force also, being possibly one of the main key stories that make up the storyboard of the whole album - the controversial-but largely misunderstood title "How I Learned to Love the Bootboys" (in which Haines went one-step further than Morrissey did in his album "Your Arsenal" in taking on a human-scale appraisal of those involved with white nationalism, focussing more specifically upon the social milieu of working-class culture in 1970s Britain - though it is an album that goes beyond just being a storyboard dissection/examination of 70s Britain, being at it takes in songs concerned with hints of premonition & past events/experiences resurrected). Like his absolute classic "Unsolved Child Murder", "School" is written as a storyboard narrative, and like in 'Unsolved Child Murder', lines of narrative refer to various instances across past, present and future tense (unlike 'Unsolved Child Murder', the lyrics are the thoughts of one character, not the thoughts of more than one person). I actually now think it is one of Haine's finest works. The highlight? The haunting synthesizers that rise over the existing musical arrangement that continues on in the song come in over it as a kind of surround-sound that provides a deliberately eerie atmosphere in the 3rd verse, heightening the recalling of a key past experience ("I am standing in the front-room with your mother and your father, I am talking with a man who says he baptised you, on the way back from the church, your brother got home early", abridged with then at the end of the verse the character in present-tense saying to himself "I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station" (a set of words repeated throughout the song). "School" appears to be a story of a boy having got involved with a firm or network of people, in which there are suggestions of white nationalism as was the social milieu in large parts of white-working class Britain in the 1970s ("Join the army or the National Front when you're 16, Mickey says you were undressed, easily led in the back field"), as well as hints of paedophilia ("Maybe I could come around, your brother's out - cop a feel"). The lyrics in the chorus "And the kids around the flats, the mums and dads, your uncle" conveys the character subject recounting the place of his childhood and growing up, looking back with ambivalence at that time with perhaps a tinge of sad fondness which he has left behind, followed by the line "I'm never going back, to your old school" reflecting his adamant stance as almost an exercise in self-reinforcing self-affirmation that he has made a firm break with his past. The first verse reveals the character's situation: "I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station, he will drive me past your house & the bridge and the precinct, later on he'll stuff my mouth with flies, sit astride me, I am waiting for a man to collect me from the station". Flies are used to represent rot, wasting away, decay, death, melancholia, so the image of having his mouth "stuffed with flies" conveys exposure to a fateful event that has done long-term damage. It is ambiguous. It could refer to a sexual assault ("sit astride me") or an intervention of some other kind which has engendered a malaise later on in the character. Certainly, the references to life on the estate he grew up in in evoking fond memories speaking of "kids around the flats, the mums and dads" conveys sad melancholy of harking back to something with a tinge of regret that he left all that behind but can never go back to it ("your old school"). If the kid has joined in with bootboys, it would have meant the severing of social relationships with scores of people he may have grown up with in the past. | |
| Black Box Recorder – Goodnight Kiss Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| On the 25th anniversary of the death (murder) of Princess Diana yesterday (31/8/22), this song seems to accompany well following straight after a listen of Elton John's re-working of 'Candle in the Wind' as played at her funeral, and also after 'Girl Singing in the Wreckage' & 'I C 1 Female'! | |
| Radiohead – Climbing Up the Walls Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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I always thought this song was quite specifically written with the movie "Demon Seed" in mind about a super-computer which starts to reason for itself, makes rational judgements of man's over-exploitation of the environment, imprisons the wife (Julie Christie) of the scientist who created him inside her own house and creates the apparatus to breed an offspring with her! The film has some chilling moments, and this song is the most terrifying song I know. Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWy5LD2jyA But there are direct references in the song which allude to the movie, such as "key in the lock in your house that keeps your toys in the basement, & if you get too far inside, you'll only see my reflection". Also, in the movie, the computer Proteus drills into Julie Christie's skull |
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| Radiohead – Climbing Up the Walls Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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@[phantmsangel:42136] I think your analysis is pretty good here. But, in addition to what you say, I always thought this song was quite specifically written with the movie "Demon Seed" in mind about a super-computer which starts to reason for itself, makes rational judgements of man's over-exploitation of the environment, imprisons the wife (Julie Christie) of the scientist who created him inside her own house and creates the apparatus to breed an offspring with her! The film has some chilling moments, and this song is the most terrifying song I know. Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWy5LD2jyA But there are direct references in the song which allude to the movie, such as "key in the lock in your house that keeps your toys in the basement, & if you get too far inside, you'll only see my reflection". Also, in the movie, the computer Proteus drills into Julie Christie's skull |
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| The Auteurs – Married To A Lazy Lover Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| As with most works of lyrical genius, it is multilayered in meaning. This song fascinates me. I speculate this is an allegory of domestic violence and the human condition to dominate or be dominated, and from the lyrics "against the west" & "sack the maid - for dealing in state propaganda", I discern it is representing a commentary of the situation of the national politic either: socialist/radical leftist sympathy of the \'lazy lover\' in a loveless marriage, or the opposite in political terms, such as the post-communist break-up of Russia (there is infact an Eastern European feel to the song), or maybe the crushing of Saddam\'s tin-pot dictatorship in Iraq, for which the lyric at the end "a Jewish prince is on a hill" is part\'ly interesting. The maid (the State) is in chains and is resigned to being subjugated by the powerful vested interests of the dominant partner of fully-liberated, unrestrained capitalism (although would get knocked about by any common lover - any other alternative \'actor\' - such is the human condition). The declaration is made that the maid (the state) should be sacked and stripped away for "dealing in state propaganda". The state must be stripped away to avail the constant exigency of unbridled capitalist encroachment to tap into the assets of the state (for eg. in the UK, the NHS) | |
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