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Camper Van Beethoven – Life Is Grand Lyrics 1 year ago
The theme of 80's counterculture was 100% cynicism. For someone like David Lowery to give a purely positivevand upbeat message was subversive in it's own strange way. I read the song as a tongue-in-cheek mocking of the self-seriousness of cynical elites. It's actually a very funny song.

submissions
Camper Van Beethoven – Pictures of Matchstick Men Lyrics 1 year ago
The writer of the song from Status Quo said that he wrote this song about the paintings of artist S.L. Lowrey, who stylized people in a distinctive way that makes them kind of look like little matchsticks walking around. The rest is psychedelic stream of consciousness.

submissions
Camper Van Beethoven – Pictures of Matchstick Men Lyrics 1 year ago
Status Quo wrote this somong about the paintings of artist S.L. Lowrey, who stylized people in a distinctive way that makes them kind of look like little matchsticks walking around. The rest is psychedelic stream of consciousness.

submissions
Pavement – Here Lyrics 3 years ago
@[kenjib:41388] A little additional note on my quarter stance interpretation: By the time this song came out the last of the video arcades were struggling financially due to the rise of home gaming systems, and tended to be run-down, dirty, empty, places with poor maintenance. Thematically this really matches the themes of the song -- decay, collapse of meaning, and ultimate ennui. For many of the people who grew up, often as latch key kids with little parental guidance for many hours pre day, watching these places where we had spent so much time slow dive into collapse was a very depressing thing and one of the markers of the end of an era. They were the last ragged edges of the opulent 80\'s fading away and disappearing.

submissions
Pavement – Here Lyrics 3 years ago
@[kenjib:41387] A little additional note on my quarter stance interpretation: By the time this song came out the last of the video arcades were struggling financially due to the rise of home gaming systems, and tended to be run-down, dirty, empty, places with poor maintenance. Thematically this really matches the themes of the song -- decay, collapse of meaning, and ultimate ennui. For many of the people who grew up, often as latch key kids with little parental guidance for many hours pre day, watching these places where we had spent so much time slow dive into collapse was a very depressing thing and one of the markers of the end of an era. They were the last ragged edges of the opulent 80\'s fading away and disappearing.

submissions
Pavement – Here Lyrics 3 years ago
If you take the era it was written into context, it seems likely that it is a reflection on the nature of meaning in a postmodern/post-structuralist world. I have always considered Pavement to be one of the most (if not the most) seminal bands representing the post-structural movement of the 90\'s. We have an existential crisis and a collapse of meaning in society and life, and the resultant Gen-X response to the era, which was to reject societal norms of success, cultural structure, and meaning in general.\n\nPavement\'s lyrics tend to take a kind of Rorschach approach to meaning. They are an amorphous blob thrown at the wall and left for the observer to impart meaning into. A lot of the lyrics do not have the intent of defining meaning, but rather intentionally subverting the very idea that meaning is possible. Pavement\'s body of work is thus one of rock music\'s greatest examples of the rejection of a structuralist approach.\n\nThe first stanza I take to be a discussion on the economic decline of the 90\'s and decreasing opportunity (which has only intensified since then). This was a combination of general macroeconomic trends, the consolidation of wealth due to Reaganism, and a large Boomer population that held on to power and economic resources much longer than previous generations did. This led Gen-Xer\'s to question their Boomer parents\' definition of success in society -- a success which was far too often always out of reach. Rather than accepting large scale failure, it was time to redefine what success was. This is a common theme in Pavement\'s work and a core part of the "slacker" ethos. We dress the part, laugh at our boss\' jokes and try to meet the previous generation\'s definition of success, but ultimately it remains elusive regardless of how hard we try and in the end, sadly, the real joke is on us (i.e. "But they\'re not as bad as this").\n\nThis questioning of economics then intersects with a question of one of the other major meaningful constructs of society -- religion -- in the second stanza. That ultimately has a fatalist twist to it as well though, with "everything ending here." Religion has meaning only in a self-referential way, so at it\'s root it is entirely empty in this context.\n\nAs a result of a full collapse of meaning, both in lyrical content and form, we retreat from traditional meanings and find a new meaning of life devoid of these structures. This has continued and is culminating in millennials where the meaning of life has completely changed from accomplishment being a goal, which was the Boomer measure of success. Now accomplishment is only a means toward the end of experiential wealth. Experience is now the measure of wealth, and millennials collect experience like they are collecting Pokémon. Thus the continual rise in popularity of concepts like a "Bucket List" collection of experiences defining the meaning of life at the very moment of death -- the ultimate existential crisis and the climax of meaning.\n\nRegarding the cryptic quarter stance lyric? That is a very classic Pavement Rorschach moment and I am not sure that there is a very specific intent of meaning behind it. As a Gen-X\'er myself, what it brings to me is the very specific stance you take standing at an arcade machine. How to spend your last quarter was a thing back then, and the way you stand at an arcade machine is a pretty vivid memory to anyone who was alive during those days. So we have not found meaning in either workplace accomplishment or in religion. So we head to the arcade and the outlet shops trying to find meaning in consumerism -- displays of wealth being another previous measure of meaning and success in life. This proves to be empty and meaningless as well. Money in its purest form, after all, is another measure of purely self-referential value, just like religion.\n\nSo in the 1990\'s Gen X was left "Here" pondering the meaning of life. None of the supposed answers we had been given by our parents had proven at all helpful. So what are we left with as the meaning of life?\n\n"We guess, a guess is the best I\'ll do."

submissions
Pavement – Here Lyrics 3 years ago
If you take the era it was written into context, it seems likely that it is a reflection on the nature of meaning in a postmodern/post-structuralist world. I have always considered Pavement to be one of the most (if not the most) seminal bands representing the post-structural movement of the 90\'s. We have an existential crisis and a collapse of meaning in society and life, and the resultant Gen-X response to the era, which was to reject societal norms of success, cultural structure, and meaning in general.\n\nPavement\'s lyrics tend to take a kind of Rorschach approach to meaning. They are an amorphous blob thrown at the wall and left for the observer to impart meaning into. A lot of the lyrics do not have the intent of defining meaning, but rather intentionally subverting the very idea that meaning is possible. Pavement\'s body of work is thus one of rock music\'s greatest examples of the rejection of a structuralist approach.\n\nThe first stanza I take to be a discussion on the economic decline of the 90\'s and decreasing opportunity (which has only intensified since then). This was a combination of general macroeconomic trends, the consolidation of wealth due to Reaganism, and a large Boomer population that held on to power and economic resources much longer than previous generations did. This led Gen-Xer\'s to question their Boomer parents\' definition of success in society -- a success which was far too often always out of reach. Rather than accepting large scale failure, it was time to redefine what success was. This is a common theme in Pavement\'s work and a core part of the "slacker" ethos. We dress the part, laugh at our boss\' jokes and try to meet the previous generation\'s definition of success, but ultimately it remains elusive regardless of how hard we try and in the end, sadly, the real joke is on us (i.e. "But they\'re not as bad as this").\n\nThis questioning of economics then intersects with a question of one of the other major meaningful constructs of society -- religion -- in the second stanza. That ultimately has a fatalist twist to it as well though, with "everything ending here." Religion has meaning only in a self-referential way, so at it\'s root it is entirely empty in this context.\n\nAs a result of a full collapse of meaning, both in lyrical content and form, we retreat from traditional meanings and find a new meaning of life devoid of these structures. This has continued and is culminating in millennials where the meaning of life has completely changed from accomplishment being a goal, which was the Boomer measure of success. Now accomplishment is only a means toward the end of experiential wealth. Experience is now the measure of wealth, and millennials collect experience like they are collecting Pokémon. Thus the continual rise in popularity of concepts like a "Bucket List" collection of experiences defining the meaning of life at the very moment of death -- the ultimate existential crisis and the climax of meaning.\n\nRegarding the cryptic quarter stance lyric? That is a very classic Pavement Rorschach moment and I am not sure that there is a very specific intent of meaning behind it. As a Gen-X\'er myself, what it brings to me is the very specific stance you take standing at an arcade machine. How to spend your last quarter was a thing back then, and the way you stand at an arcade machine is a pretty vivid memory to anyone who was alive during those days. So we have not found meaning in either workplace accomplishment or in religion. So we head to the arcade and the outlet shops trying to find meaning in consumerism -- displays of wealth being another previous measure of meaning and success in life. This proves to be empty and meaningless as well. Money in its purest form, after all, is another measure of purely self-referential value, just like religion.\n\nSo in the 1990\'s Gen X was left "Here" pondering the meaning of life. None of the supposed answers we had been given by our parents had proven at all helpful. So what are we left with as the meaning of life?\n\n"We guess, a guess is the best I\'ll do."

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