| Concrete Blonde – The Sky Is a Poisonous Garden Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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This is about a night spent together between a man and a woman. It starts with the man standing outside the woman's (Eleanor's) door, and he can feel this fever and her presence on the other side of the door. The fever is likely that feeling of sexual tension or overwhelming lust that heats one's body. The door could be a metaphor for the obstacle of tension between you and this person you're with, in which you're both trying to figure out whether the other person wants you and what to do next to move things along. He says, "Don't bring tomorrow to justify tonight." Clearly, he doesn't want this night to end. He wants time to slow so that he can stay with this woman longer. But what would tomorrow need to "justify?" Is what he's hoping will happen something he considers wrong or sinful? Is it simply fornication, or is it adultery? She wants him to sip his tequila to give her more time for the spring that is this sexual tension to unwind, but she says she also wants to unlearn what she's learned. What has she learned that she wants to unlearn? Is she referring to what she was taught about fornication being wrong and sinful, or has he told her that he's married, and she wants to forget that she heard that so that she can proceed without guilt? They knew that the next morning would find them naked prey to a world filled with poison and hate. So what is that poison and hate? Guilt and shame and self-loathing, perhaps? Once the lust overcomes them, they lose control, and they feel like they are outside of time and space. She feels this sense of oneness with him as if she has always known him and feels like she's in love with him, but maybe it's just that feeling of intimacy that she's hooked on because it's something lacking from her life. She asks him not to leave, and he answers, "Nevermore." Here Jeanette gives a nod to Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, which is about a lover (Lenore - similar in name to the Eleanor in this song) who has either died or left him in some other way that feels permanent, leaving him in the agony of heartbreak. In that poem, he is told by the raven that he will see his love "nevermore." So what does the man in this song mean when he says "nevermore?" Is he saying he'll never leave, or is he saying he'll never see her again? All we can do is guess. |
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| Van Morrison – Tupelo Honey Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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I just realized that the lyrics in the verses have nothing to do with the lyrics of the chorus... unless... the "she" Van is referring to, is a personification of Freedom. With this understanding, the first verse is a reference to the "Boston Tea Party, which was a protest against the British crown placing heavy taxes on the American colonists, without representation in parliament and also their banning of American tea exports, which were competing at a lower price with British tea trade, sourced mainly from China. Likewise, the second verse, says you can't stop the force that is freedom, and then mentions "men in granite" (statues of the founding fathers of democracy) and "knights in armor intent on chivalry" (those who fight for freedom). Without "She" being Freedom, this song has absolutely no coherent meaning. It is possible that when Van Morrison wrote this song, even he didn't understand its meaning. Many songwriters have said that often times it feels like something is writing the song through them, as though they were merely a conduit for the message. I've written dozens of songs and poems, and have experienced this myself. With one poem I wrote that later became song, I didn't fully realize until years later whT it was about and why the verses fit with the chorus. |
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