| Manic Street Preachers – Archives of Pain Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Interesting, I never really thought about this song having to do with capital punishment. To me the main message was simply nihilistic, "You will be buried in the same box as a killer," meaning no matter who you are or what great things you do, in the end we all die, and whether you're a murderer or a saint, it won't matter when you're in your coffin. | |
| Bratmobile – Polaroid Baby Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| wow, i always thought they were saying "olé" rather than LA...but this actually makes a lot more sense, brings to mind the riots especially since this song addresses race. | |
| Dressy Bessy – Maybe Laughter Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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it seems to be about a girl who is in a bad relationship - although the guy makes her laugh, he makes her cry, too, and there is "no pleasing" him. she got into the relationship suddenly - "in one day you've made your mind up that someone is right enough for girl" - and didn't notice or ignored his flaws. her friends are trying to tell her that he isn't a good guy, but she won't listen. then at the end, the friends get sick of trying to tell her what to do when she never listens - "someday we write it off, we know it when we're ready and had enough." or at least that is what i got... |
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| ABBA – Waterloo Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I pretty much agree with lauren_6_6_6. I didn't notice the lyrics until recently and was shocked that they were in such contrast to the upbeat rhythm. To me, it seems to be about a woman who has surrendered to an undesirable (possibly abusive) relationship because she feels she has no other choice. The Napoleon reference was just a metaphor to set up the situation. | |
| The Dresden Dolls – 672 Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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maybe it's about someone who weighs 672 pounds and is depressed, possibly housebound & ashamed. then the last line could be the "fear" of people finding out about them if they have to be lifted out of their house one day. ...not really. just thought i'd add one more theory for your consideration. |
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| Patti Smith – Gloria Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| She isn't "the female" anyone...she's her own unique, talented, revolutionary person. It's truly sad that even those who attempt to praise her fall into doing so by relegating her to someone else's counterpart. | |
| Elysian Fields – Bend your mind Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| i used this song to represent "lust" on a seven deadly sins mix i made. . . | |
| Paula Cole – My Hero, Mr. President! Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| the meaning of this song isn't exactly ambiguous... | |
| Our Lady Peace – One Man Army Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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this song makes me think of self-immolation. "take a deep breath/ give them the finger/ are you worried that your thoughts are not quite clear?" - setting yourself on fire is obviously an irreversible step, so you have to be really sure about it. it shouldn't be done just to "give someone the finger" because you want to prove a point. he has to clear his head before he goes through with it. "through the blaze/ i know i'm coughing/ i believe in something" - self-immolation as a drastic statement of protest, most notably by monks during the vietnam war. "take this gasoline tin/ head up high/ walk like a winner/ let the bare feet be the last sound that they hear." - gasoline obviously is flammable, and what people who self-immolate douse themselves in before lighting the match. no one has listened to his protests thus far ("overlooked, unfit appearance"), so now he is going to do something really dramatic that people will be forced to notice. |
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| Patti Smith – Pissing in a River Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| i don't even think it's necessarily about being rejected cruelly - just kind of left behind, and the person doesn't even notice. which may or may not be even more hurtful, in the end. | |
| Rilo Kiley – Does He Love You? Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| The last verse sounds so desperate and hurt, like even though she's doing the right thing, she really did have feelings for this man and is upset and jealous of her friend's relationship with him (but trying not to show this.) | |
| Go Sailor – Fine Day for Sailing Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| i love this song, and i think it's totally tongue-in-cheek. she describes all these horrible things in vivid detail, but then says how it's all in the past. i also really love the cruelty implied in the lyrics contrasted with the super-sweet way this song is sung. | |
| The Spells – The Age of Backwards Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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i always thought it was "the future is old-fashioned," which makes sense with the backwards theme of the song. but anyway, i think it's about being in a relationship that either has already failed or is destined to fail, but you don't want to admit it. so instead, you start believing the opposite of what's right in front of you hence "the age of backwards." i wish more people would comment on this song. i love it. |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Delilah Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This song reminded me of the Cranberries' "Delilah," which seems also to be about a woman (the singer) being exasperated by her friend (Delilah) who keeps going back to a man who doesn't really love her. Maybe that was an influence (although they sound nothing alike and the Dresden Dolls definitely put their own spin on it) & maybe it wasn't, but I think it's interesting. | |
| Sleater-Kinney – Was It A Lie? Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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salvo: not only that but i think they said in some interview that was being played on a loop in some bar and a bunch of guys were watching it like it was the movie of the week. :shudder: |
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| Hole – He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss) Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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1. Would the Kurt Cobain conspiracy theorists please take their discussions to an appropriate forum? Seriously. 2. xpsychicheartsx is right, this song was co-written by Carole King, but it was never performed by her. It was done by a band called the Crystals, and King got the inspiration to write it after one of the members of the Crystals came in with a black eye from her boyfriend. She expressed pretty much the sentiment that was in the song, and so King actually intended it as a satire originally, saying "This is not a healthy perspective, but it is one that needs to be examined because some people really think this way." Anyway I really like this song, and if you get a chance to listen to the Crystals' version, that one's quite catchy, too. And sort of more haunting than Hole's because you know from the beginning ("Nice feminist anthem!") that Courtney is singing it ironically. |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Sex Changes Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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one more thing i just realized: the first line is "Dear Mr. and/or Mrs. Sender" ...referencing (I'd assume) just one person (because "sender" is singular)..yet there is ambiguity/confusion about the sender's gender in the form-letter introduction: not only that they don't know what gender the sender is, but that s/he could be both Mr. AND Mrs. this is also funny because the form letter is probably the most traditional/cookie-cutter thing ever and i heart how that's subverted. what also made this comment fun is the fact that sender and gender rhyme. |
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| Sleater-Kinney – Wilderness Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Kenny and Linda are Carrie's parents' names and they got divorced when she was very young. The song is about them. | |
| The Dresden Dolls – Sex Changes Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Did anyone else catch the Macbeth allusions? "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - one of the most famous speeches in the play. It's about the passage of time, which is perverted and made unnatural in the duration of the play. There are also lots of other references to time in the song ("tick tock tick tock," etc.) "Starting from the time you get this letter...it might not be what you expected" - The witches prophecy that Macbeth will be king, but instead of this being a joyous thing he starts murdering everything and things get more and more terrible. "You're big enough to stop pretending" - Illusion plays a big part in Macbeth. At first Lady Macbeth is completely fine with all the murder and is convinced that she and her husband can still be pure and innocent. Over time though she realizes the horror of what's going on. "Boys will be boys...they always said that sex would change you" - Over the course of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth somewhat change places in terms of traditional gender roles. When at first he's reluctant to commit the murders, she teases him and says he's not being manly enough. She also rejects traditional motherhood and is very driven to attain a higher status (like a man, traditionally, at least in Shakespeare's time.) Later though Macbeth gets caught up in all the murdering and is a "man," but a crazy one. "The knife is nearing" - Macbeth hallucinates a bloody knife hovering toward him before committing his first murder. "The whole charade is ending...caught up in a long life of regretting" - Macbeth often expresses sentiments that he is jealous of the people he's killed, because he's so tortured by what he's done. He feels like death is the only true peacefulness. "Once you get a taste for it you keep on cutting" - Once he commits one murder he can't stop. "You never know when it will end, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - At the end of the play Macbeth, now king, is killed. At the beginning of the play he killed the original king, so it's like the cycle is starting over. ....I don't know how that all meshes with the other interpretations of the song, which all seem pretty sound. But we just studied Macbeth and this song just jumped out at me...thoughts? |
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| The Dresden Dolls – Bad Habit Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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maybe i am being too simple, but to me the song really does sound like it's about self-injury. i think the part where it says: "and you might say its self-inflicted but you see that's contradictive why on earth would anyone practice self destruction?" is saying that that while maybe these wounds are *literally* self-inflicted, they're really not because it was other people who caused her to want to do it. so really she's not destrying herself, other people are, and she's just manifesting that in her cutting. |
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| Sleater-Kinney – The Ballad of a Ladyman Lyrics | 22 years ago |
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i thought it was about the pressures to be corporate-pretty and made-up in a way that sells records, and the conflict that indie-girls had if they didn't necessarily fit that standard. and "ladyman" was a term for somewhat androgynous looking women. sleater-kinney was saying that despite all the media pressure to conform to a certain standard of beauty they wanted to continue being their true selves. (& they're hot anyway!!) |
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| Hole – Clouds Lyrics | 22 years ago |
| courtney love's mom used to make her sing the joni mitchell version on road trips and she hated it, so she made this cool jangly version. | |
| Hole – Rock Star Lyrics | 22 years ago |
| it's on the "rumours, lies, and media rape" bootleg/ | |
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