| Jimmy Buffett – Coconut Telegraph Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I think the reference is people pounding out morse code on jungle drums to pass gossip between islands. Obviously, everyone can hear - not a very secure system - and one presumes sometimes gets used for gossip. | |
| Seal – Future Love Paradise Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this song is about the endgame between the forces that would hurt us and enslave us and control us and destroy, and the forces that would love and accept us and help us create. I think we are poised between these two forces - we see incredible creations, in music and technology and art, and incredible destructiveness and hatred, often for the dumbest of reasons, all playing out in the world we're experiencing. If you accept the idea that there are angels - call them what you will, beings who have accepted love as a way of life - and devils, again use whatever words you like, who are deeply into the idea of power and shame and control and guilt and selling you the concept that you are inherently sinful and weak and bad and worthless - then I think this song is about the place where the devils (the riders) and the angels (the queens he talks of in the beginning, spreading love and unity so we can be found) collide I think each of us can choose which side we would like to be with, and that if you consistently choose love, you will find yourself in a future love paradise. I really do think that we don't die to get to heaven - we live instead. I think Seal knows this - I gesture you to 'Crazy', where he talks about how 'in a sky full of people.. in a world full of people.. in a heaven of people there's only some want to fly, isn't that crazy?' |
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| Snow Patrol – Open Your Eyes Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I think you pretty much nailed it. Have you seen the video that goes with it, and read the story about it? | |
| Casting Crowns – Lifesong Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I no longer look at it this way. But, I also encourage people to sin, rather than doing nothing. The word sin literally means "miss". It isn't something to be horrified at and live your life in chains of guilt and shame about. If you sin, stand up and try again! Sooner or later you *will* hit the target, instead of missing. I also believe that the contrast between God and the Devil may be needed to preserve free will.. it may be the tension between those two things helps us to be free. At some point, I'll probably write a blog post explaining my latest version of beliefs on this - but they're subject to change, again and again - as I search for and discover my spirituality, I seem to change my mind a lot. |
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| Casting Crowns – Lifesong Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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In point of fact, I'm pretty sure that antimatter has been synthesized. However, that's not even really that important to my case. Information has always existed. Will always exist. Can't be made to cease to exist. But in fact, we're now having a semantic argument because you would call the infinite set of infinite sets a part of God ("in the beginning was the word") and then find that we're in complete agreement. It can't be science vs. God because science is a *part of* God. I can casually disprove large amounts of the bible - or show you how they were written by people who had not yet achieved the lofty heights we hang out in in the 21st century.. but I'm not going to. Why? Well, first, because I'd hate to succeed if succeeding made you unhappy.. I have no need to hurt you and I really hope that we're both allowed to be "right" as far as our subjective realities at the same time. Second, because our beliefs form a filter which mask part of the infinity that we're submersed in. I should add that I'm not really the same Sheer that posted that first post - I've had two years of growing and learning and I have spent a lot of time in those two years thinking about spiritual matters. That Sheer was deeply angry at Christianity for something that wasn't the fault of the religion. This Sheer understands that a lot of the things that he believes line up with the beliefs of Christians, and the places where there are differences, I believe there's more wonder here than the bible would ever credit. I see the bible as God's true message warped by the limits of the people who set pen to paper, and I don't blame them or fault them because I have many of the same limits and I've been learning how hard it is to grok and accept unconditional love. I also doubt that any message I would give you showing the limits of the Bible would make it through your input filters. But, if you're happy, who am I to judge you? If you're not, I'm sure the same angels that help me understand how the problem is in my mind and my beliefs are available to you, and they can do a much better job of helping you change your thoughts and beliefs than I can. Pray hard! :-) |
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| Casting Crowns – Lifesong Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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To mitsukai - Far from it. I'm saying that we are basically informational beings, and that all information is eternal, must be eternal, can't be anything *but* eternal. If you start at one and keep counting, eventually you will come up with (once you convert to the format that makes sense for that type of information) every piece of information that makes up you. Those are eternal things, because they don't require physical matter to exist. I'm no longer criticizing Christianity because I have a much better understanding both of how it happened and how the key beliefs held in the living minds of Christians are not that different from the key beliefs that are held in the mind of Sheer. If we get in a fight over who is right and who is wrong, we A: ignore the fact that what we believe controls what we experience and in that sense we are both right and B: miss the oppertunity to celebrate that for the most part, we're on the same page and any disagreements we're having are semantic i.e. disagreements because we don't use words quite the same way. I'm truly grateful for the angels that God has placed in my life. |
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| Chris De Burgh – Don't Pay The Ferryman Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I've thought this song meant many different things throughout my journey - these days, I think it's about not making any promises to God - or whoever is controlling your subjective experience of reality - until the end of your life. | |
| Prince – 1999 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I don't think of this song as being about apoptolyptic themes at all. I admit that the lyrics do bring up the end of the world, but I actually think *that* is where Prince is being metaphoric. My interpretation is that there are some events that do not come along very often - like the century rolling over, which is something that only happens once in most people's lifetimes - and we should celebrate and enjoy these occasions, rather than letting fear keep us locked in sadness. I also thought a subtheme was that we don't need to wait for large or important events to come along before we try to enjoy life - that any excuse for a party is a good one. I don't think this is selfish and small minded - I think it's possible that the biggest gift any of us can give the world is to find ways to be happy, and therefore raise the general happiness level. |
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| Nickelback – If Everyone Cared Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I guess I think that this song is not only picturing a utopia, but trying to remind us that utopia is in fact within our reach. The biggest reason that the world sucks is that too many of the people in power can't believe that it could be better. | |
| Tears for Fears – Johnny Panic And The Bible Of Dreams Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Well, I haven't yet ordered and read it, but the title of this track is clearly a allusion to the collection of short stories written by Sylvia Plath. | |
| Britney Spears – If U Seek Amy Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Well - then - go record something better, and post the URL. This being 2008, you can get pretty much all the tools you need for multitrack recording - as well as all the know-how - and if you don't have the gear, you probably have a friend who does. Stop knocking her thing and try to make your own. It's not as easy as it looks ;-) As for sluttiness - in a sane society, the word 'slut' would be a compliment. The western world is somewhere between warped and insane on the subject of sex - and there's a good chance that our children will be less warped, and less insane, than we are. You're taking the traditional role of the elder, and assuming that they're wrong and you're right. History says, over and over again, that the elders guessed wrong and the children guessed right, but it's still not something the elders seem to ever manage to embrace. I'll save a rant on human sexuality and planet earth for my blog. ;-) Again - don't knock what you haven't tried, or what you don't understand. We're all just looking for what works, here on earth. Brittney's way may not be to your liking, but it's probably no less valid than your own - there are as many ways to be human as there are humans. As for her voice, it's actually not bad - but what sells right now is synthesized/voder-vocoder-pitchmorphed-etc. Personally, I prefer the Oceanlab sound, but then, I'm not a rock star and she is. I don't think this song is particularly deep - but it's not really lame either. Clever, and a somewhat ballsy move, is what I'd call it. reminds me of Madonna in the late 80s. |
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| Britney Spears – If U Seek Amy Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Let's just hope she finds a way to be happy.. or at least not miserable. I thought the song was cute - and she's obviously physically attractive and the folks at T.C. Helicon (or whoever does her vocal processing) are definitely whizzes.. but I have this feeling that when Brittney looks over the last ten years, she's going to feel a little gypped. I think that's what's with all the drugs & whatnot - it must be frustrating to get everything the world tells you will make you happy - fame, money, kids, etc - and find out you're still miserable. If nothing else, we can all give her props for having the balls to record the song - but it doesn't feel like she's a happy camper to me, and she deserves to be - as we all do. |
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| Harry Chapin – Mr. Tanner Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I think it's about the risk of judging your own music, or of listening to those who make their living by criticizing others (i.e. professional critics). Whenever I record a track, I usually hate it for about a year after I record it, then love it for a few months, then can get some kind of reasonable judgement on it. And I know that every performance, what I hear is mostly the flaws, just like Mr. Tanner. It's difficult to believe that there's actually signal beyond the noise when only the noise jumps out at you.. but it's important not to let these things stand in the way of continuing towards something that will make you happy. Mr. Tanner goes home to Dayton, and he never sings again.. even though singing 'made him feel so happy, and it made him feel so good' - because of his own perceptions of his inability ('he only heard the flaws') and the opinions of some critics who are criticizing his first attempts as a professional musician ('full time consideration of another endevor might be in order..') I will also say that music is far too important to be left to the professionals. |
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| Casting Crowns – Lifesong Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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First of all, in reaction to Norgy2010's comment, perhaps it's not that we're blinded by sin, but that we have a different understanding of the world than you do. Think of it this way. If Satan is zero and God is one, and the world is a digital computer, then without both Satan and God, there is no signal, only a static perpetual voltage which, without something to compare against, says nothing, means nothing, and is nothing. Information can not exist in a vacuum - it needs other information to echo off of, reflect off of, and build against. And it can neither be created nor destroyed. God can not have created you - he can have created the phyiscal matter that your body is built out of, but the information that is *truly* you, the knowledge that makes your soul yours and not someone else's, this not even God can create or destroy. This is eternal and beyond the scope of any being to do anything to. Beyond that, I think this song is about a different interpretation of our daily actions and thoughts - looking at it as information - a particular type of information, a song.. each choice we make adds another note, each movement, each step, perhaps even each thought.. As far as the 'true meaning of christianity', I'm not sure there is such a thing. Reality is different for each participant, and you and I may take totally different things away from the Bible. (In fact, we almost certainly did. I think it's a awful book, that it constrains God and shows the pettiness of it's authors, and that the reality is far better than a diety who will allow you to be tortured for eternity for not following one particular stripe of beliefs). There isn't a 'true' meaning of any given word that can be said to hold true for all the people who use that word, and perhaps that's not important. What's probably important is what truth is, to you. |
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| Smash Mouth – Walkin' On The Sun Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| As a side note, I can't help but compare 'bushwacked' to the present whacked guy in the white house. ;-) Although I know that wasn't the case yet when this song was written. Maybe he was thinking of the first Bush? Actually, probably Smash Mouth wasn't thinking political at all, but it's still a interesting thought. | |
| Smash Mouth – Walkin' On The Sun Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I think this song is about a lot of things, actually. Sort of a capture of the current state of American culture and counterculture. I think the person who talked about how it was asking where the hippie ideals had gone was onto something, but I actually think it's a bit more complicated. It's talking about the perpetual cycle between hippie ideals (love and peace and not busting people for smoking weed) and WASP ideals (throwing people in jail, deciding what's moral for your fellow man and not letting him get married if he happens to be gay, starting wars over resources). Certainly there is a cycle between liberalism and conservatism, and I think that there is a deeper cycle between what we would think of as good and what we would think of as evil. I think they're also drawing a line between the drugs that probably won't kill you (marajuana, for example - 'buy the world a toke') and those that probably will ('put away the crack before the crack puts you away'). They also are addressing how the hippie fashons (unshaved, tye-died, blue-jeans, as opposed to the suit-and-tie approach of corperate america) are being adopted while the deeper ideals (peace, love, freedom - both in a sexual and in a broader idealistic sense) are being ignored. 'Fashon is smashing the true meaning of it'. Also, I think there's a little dig in how the children of hippies ended up - 'and the kids were hippie chicks' - I love those ;-) - 'or hypocrites' - and we've all known our fair share of children of hippies who tried to rebel - hard to get traction when you're rebelling against peace, love, and Zen - often they ended up right back as the WASPs.. Last of all, I think Smash Mouth is endorsing peace and love over war and hate - 'and if you follow, there may be a tomorrow, but if the offer's shunned, you might as well be walking on the sun'. |
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| BT – Flesh Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Someone is logging out. Where they go, we don't really know. A lot of us like to pretend that we do, and that therefore our judgement of right and wrong should apply to other people, but the reality is, none of us do. Life is a locked door mystery. What came before? No data. What comes after? No data. Why are we here? No data. Good luck, kids! | |
| ATC – Mistake #2 Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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And 4, and 5, and 6, and 7... Humans and love. Ah, so funny. |
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| United States Of Electronica – Emerald City Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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U.S.E. is originally a northwest USA (Portland/Seattle) band, and this song is clearly about Seattle in the summer. One of the downsides of Seattle is in the winter, it only gets like six hours of daylight - but in the summer, it's a major upside, as it gets like eighteen. It's hard to explain the vibe, everyone is all excited, soaking in the sun as fast as they can to make it through the next winter. Everything is unbeleivably green, hence the name 'Emarald City'. p.s. a couple of corrections: It's 'hearts are getting closer', not 'pops'. And it's 'give me some loving', not 'five me some loving', although I have to admit the other version is more amusing. This song has this one overly creative use of grammer that will stick in your head: 'I never had it so well.' Just wait. Ten years from now it'll still be popping up occasionally. I've left Seattle - I couldn't take the winters any more - and one of the things I will miss the most is U.S.E. - 'We Love It!' |
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| Big Audio Dynamite – Medicine Show Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I don't think it's about cocaine. I think it's more about the snake oil salesmen who have been around in every generation, peddling something with outrageous claims that it couldn't possibly lived up to. It doesn't feel to me like they're talking about a drug, though - more one of those 'miracle cures' that you see on the late night infomercials ;-) | |
| Roger Waters – Four Minutes Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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One of the strongest arguments I know of for their being some higher power is that we've never had to sit during a thirty-minute countdown to certain death. Somehow despite their apparent greed and cluelessness, all of the world leaders have managed to avoid pushing 'the big red button'. But, this song serves as a potent reminder that the universe could have been much, much worse - and could still be. Here's to humanity outgrowing a lot of things - nuclear warheads and money being the first two I'd think we could live without. |
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| Natasha Bedingfield – Unwritten Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I think it's amusing watching all the conventional reacting in the only way they possibly could to this message - 'it sucks'. No, it doesn't. IT's just 180 degrees out of phase with the way you think. Those of us who are in alignment with it think it's beautiful. A lot of things are like that - you either love it or hate it. I love the idea that the future hasn't been resolved yet, that we don't have any idea where we're going or what we'll find when we get there - especially when watching mainstream news gives me a complete lack of hope. But then I go back to work building fast networks and software to help people work togeather and alternative fueled vehicles.. no one else can speak the words on my list. ;-) The rest is still unwritten - and I really hope that hollywood learned their tendancies for happy endings from Real Life. | |
| Asia – Voice Of America Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I don't know what it means to me exactly, but I have this vision of a completely - or nearly completely - abandoned Earth. Maybe a steven-king-esque virus has killed off all of humanity, or maybe we've just all gone somewhere better, but in any case, there's a radio transmitter powered off some very stable and long-lasting source (water cooled solar panels?) and a timer, and every day at 3 PM it plays this song. And then it's not quite so sad that everybody's gone. Obviously the 'original' Voice Of America was a powerful shortwave station sponsered by the American government to spread pro-american propiganda. But I stronlgy doubt that's what the song is about, since I don't think they ever broadcast in stereo.. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Soul Meets Body Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I feel sort of like our souls might be similar to electromagnetic waves - the 'melody soaring softly through my atmosphere' definately makes me think of radio signals. This song feels like it's about a self-aware planet listening to the songs of its people, and fearing the loss of them. But I may be reading my own life and prejudices into the song. Which, I guess, is the whole point of this board so I don't know why I'm adding it to the tail end of my comment. | |
| United States Of Electronica – Open Your Eyes Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| More incredibly positive and good-vibe music from U.S.E. - of course, you don't get the whole and true experience until you see them live. | |
| U2 – The Unforgettable Fire Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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As usual, I have sort of a strange metaphysical take on it. If life as we know it can only exist at the intersection of hydrogen and oxygen - the magic 'water of life' that Heinlien talks about in Stranger In A Strange Land, then the implication I get from this song is that the entity in the song is behind us, in a place with no water and hence no life, because without water, there isn't any life. Another interpretation which stirkes at me is 'dug from the night, your eyes as black as coal'.. I keep worrying that the coal we mine from the earth, and the oil, and whatnot, was doing important things where it was, and that we're hurting the earth.. maybe those veins of carbon were a elaborate sensor net that enabled Her to see, for example. We humans have a tendancy to monkey first and worry about what we're breaking second.. sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now. I need to be less negative anyway. |
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| OceanLab – Satellite Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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>Heh, fool, this song is another cheaply shrouded song about drugs. "You're half a world away" is probobaly referring to a state of delusion or some other drug induced distance, while "I follow you everywhere you go, baby. The pain as light has come to wake you" refers to addiction, and "I follow the winds..invisible" refers to the "invisible" love of a drug. Cheaply shrouded death. I guess it depends on your obsession and view of the world. I've always thought this song was about God or some supernatural entity, some part of the arcanea of the world that's beyond human comperehension. 'Before you sleep at night, you pray to me, your lucky star, your singing sattelite' doesn't sound like it's about drugs to me. And nothing about any of Justina/Oceanlab's songs bring to mind any drug images at all. Admittedly, if I ever do try MDMA, I'll be sure to have thousands of watts ready to back up Oceanlab's work. But that's just because it, well, fits. When played with rave power levels, this music can induce ecstacy in me without any drugs at all. It's powerful positive stuff, to me and my mind. Even now, as I listen to it on cheesy laptop speakers, I feel little twinges of happiness, a lightening of mood, and a extreme desire to program repeat play. At times I've thought that our bodies and the bit of us that are actually us are completely seperate, and maybe some process relays messages back and forth between them. Astrophysicists have also assured me that we are all made of materials that fused inside the hearts of stars.. so perhaps there's that approach to it as well. I don't know. I'd like to hear more guesses as to what this song is about, though. |
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| Elton John – Answer In The Sky Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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Moby observed that we are all star children.. every atom in us was forged in the furnace that is the heart of a star.. and every atom in us will return to a star for more fusion, and to be made into heavier elements. If you're looking for proof of your own immortality, look up. The stars are burning bright, making the universe a more complex place, warming the planets where life of our sort lives. (Life not of our sort is another, and equally highly complex, situation) I suppose we could get into a philisophical debate over the heat death of the universe.. but I don't believe it for a minute. The universe has gotten this far.. it's not dying. Sometimes you do find a answer in the sky. |
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| Rush – Freewill Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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I'm currently playing with the idea that whatever we believe and a lot of the things that we dream happen. At the very least, whatever we believe controls our perceptions. And, the best choice would seem to be free will - i.e. we choose who and what we want to be, hopefully unfettered by the chains of old fears and the source code of old religions that were designed for places the human race has been in the past but is not now. But then, I could be wrong. ;-) Anyway, it's obviously to me (and of course it could mean different things to different people and may mean different htings to me at different points in my life) a song about choosing to be yourself. |
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| Amy Grant – Ask Me Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| I don't know. I swing back and forth. Sometimes I think that it's sarcastic.. because it's hard for me to accept that a omnipotent god would permit children to be abused in these ways, and obviously they are.. and sometimes I think it's serious, that she's claiming god has some role in healing this child. However, since I've seen people heal from these things without the advantage of religion, I'm not sold on her thesis. | |
| Melissa Etheridge – Silent Legacy Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Christianity, perhaps inadvertantly, teaches many of us to fear physical affection.. sex is a sin, sex is bad, sex is something to be feared. It teaches teens to think that the hunger they feel.. or the pleasure of filling that hunger.. is immoral. This fear does much damage to humanity and hampers our relationships with each other. Refuse to hand the fear to the next generation. We can do better. It's possible to be a moral sexual animal without being afraid - afraid of commiting some 'sin' that no one can even explain to you why is bad, afraid of offending some bizarre god that feels that killing his own son would result in the rest of us being forgiven. Many of the morals of christianity are good - but the implimentation is rotten. Refuse to hand the fear down. Your children don't need to be saddled with your parents' neuroses. Peace, Love, Unity, Respect, Sheer |
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| Enigma – Return To Innocence Lyrics | 22 years ago |
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That returning to who you are IS returning to innocence. Innocence is just the boot-up state for a human body - I.e. who you are, before you start accepting programming - as in having experiences, since for humans they're kind of the same thing ;-) - in the real world. re: the previous poster - There's kind of a bitter irony to hearing this song on Miss America, since that show strikes me as often being about being what you aren't. |
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| Steve Taylor – Whatever Happened To Sin Lyrics | 22 years ago |
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It means that Steve Taylor is as blinded by his culture as anyone. Truly, it's sad. Taylor: I have news for you. The bible is just a book. There are as many misconceptions, mistakes, and myths in it as anywhere. Peace, love, and respect are found in your heart, not in words 2000 years old. And there's nothing wrong with being gay, straight, or out-there-sideways. The name of the game is to hurt as few as possible, add as much happiness to life as you can, and log out without fear. |
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| Steve Taylor – Innocence Lost Lyrics | 22 years ago |
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Steve Taylor has this sort of odd relationship with Christian rock.. Like Amy Grant in 'Ask me', I'm not even sure if he realizes that there are two - at least - meanings in everything he sings. In this particular case, he's talking about a christian woman visiting a death row inmate - after all, all is forgiven, if only you'll acknowledge god, right? Let me ask you - why would there ever be a hell that was a eternal and final resting place, if god were a moral and reasonable creature? Hopefully, we'll all see each other beyond - and hopefully, we'll all get there our own ways, not following someone else's map. |
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| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Southern Cross Lyrics | 23 years ago |
| When relationships fall apart, head for tropical paradise? ;-) | |
| Styx – Suite Madame Blue Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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Regarding Tyler250's comment - very, very true. And that madame is America - the old US of A, which I see songmeanings.net is pushing in the upper right hand corner. I think it's pretty clear - after all, on the 'Greatest Hits' album they say that this song was written for America's bicenteniel (sp?) celebration. But given all that, I agree. I wanted America, but my whole life she's been changing - and not in good directions. |
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| Paul Simon – The Lion Sleeps Tonight Lyrics | 23 years ago |
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Obviously many artists have covered this one. It even appeared in Aladdin. In africa, man & beast have a truce? No, that's probably not it. I don't _know_ what it means, could someone else please post their opinion.. |
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