submissions
| Rival Schools – Good Things Lyrics
| 2 months ago
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It sounds positive and upbeat but I think there's a bit of a darker side here... the narrator is sort of hoping on good things coming his way without him having to take much action, e.g. 'Drive along to escape', 'I know we will someday / On our own, until then I will lay inside / Rest on a rising tide', 'Good things are coming, I'll wait' |
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| U2 – New York Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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@[Eyecon:49409] You seem awfully confident that your interpretation's the correct one... |
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| Living Colour – Pocket Of Tears Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Sounds like it's about someone who wants to put their suffering on display, for pity or whatever, so they pull out their pocket of tears. The narrator suggests that this is futile, as others' lives will go on regardless of your personal suffering and nobody else is to blame for it. |
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| Tool – The Grudge Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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My father stopped talking to his twin sister over what amounted to a pretty trivial perceived slight, and he never visited her in her last days in hospital when she had cancer. So much of his behaviour - the grudge - is reflected in these lyrics - particularly the sense that the grudge-holder maintains their position out of pride, desire for control, and a sense of self-righteousness. Also the sense that in the end, ironically, the grudge ends up taking control of its owner, defining them, consuming them and weighing them down. |
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| I Mother Earth – So Gently We Go Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Sounds like it's about someone being swept up in a drug-fuelled cult with a charismatic leader. 'Fill my head with your nonsense...I'll scare you blind with my confidence...As cool as Jesus and his twelve best friends...There's ecstasy for all, no need to leave your name' |
submissions
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree Lyrics
| 7 years ago
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Incredible feeling of finality to this song. If Skeleton Tree was to be the last album Nick Cave made - as the final track on the album this feels like it would be the perfect way of signing off. |
submissions
| Dinosaur Jr. – Said the People Lyrics
| 7 years ago
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Sounds like the narrator's blaming other people for the way his life's turned out. When he says 'Bring me something, bring me something I can use
Well here's one thing, but it's not the one I choose', it sounds like opportunities are presenting themselves but he's not taking them because it isn't exactly what he wanted, so he's waiting. 'Of all the people to let me down' might be him finally realising he's responsible. |
submissions
| My Friend The Chocolate Cake – Black Ice Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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Sounds like he's reminiscing about his life with someone who died. He had an argument with her and she drove off and died on the road because her emotional state and the ice on the road caused her to hit a shipping container. |
submissions
| Birds of Tokyo – Murmurs Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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A murmur in your heart is like a moment in time that you're not living, or you're outside life - or at least the rhythm that you normally live it in. It makes me think of how we use media - TV, games, movies etc. - to escape from reality, and the moments you're immersed in those things are like these frozen moments in which our real lives are wasting away. In those moments, though, especially in the case of something interactive like a game, you show courage in your actions or imagination that you could otherwise only dream of. It momentarily keeps you safe from the 'rising tide' of the problems of the world outside. |
submissions
| Stone Temple Pilots – Meat Plow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Wonder if it's Scott's relationship with the press, which might be the meat plow. Tabloid news is a 'fine place for a day full of breakdowns', ,and 'they got these pictures of everything'. He can feel an intimate connection with someone, but 'not when the news is on' - perhaps gossiping about his drug or marriage troubles and making him feel more dislocated. |
submissions
| Stone Temple Pilots – Meat Plow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Wonder if it's Scott's relationship with the press, which might be the meat plow. Tabloid news is a 'fine place for a day full of breakdowns', ,and 'they got these pictures of everything'. He can feel an intimate connection with someone, but 'not when the news is on' - perhaps gossiping about his drug or marriage troubles and making him feel more dislocated. |
submissions
| Cracker – Don't Bring Us Down Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I'm not an American citizen so I don't know but it sounds like it could be about a political candidate running for election (perhaps a liberal, given David's political persuasion). |
submissions
| Birds of Tokyo – The Unspeakable Scene Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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Sounds like the unspeakable scene is a a suicide. Inviting the suicidee to 'strike a nerve and leave a scar [he] won't forget' is challenging him to knife his wrist, feel the pain and realise he doesn't want to go through with it. The last verse is a bit ambiguous though - 'just when you think that you're okay, you start hearing voices' could mean either that the attempt was interrupted or that he went through with it. |
submissions
| Matchbox Twenty – Long Day Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Thinking that 'Oh God I shouldn't feel this way' and 'no Lord, your hand won't stop it' aren't just throw-away lines and this is actually a letter to God. It sounds like he's freaked out that now his partner has left him he'll be stuck in an existential nightmare ('I'm here all the time; I won't go away') so he's asking for a spiritual being to be there with him while he's otherwise alone. |
submissions
| Matchbox Twenty – Long Day Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Brilliant words. Sounds like a letter to God after a break-up. Believers would say that God's the one that doesn't turn away when someone else is gone. And if Rob Thomas happens to be a smart man the 'trembling' thing might even refer to Kierkegaard's 'fear and trembling' in the presence of God.
Not a biased opinion here - I'm an atheist. |
submissions
| Matchbox Twenty – Long Day Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Brilliant words. Sounds like a letter to God after a break-up. Believers would say that God's the one that doesn't turn away when someone else is gone. And if Rob Thomas happens to be a smart man the 'trembling' thing might even refer to Kierkegaard's 'fear and trembling' in the presence of God.
Not a biased opinion here - I'm an atheist. |
submissions
| Faith No More – Cuckoo For Caca Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think this is basically Patton revelling in all the media attention about his cackery, and basically saying, "yeah, that's right c^&ts, I eat shit, and I love it!!" with a sort of ironic gusto. He hasn't made any effort to hide what the song's about by making complex lyrics. Perhaps he preferred this sort of approach to everybody's thoughts about all that stuff, rather than hiding from it and making excuses about his behaviour. |
submissions
| Dishwalla – Creeps In The Stone Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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Sounds a bit like a relationship song. Maybe Creeps in the Stone are the developing cracks in a faltering relationship as they begin to see the imperfections in each other.
Another interpretation is that it's about getting old. But that doesn't fit as well. |
submissions
| Fuel – Jesus Or A Gun Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Hmmm....
'If God does not exist, everything is permitted.'
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
If he doesn't have a God to believe in he doesn't know where to find a moral code to adhere to. If this happens he has to take morality and power into his own hands, and is able to do whatever he feels like without fear of being unjust - that's what the gun means. |
submissions
| Bush – Personal Holloway Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Apparently Holloway Prison is a women's jail, used for both genders until early 20thC, in London.
I can think of 2 interperetations...
Sounds like the prison in the story is this woman's deafness. Her partner has to fight to keep her stable ('Tune my weaker eye, spit white, hold the world up all day, She's blue in the face again, paracetamol, sleep the darkness all away') and is troubled by the communication barrier ('married by signs'). There seem to be a lot of references to visual stimuli, like maybe she knows that her sight is the only way she can communicate with her partner ('Drinking kitchen paint to dye the winter', 'deaf and dumb with the lights on', watching night come amber', 'blue in the face'). Following it through, it sounds like she loses the fight ('suburban suicide') and he has trouble getting over it ('six months' [unwashed] linen').
The other idea is that maybe she's alone and 'married by signs' suggests that her deafness has led her to lead a lonely life - hence, married to her condition. |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – Push Me, Pull Me Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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It actually sounds a lot like the migration experience. Migrants are said to have 'push' factors that make them want to leave their native country and/or 'pull' factors that attract them to the new one. Also, there's 'migrant syndrome', where some people keep moving back and forth between countries as they get the whole 'grass is always greener' sensibility. A lot of the lines seem to correlate with this stuff pretty well -
'If I behave can you arrange a spacious hole in the ground?'
'I've had enough, said enough, felt enough, I'm fine now.
Push me pull me. See ya later... '
'Where the land meets high tide.'
'I had a false belief. I thought I came here to stay.
We're all just visiting. All just breaking like waves.' |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – No Way Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Sounds a bit like someone who used to be politically active and charitable but just gave up and became self-concerned...social commentary on what's happened in the last few decades.
That being said, it's probably just about what paranoidandroidhead said... |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – In My Tree Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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absolutely agree with every word of LeftHandedGuitarist's interp. Couldn'tve said it better.
the drums sound awesome... |
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| Alien Ant Farm – Universe Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It sounds a little bit like he's talking to an earlier generation - baby boomers, maybe - who had a regimen of saving money and avoiding the instant gratification of buying what you want straight away. This regimen is 'too slow' for us, it's 'gonna die'. He is part of a generation who is 'breaking the season' by spending money and not 'waiting'. |
submissions
| Tonic – Irish Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Emerson Hart writes quite a few songs that mention a soldier, and he writes quite a few songs that mention his father. If you've listened to 'Soldier's Daughter', it sounds as though the two are the same person. I'm guessing that this is about his father, or if papercuppie is right, his grandfather. |
submissions
| Counting Crows – I'm Not Sleeping Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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The girl's gotta be a metaphor of some sort. Adam mentions angels in a lot of his lyrics, and this female figure is very much like that. It's like sleep is a sort of ephemeral freedom from all the backstabbing and insincerity that he sees as a celebrity in the daytime, but now that he's not sleeping, he has no escape from it. All he can do is spend his nights in self-defence, crying about his innocence. Maybe the girl is an embodiment of the refuge and comfort offered by sleep. |
submissions
| Dishwalla – Stay Awake Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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seems to be a song that's both very simple and very enigmatic. It seems clear that it's about a paranoia of some sort, but it's hard to imagine what the hell has 'shiny eyes ... shiny minds
... living everywhere... Watching every move [you] make'. Maybe nothing does; maybe that's the idea. |
submissions
| Dishwalla – Haze Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Sounds like she's just got a problem with alcohol - thus 'haze' and 'gin and tonic sky'.
The bridge in this song is awesome. |
submissions
| Bush – Jesus Online Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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wow... it's actually a really good interpretation of addiction because it captures both the compelling side (wires around the world/feel invincible) and the agony (what can I do/I can't help myself/I let the monster through). So the Internet is like a lover that has complete control over the guy (1st & 2nd verse) and lets him play at feeling complete. |
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| Cracker – Kerosene Hat Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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'Everything seems like a dream'. Like a dream, the lyrics in this song wander through a random jumble of imagery that doesn't appear to make any sense. |
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| VAST – Turquoise Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Turquoise is the only bit I can figure out...
I know it's tempting to put the meaning of a lot of songs down to drugs, but 'I need to get clean' sounds a heck of a lot like that. Given that, I'd imagine that turquoise is a pretty common paint scheme for the inside of a rehab centre. |
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| Faith No More – Jizzlobber Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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this song is infuriating. The lyrics such an enigma. Most of the suggestions people have made here are really insightful but the song's still a challenge to figure out. The whole rapist thing sounds likely, but it seems like the perspectives of perpetrator and victim are being bled into one person somehow. |
submissions
| Foo Fighters – Erase/Replace Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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not every song's about relationships you know...
sounds to me like it's about politics. promises are made, they're broken, they're swept under the table (erased) and replaced with new policies. 'please don't talk about it' = please don't bring up that promise i broke. |
submissions
| Radiohead – Go to Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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The fact that some of the lines are enclosed in quotation marks indicates that he's cataloguing the sentiments of a particular person or group. I'd go with popular opinion and guess that the group is the Bush Administration. Maybe the song is an attempt to demonstrate that the cockiness of American patriotism encouraged a sense of invulnerability in the pre-9/11 years - 'something big is gonna happen? Over my dead body!'
'We don't want to wake the monster' could be a saracastic take on the hunt for Osama - firstly, the monster was already awake, and secondly, there was nothing subtle about the hunt; nobody was tiptoing around.
Yorke's helplessness pervades the chorus. Maybe in the last chorus he's saying that since those in power are obviously 'asleep' in a sense, he might as well nod off himself. |
submissions
| Tonic – Wicked Soldier Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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wicked soldier + 'the old tin wall' + 'she is hanging' + 'they say they heard him cry the fool' = a soldier ordered to execute a woman?
If this were the case, sounds like the song is from the perspective of the woman's lover |
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| Tonic – Soldier's Daughter Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Don't think it's about sexual abuse...the imagery's too subtle. The 'watch the sun shine through her dress' line sounds like a symbol of womanhood. He wants to see the woman that his daughter has become. |
submissions
| Counting Crows – 1492 Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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must be the fastest song of theirs to be on a studio album; it kicks up a better pace even than Angels of the Silences.
Interesting...does A.D. really have a Russian-Jewish background? Just assumed it was Polish... |
submissions
| Bush – Solutions Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Sh*t, Rossdale's lyrics can be so enigmatic...
Maybe it's about how we need something that allows us to understand and communicate with each other better ('brain megaphone'), to save us from doing bad and stupid things to each other and ourselves. |
submissions
| Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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This is the most incredibly existential song I've ever heard. I'm surprised that nobody else has explicitly recognised this (although it's certainly been implicitly recognised in the discussions about its concern with the search for God).
Existential philosophy is based on the idea of each individual finding his/her own answers to, and forming his/her own relationship with, the value and meaning of life, morality, and the existence of higher forces. This is exactly what the narrator of the song is doing. The supposition of God being female is an individualistic act of resistance to an accepted norm, ie. that God is a masculine identity; the narrator makes his own decision about 'who' he thinks God is, and does not rely on widely accepted beliefs.
The lyrics burn with a sense of somebody desperately trying to figure out the best way to form a personal relationahip with God. There's a great sense of fear ('Am I very far now?'); if the narrator must decide for himself what the best way is of understanding God, he has no (earthly) way of knowing if his understanding is worthy of God's appreciation.
(Sorry about the essay) |
submissions
| Pearl Jam – Love Boat Captain Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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artsy: perhaps 'trying to shake the cancer off? oh, stupid human beings' suggests that we're stupid to assume that the bad things that we do to each other are not natural parts of ourselves, that they're a 'cancer' that can be removed and separated from oneself. Maybe evil isn't like a cancer in a human body. Maybe it's an integral part of the body (so to speak). |
submissions
| Eskimo Joe – I'm So Tired Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Somehow brings to mind the long hours of many workers in retail (but then I was at work when I first heard it) |
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| VAST – Dirty Hole Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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djhtjl: i share the sentiment about dead men being a metaphor for sperm. 'How many dead men, God?' - we've been designed in such a way that only one (or occasionally more) of our potential 'men' will survive out of millions. Most will 'sleep without a dream'. Maybe his fear stems from the notion that he's about to commit a mass murder of sorts. His life flashes before his eyes; he was the one out of millions that got to live, and he's about to repeat the process. |
submissions
| Tonic – Queen Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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agree with mrpants. it seems to be about the girlie groupie fantasy of getting together with a hot young star and being the princess. perhaps the 1st verse compares this kind of transcendence to the transcendence of a drug trip. |
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