madman8199

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John Mellencamp – Rain On The Scarecrow Lyrics 16 years ago
If you're curious as to what the lyrics to this song mean, you need look no further than the vanishing family farms across the United States. This has happened due to any number of factors, including demand for cheap food (driven by falling wages since the 1970s), government subsidies for big agribusiness that fuel factory farming as opposed to traditional family farms, and general apathy amongst the American people. We don't make enough money anymore to afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart, unless you're in the upper classes, and people wear this fact like a badge of honor. It's become a point of pride amongst the working class to eschew buying anything from any source other than Wal-Mart, because those who make enough money to avoid it aren't connected to the working class. That's true, but it also kills local businesses and family farms.

Family farms have to charge more for their crops than big agribusiness due to the economy of scale. If you grow 10,000 acres of peas, for instance, you can afford to sell them at, let's say, $0.50 per pound and still make a profit. A family farmer can't grow 10,000 acres of peas because he or she needs that land to grow other crops and also to graze animals. So the family farmer can only grow 5 acres of peas, which need to sell for, let's say, $2.00 per pound just to buy seed for next year and keep the farm going.

When people make less than subsistence wages, and we all have since at least the late 70's or so, regardless of how we perceive it, we can't afford real food. We rely on factory farmed, genetically engineered, hormone-treated stuff. This is, incidentally, the status quo advocated by so-called conservative politicians. How conservative is it to advocate for big agribusiness at the expense of family farms and living wages?

submissions
Nirvana – Rape Me Lyrics 20 years ago
The song is about the fact that women are raped by men they know, not strangers, and how that's a betrayal of trust. Pretty simple, really. One of the most straightforward Nirvana songs out there, but people love trying to find the hidden Courtney message.

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Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box Lyrics 20 years ago
I'd say this is Nirvana's one and only love song that's not in some way sarcastic (like "About a Girl"). Whether it's about a girlfriend or Courtney or kids with cancer or humanity in general is irrelevant. It's about feeling love.

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Nirvana – Dumb Lyrics 20 years ago
The drug references are definitely there, but it's also about regret over the drug use. There's depression, so he tries drugs to help with the depression, but ultimately they don't work and he needs to get off ("Lesson learned / Wish me luck / Soothe the burn / Wake me up"). Plus, after all those years of depression, feeling happy must feel pretty stupid.

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Nirvana – All Apologies Lyrics 20 years ago
Um, given the song's history, and the fact that it was written before he was married to Courtney Love (even if it's dedicated to her and Francis Bean), wouldn't it be pretty easy to assume it's about the guilt he felt as a child for his parents' divorce? Kids generally feel that it's their fault when their parents split up, erroneous as that assumption may be.

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Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit Lyrics 20 years ago
I've seen the mockery interpretation several times, and I'm inclined to agree. I do ahve a bone to pick with people trying to break it down line by line...worth doing, but make your point and get out. I don't read all of that, and I doubt others do all the time either. Anyway, look at it this way: teenagers are out partying, having indiscriminate loveless sex, playing with guns, showing off how mature they are by using "dirty words" and expecting to be entertained all the time. And there's a myth out there that you can't get pregnant or get one STD or another if you have sex with the lights out. The "mosquito / libido" rhyme to me always suggested that even though the girls had "mosquito bites" for breasts, it's enough to get a teenage guy going. Teenagers are always so positive about their abilities, even though they can't really do much very well, and they assume that their group of friends will always be a part of their lives. The last verse is the inherent confusion of being young.

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AFI – This Time Imperfect Lyrics 20 years ago
I agree with Seimiko, that it's got something to do with unrequited love. Anyone who has been in that excruciating position really can connect to the chorus, because there is no beauty in life (no flowers, no angels), only loneliness that you cannot express to the one person who you so desperately need. You're stuck, and life is empty because you can't have the one you love. This is, frankly, I think the only song on Sing the Sorrow that actually is a "relationship" song in that sense, and it's heartbreaking. By far my favorite...nearly brings me to tears when I listen to it.

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AFI – Silver And Cold Lyrics 20 years ago
I think the cold he talks about comes from himself. It's an expectation of this other person to be the salvation of him, hence the religious imagery ("your sins into me," "tremble with prayer as I beg for forgiveness"). He has to face the darkness within, and hopes this relationship will save him from it. He will take all the other's faults into himself as well, because he is already so deeply flawed, and in redeeming the other be himself redeemed. The theme of death and redemption in the face of a very personal hell is prevalent on Sing the Sorrow.

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AFI – Girl's Not Grey Lyrics 20 years ago
The song's about sadness, plain and simple. He feels that he has lived a life that deserves the misery he's in. I'm not saying Davey specifically, but the position he wrote the song from. Nothing has any meaning anymore, and were God's grace to be found, he would reach for it to be redeemed...but it's pretty clear from the song that there's no grace anymore.

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Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend Lyrics 20 years ago
Actually, this is basically a blues. If you pay attention to the verse pattern, it follows traditional blues format, and it's basically a song about trying to win a girl over who he likes. Pretty simple.

submissions
Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend Lyrics 20 years ago
Actually, this is basically a blues. If you pay attention to the verse pattern, it follows traditional blues format, and it's basically a song about trying to win a girl over who he likes. Pretty simple.

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