| Lykke Li – Let It Fall Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Um, maybe it's just me, but I think this song is one big innuendo. "In my joyous moments I moan, 'cause it feels so good when I let my water flow" "I like it salt, I like it wet, like my makeup in a mess" And as people have already mentioned, she certainly doesn't SOUND sad, and "so I weep" sounds so much like "so happy." |
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| Mika – Grace Kelly Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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...in fact, "The comparisons to Freddie Mercury are fine," the 23-year-old says. "They started long before I made the record - I've even referred to it in Grace Kelly." (from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6231243.stm) |
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| Mika – Grace Kelly Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I have to say, I never thought-- and don't think-- Freddie could mean anything BUT Freddie Mercury. And can anybody furnish an example of Fred Astaire dancing with Grace Kelly? I don't think they ever even acted together. | |
| Vienna Teng – Passage Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| it's rare that a song has the capacity to completely pull the rug out from under me. but i swear my best friend's friend's ghost was singing this song when i heard it for the first time today. | |
| Belle & Sebastian – Seeing Other People Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think it's clear that they're both men. It never occurred to me that this song could be about a man and a woman, and I don't buy it for a second. The references are pretty transparent: "the other boys" (I'm confident that the antecedent of "other" is the subject, not the singer, of the song-- a man wouldn't tell a woman "the other boys are queueing up behind us") and "looking at the working week through the eyes of a gigolo" (by definition, gigolos are male). And the tone of the song just sounds very Polari to me: "You can bet it is a bitch, kid..." is pretty camp. Besides, "kissing just for practice" and the potential for getting "in a muddle" suggest that this is something unfamiliar, and "hand over the window" suggests that it's something they're trying to conceal. | |
| Danny Schmidt – Stained Glass Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| absolutely beautiful song. human frailty is no sin. it is a part of life-- it is everything that is beautiful about life. | |
| Regina Spektor – Samson Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Someone said earlier on the thread that this is Regina rewriting an old story to give it a happy ending. I agree completely. In its original form, this is a tragically glorious tale: Delilah's deception, and then Samson's sacrifice of his own life to avenge himself. But happiness is simpler than that. Sometimes it really just is lying out under the stars, eating some Wonder bread, an impromptu haircut that doesn't rob your lover of his Nazirine vows. And for people who've been confused about the reference to the columns: go back and reread the end of the story of Samson and Delilah. |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – He Was My Brother Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| The line is "freedom rider". The song was dedicated a year after its writing to Andrew Goodman, who was murdered along with James Chaney and Michael Schwerner while working in Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964. | |
| Our Lady Peace – Somewhere Out There Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This isn't exactly an interpretation, but I can't listen to this song anymore because every time I hear it, I think of my childhood best friend, who died while I was in high school. The last time I saw her, her hair was purple. | |
| Dido – See The Sun Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I've always thought of this as a song about her best guy friend in the aftermath of a tough break-up as well. Literally, I suppose you could read it as being about death, but the song is just a platitude if that's the case. You recover from a bad breakup in time. You never really recover from losing a loved one. | |
| Dido – Don't Leave Home Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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The drug addiction theory piques my interest, and it has a number of merits, but two things bother me about it. First, the line "When your heart is all I need." Drugs control the mind of the addicted person: they don't need to demand the heart. Also, the addiction interpretation doesn't really fit with the music, and Dido doesn't usually put such an incongruity between her lyrics and the music. There's more to a song than the words alone, and though it wouldn't be unusual if it were about drugs, a contented feeling for a song about such dark subject matter would be a pretty big departure from her usual style. Mattman770: Did Dido say that it was about addiction, or did she just say that it wasn't a love song? |
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| Dido – Stoned Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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These lyrics have been terribly reproduced. Here's a better rendering: When you're stoned, baby, and I am drunk, and we make love, it seems a little desolate. It's hard sometimes not to look away and say “what's the point?” when I'm trying to hold this fire down. I think I'll explode if I can't feel this freely now. ‘Cause if you won't let me fall for you, then you won't see the best that I would love to do for you. Instead, you will be missing me when I go, ‘cause I'm bored of hanging out in your cold. When I feel loved, baby, I join the room and the world moves with me. When I feel lost, I just slip away, silently, quietly take my things and go, and say "what's the point?" Say "Where's the hope?" I'm coming home. ‘Cause if you won't let me fall for you, then you won't see the best that I would love to do for you. Instead, you will be missing me when I go, ‘cause I'm bored of hanging out in your cold. And if you find, one day, find some freedom and relief, then with this freedom, baby, maybe you will find some peace. And with this peace, baby, I hope it brings you home to me. Bring you home-- take me home. ‘Cause if you won't let me fall for you, then you won't see the best that I would love to do for you. Instead, you will be missing me when I go, ‘cause I'm bored of hanging out in your cold. Oh, take me home. Oh, take me home. When you're stoned, baby, take me home. |
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| Dido – See You When You're 40 Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I'm completely with KatieC on this one. I also like cheetah9714's comment that it's not malicious. It really is just an understanding that "I don't really want you the way I thought I did." ...On a personal note, I guess I didn't realize what a universal theme this is. I'm in the process of telling myself what Dido is telling herself here. In the song, it's a sudden, simple realization. If only decisions in life were so easy. Still, it's comforting when I get tied up in what-could-be to listen to this song and think, "He's all wrong for you. And that's OK." |
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| Dido – Who Makes You Feel Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I think the lines are, "Being seen for who you are... Being sad and lost, but not alone." | |
| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Lovedrug, I agree that the general theme of forbidden love (one-sided or not) is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, but you've misstated a couple of the plot points. The first two are not vital, but are worth mentioning: --Romeo did poison himself when he heard of Juliet's "death", but when Juliet found him dead she killed herself by stabbing herself, not by kissing the poison from his lips. --They did not die in a field; they died in the Capulet family crypt. This one is more critical: --Unlike the narrator of this song, Romeo and Juliet did not think that the only way they could live together was to die together; they intended to elope and live happily ever after. Their deaths were unintended consequences of the fact that the messenger sent by Friar Lawrence to tell Romeo about Juliet's plan to fake her death never arrived because of a state of quarantine in Mantua. You're welcome to your own opinion about the song, of course, but this last plot point is an important distinction between the two stories. Neither Romeo nor Juliet thought that death was the best answer. In "We Both", it is the only answer, at least to the narrator. "We Both" seems to me the story of a spoiled cad who takes advantage of his status to exploit a poverty-stricken girl. I hear "You wept but your soul was willing" as a classic rapist's defense, especially as rape is a recurring theme in Meloy's music. That said, I don't see this as sociopathic behavior by the narrator, because I don't think he lured the girl in to rape and kill her. My impression is that he is sincere in his devotion (or, more accurately, obsession) for her, and he coerces her into a suicide pact that I think he fully intends to carry out. It didn't occur to me that this was a prequel to "Leslie Anne Levine", as I had always listened to "We Both" as a suicide song. I hear the love affair as one-sided, but I appreciate the argument that the song refers to the fall in social status that would certainly result from such an affair. The narrator may or may not have ultimately committed suicide. If we are to conclude that this is the prequel to "Leslie Anne Levine", and I think the evidence stipulates we must, then the woman, at least, in "We Both" must have survived long enough to give birth (because it's unlikely that the baby could survive that was born from a woman who had fallen from the cliffs of Dover). I like the clever idea that the "dry ravine" in "Leslie Anne Levine" refers to the birth canal of the dead mother. Still, the lyrics of "Leslie Anne Levine" that imply that Leslie's mother died could very well be metaphorical, as has been stated here. I disagree with the interpretation that this arc intersects with “The Infanta” because of locational considerations raised in the “The Infanta” thread (the baby would have to float at least to Spain from Dover) and plot incongruence with “Leslie Anne Levine”—in that story, the baby clearly died. It’s more likely that Meloy just likes the idea of the Moses-child, the mysterious baby washed up on the shore and uses it as a motif in his songwriting. For anyone who hasn't seen it, the thread for “The Infanta” has some lovely commentary. |
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