| Woven Hand – Winter Shaker Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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In the 30's depression, Winter Shakers were people who pretended faith to gain shelter and food in the winter. The lyrics seem to bear out the meaning: "clap my dirty hands" = dirt as a symbol for both poverty and the speaker's deceit "living on Indian land" = living off misappropriated goods "deep devotion at the bottom of the sea" = devotion as a refuge of those already drowned in misery "iniquity does down like water" = gross injustice becoming so normalised it becomes a natural part of survival "spoken behind the hand" = as if lying, or fearful that the proclamations of GO's grace, "all his glory", are in fact in any way sincere "It is the storm that brought me in" = the personal misfortune that made the speaker desperate enough to proclaim rabid faith in an attempt to gain shelter |
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| Woven Hand – The Good Hand Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The "good hand" is a double-edged thing here, the hand that shelters but also punishes the son shaped by it. The first part of the song describes the hand in its kind aspect, the second in its vengeful one. There are two potential levels of reading to this song - the literal, and the mystical. In the mystical reading the hand is God: the believer tries to enact the part of the "faithful son", a good Christian, but in his self-righteousness turns from the good shepard to being the wrathful hand judgement on those he sees as dishonouring God. In the literal, the hand belongs to the speaker's father, the son and father can be seen as players in a story of domestic violence. The son grows in his father's image of manhood, accepting the beatings given to him ("I take my shelter neath a familiar tree", "see what the good hand done"), and just like his father, ends up judging his neighbours for failing to meet his expectations ("I see you've chosen to lose your way/to greed with a clank for nothing") and absolving the father's abuse of his wife, the speaker's mother ("she will understand", "embellished by pain's engravings" etc, the last 4 lines"). |
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| Emilie Autumn – Castle Down Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The castle is a metaphor for the perfect relationship the speaker wishes they had -- and in this song, never does. "Will you tear my castle down?" is a question to the lover who not only fails them but abuses the speaker by demanding everything she has, to the exclusion of everything else (the castle, i.e. the lover's demands, as a prison). The first verse describes the speaker building their "castle" under the lover's eyes - the castle is a dream, the speaker's imagining of their future together. The second verse describes the lover's approval for the worship the speaker gives them, and the speaker's growing dissatisfaction with being taken advantage of - the castle is a prison, the lover's godlike demand on her time and attention. The third describes the speaker's disillusionment and breaking from the relationship, whatever the cost - the castle is a ruin, the dream she is accusing her lover of destroying with their insane possessiveness. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Autoclave Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I disagree on the song being about self-loathing or fear of opening up. This is the surface imagery, yes, but not what the song ultimately builds to. On the surface the speaker thinks he's destructive and toxic to life and relationships (no woman and no emotion stay with him and still be real) - on the other hand he conveys this in intensely selfaggrandizing imagery, "a great unstoppable mass" "a place where everybody knows your name" and equating his 'destructive' heart (i.e. his emotional intensity) not to toxins, but to something used to purify, an autoclave. The chaos of the second verse is what happens when he tries to share that self-image with others: they don't see him as the great unstoppable thing he thinks he is, and so he winds up lost and in chaos until he can purge the relationship ("nothing left to burn", "no emotion worth having") and be the pure thing he considers himself again. So, while on the surface it seems to be about self-loathing and loneliness, the undertone is that he is lonely because he feels so intense and so righteous at heart that no-one else can survive exposure to his true feelings (the autoclave). It's not about self-loathing: it's about a narsicistic personality justifying and protecting it's own grand self-image by alienating everything that threatens to expose it as just human (be it romantic partners or his own common sense). |
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| The Mountain Goats – Autoclave Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I disagree on the song being about self-loathing or fear of opening up. This is the surface imagery, yes, but not what the song ultimately builds to. On the surface the speaker thinks he's destructive and toxic to life and relationships (no woman and no emotion stay with him and still be real) - on the other hand he conveys this in intensely selfaggrandizing imagery, "a great unstoppable mass" "a place where everybody knows your name" and equating his 'destructive' heart (i.e. his emotional intensity) not to toxins, but to something used to purify, an autoclave. The chaos of the second verse is what happens when he tries to share that self-image with others: they don't see him as the great unstoppable thing he thinks he is, and so he winds up lost and in chaos until he can purge the relationship ("nothing left to burn", "no emotion worth having") and be the pure thing he considers himself again. So, while on the surface it seems to be about self-loathing and loneliness, the undertone is that he is lonely because he feels so intense and so righteous at heart that no-one else can survive exposure to his true feelings (the autoclave). It's not about self-loathing: it's about a narsicistic personality justifying and protecting it's own grand self-image by alienating everything that threatens to expose it as just human (be it romantic partners or his own common sense). |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Bentol's on to something -- between the Paradise Lost and the trinity references, God is a good call. One of my two favourite theories for this song. Going with the god-theory: Rather than actual god, I think ol' Nick's describing the -idea- of god, drawn from the prayers of the wretched of a modern capitalist society. Divinity is meaningless, mercy and salvation are meaningless. All that matters is what you can get out of it, and so it doesn't matter who you're talking to (the 'ghost, god, man, guru' -bit). This is also why the description is so horriffic -- this is God as a dealer, the kind of guy who treats his congregation as customers. Pay your dues (in faith) and you'll get your fix of good stuff, don't and your life will be hell because always you'll be haunted by what you may ahve missed. My problem with that theory is that it leaves the first verse (all that modern industrialist imagery) completely hanging. That's why I'd suggest a second identity for the man with the hand. On the one hand, it's the vindictive dealer image of God that runs through American politics. On the other, it's secular government as a controlling, identity-stealing and individualism-crushing force. That's what the lyric seems to be saying to me: "Big Brother is watching, he knows all about you, he's everywhere, and this is -his- world. Conform to what we want you to want, or be ground down." |
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| Suzanne Vega – The Queen And The Soldier Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I agree with lostinspace that it's a metaphor -- but not just for a lovestory (though it fits that too). Try this notion: The conversation is the symbolic, inner monologue of a person faced with some undefined need to change their life (possibly growing into an adult lovelife -- that'd explain why voices are different genders). Their sense says they should -- their heart says it's too risky, they might lose even the partial happiness they have now, and it's better to continue as they have. The Queen is the heart, passion, impulse, youth, emotion, fear of change. She's powerful, but impetuous and uncertain and makes bad calls because of that. ("The young queen she fixed him with an arrogant eye, she said 'You won't understand, and you may as well not try,' but her face was a child's and he thought she would cry") The Soldier is sense, growing up, experience, understanding, responsibility. Like good common sense, he's simple, confident, and bluntly honest. ("'How hungry are you, how weak you must feel, as you are living here alone and you are never revealed" -- "I want to live as an honest man, get all I deserve, and give all I can") The question is faced, sense seems to have won, but at the last minute the person allows their emotion to take hold again. ("And he took her to the window to see. Well the sun it was gold, though the sky it was gray, and she wanted more than she ever could say, but she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away, and would not look at his face again") The Queen orders the soldier killed, and the battle continues -- aka, the person doesn't make the life-change their good sense is trying to tell them is desperately needed. Yeah, it's a beautiful song. All the better because it's so hard to decode. |
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