submissions
| Stevie Nicks – Stand Back Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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The lyrics were not written by Prince.
"I got married the day I wrote this song. We were driving to Santa Barbara and a new song by Prince came on, so we pulled over somewhere and got the tape. It just gave me an incredible idea, so I spent many hours that night writing a song about some kind of crazy argument, and it was to become one of the most important of my songs. I've been doing this song for years, Fleetwood Mac does it also, and I never get tired of it. 'Stand Back' has always been my favorite song onstage, because...when it starts, it has an energy that comes from somewhere unknown...and it seems to have no timespace. I've never quite understood this sound....but I have NEVER questioned it.
I become a different person, and I like that, because usually I make up my OWN characters...but the lady in 'Stand Back' was not my idea. By the way, Prince did come into the studio the night I called him and told him about the song, and he played incredible synthesizer on it...and then he just walked out of my life, and I didn't see him for a long time.
It was extraordinary...
~Stevie Nicks, Timespace Liner Notes, 1991
http://www.inherownwords.com/standback.htm |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Party Girl Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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http://www.elviscostello.info/faq/lyrics.php
"EC laid to rest the long-standing theory that the song was addressed to Bebe Buell at a show in NYC Aug 12/96. He stated that PG was written about a young female art student he met in Minnesota while on tour.
EC says they repaired to the coed's automobile late one evening to discuss painting. Some local press spotted the pair and printed something nasty and untrue about the young woman. EC wrote PG in response." |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Little Triggers Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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I think it's so great that it makes me want to blow up. And certainly about words, or communication, to some extent. I love communication songs. Love love love. |
submissions
| The Go-Betweens – Surfing Magazines Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Four years have gone by, and no one has refuted this asinine assertation that "no one surfs these days apart from people that surfed in the seventies". Wowzers. |
submissions
| Emilíana Torrini – Wednesday's Child Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Doesn't it seem kind of unlikely this has something to do with an adoption program, just because it popped up on Google when you searched? Does anyone else remember this rhyme, that probably has a lot more to do with the song's inspiration?
Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay. |
submissions
| Hole – Drown Soda Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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There are about as many versions of this song, as there are performances of it. So lyrics aren't going to always match up. Anyway, I don't know specifically what it's about, but it's one of the most menacing things Hole ever wrote. |
submissions
| Beck – Feel The Strain Of Sorrow Never Ceasing Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Beck sort of explained this, the one time he played it. It's about a specific character he had created, that lived around the 1890s. Beck gets a kick out of deliberately writing in a particular style of music; this seems to be in the country/folk storytelling vein. I'm glad he never prettied it up for an actual album, but it's sad this song is somewhat overlooked. |
submissions
| Beck – Feel The Strain Of Sorrow Never Ceasing Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Beck sort of explained this, the one time he played it. It's about a specific character he had created, that lived around the 1890s. Beck gets a kick out of deliberately writing in a particular style of music; this seems to be in the country/folk storytelling vein. I'm glad he never prettied it up for an actual album, but it's sad this song is somewhat overlooked. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Low Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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For a song that R.E.M. tend to discount, it's really wonderful. Though I have wondered if Stipe was trying to be funny, and possibly referencing "Maggie May" in the third verse up there. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Turn You Inside Out Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Seems as though I can remember Stipe saying this song has something to do with the power relationship between famous people and their fans. |
submissions
| Tori Amos – Leather Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I do not believe that this song is about a woman who has resigned herself to a sexual relationship with a guy who doesn't love her. It's got a lot of complicated stuff going on, but unrequited love isn't a major part. It's hard to say you're resigning yourself, if you are enjoying the sexual relationship. Does she sound bitter, or does she sound playful? She is pretty sardonic, but she isn't bitter.
The narrator here has personal and lingering religious hang-ups about , and can't quite divorce love and sex. Bringing love into sex is a way of making it more comfortable for all of humanity. But, look, in the last chorus, she does take that leap. She's coming to terms with enjoying sex for sex, and with herself as a sexual creature! She's becoming with not needing someone to love her, for it to be possible to have fun with him. |
submissions
| Tori Amos – Floating City Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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It is so hilarious that she wrote a song about aliens and Atlantis. I picture what would have happened if this song had gotten famous .... fourteen year olds discovering this song and the ridiculous book "Chariots of the Gods?" at the same time. |
submissions
| Tori Amos – Sister Named Desire Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I'm kind of dreading the re-recording of this song. It is so supremely weird. It's distilled weirdness. I fear she is going to give it the freaking sleeps-with-butterflies treatment. We can hope that it will turn out well, though.
I start worrrying when musicians start digging through their superior back catalogue, and re-vamping b-sides or unreleased music, rather than coming up with something new. Liz Phair and R.E.M. have recently been up to this, and now Tori Amos. It can be a really desperate, inspiration-starved thing to do. |
submissions
| Veruca Salt – Spider Man Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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The songmeanings.net default answer appears to be: "It's about a relationship". I've no idea what this is about, but "relationship" is not necessarily the answer every time, for every song. |
submissions
| Beck – Broken Train Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Bra-burning, as a cultural phenomenon, is a myth. Check snopes. Beck would have defintely known this. |
submissions
| Ani DiFranco – Up Up Up Up Up Up Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This song seems like it's going to be good, until suddenly she starts talking about herself in the third person, and getting really annoying and mastubatory about it. Cut that verse and a half, and the song is good. |
submissions
| Ani DiFranco – Lost Woman Song Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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There are definitely people on this site who go around looking for pro-gay, pro-choice songs just to pick on the viewpoints within. Pretty ludicrous and a total waste of time. They want to make sure that everyone knows that the best way to pay for a mistake, is to be forced into bearing an unwanted child.
Abortion IS a form of taking responsibility. Responsibility is hard, no matter which sort of decisions you make out of responsibility. That's what this song is about -- the fact that there is nothing black and white about this decision, and that trying to force the issue into either/or terms is cruel and unnecessary. |
submissions
| Ani DiFranco – Swan Dive Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Whenever she talks about this album, she says that a lot of the songs on it were inspired by her frustration with her career at the time, and with how people treated her ambition and her self-made business. This song definitely references that. |
submissions
| Ani DiFranco – Fixing Her Hair Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I agree with Ani's stance here, I agree with everything she has to say about this sort of situation, all right? She is utterly correct, she's very perceptive, she knows what's up. But I think this is possibly one of the worst songs she has ever written. Just because her sympathy and mind were both in the right place when she wrote this song, doesn't mean that she executed it well, and she didn't. Some of these lines are awful. She's a very good poet who can't seem to filter out her junk from her gold. Like Prince. |
submissions
| Ani DiFranco – I'm No Heroine Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I wish I could like this song, but i can't. It's one of her songs in which her writing was below average, and was way too self-conscious. |
submissions
| Björk – Alarm Call Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Until I came to this website, I had no idea Buddhism was a race. College failed me. Google failed everyone else. |
submissions
| The Roots – The Seed (2.0) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I feel kind of annoyed for The Roots/Cody Chesnutt, that they created such an apt, complicated metaphor, and that people went ahead and took the lyrics literally. "Literally" isn't even the right word, because the main way you can decide this song is really about someone sleeping around to have as many children as possible, is to totally ignore the lyrics that are "too hard" for you. |
submissions
| Sarah McLachlan – The Path of Thorns (Terms) Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Sarah McLachlan would have been a good, possibly really successful poet if Canadian/American culture was currently into poetry in any significant way. This song and "Vox" make me believe this. She uses some cruddy technique here and there, but she's got the raw ability. |
submissions
| Veruca Salt – Celebrate You Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think not every song is about a friend or lover. Musician had an interview back in the day... the interviewer said this song was about "the price of female self-denial in the face of the male sense of entitlement", backed up by what Louise Post said in the interview:
"I've seen all those kids having a hard time deciding what to do with their lives, or having problems with drugs, feeling worthless," Post adds. "I don't feel confident or competent in this world." That's what "Celebrate You" is about: "It started with my father and extended to the other men in my life," she says. "I spent so much time celebrating them that I sort of neglected to celebrate myself or even acknowledge myself in that way." |
submissions
| Tori Amos – Crazy Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Another one of her songs that demonstrates how blurred the line can be between deep friendship and romantic love for freaking Amos. If she hadn't explained it was about Scarlet's ex-lover, or whatever, I'd have found it difficult to know what sort of relationship was going on here. With other singer-songwriters, it could be implied this is romantic, but Amos has a serious prediliction for making it ambiguous. |
submissions
| Tori Amos – The Power of Orange Knickers Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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I think the duet was unnecessary here. Amos also dug real deep for the kind of indulgence it must have took to give this song that title, when she could have used several other lyrics as the title, had she wished, and not come off as such a self-masturbator.
That said, it's said this song is so brushed off. Half of The Beekeeper is crap, half is either good or really good, and this falls in the "really good". It's one of the Beekeeper songs in which she actually used her talent for writing a complicated set of lyrics. It's not just characterized by themes of rebellion, but also by the feelings of being used, of being an outcast, of additction, of being a foolish sucker in a one-sided relationship, and, as she has said, emotional terrorism. |
submissions
| Tori Amos – Marys of the Sea Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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Not DaVinci Code, but Amos's freaking neverending obsession with Mary Magdalene, and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. (Other examples: Past the Mission, Muhammed My Friend, and Mary, for god's sake). At least she's helping to keep interesting mythology alive. It's a good song. |
submissions
| Beat Happening – Teenage Caveman Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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This is what BH does best -- accessing the really weird, creepy, screwed-up, uncomfortable feelings of growing up and becoming sexual, and cross-referencing it with other mildly unsettling concepts. |
submissions
| Stevie Nicks – Kind Of Woman Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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This seems like a pretty sympathetic song about infidelity. Although I think the narrator is a little jealous of women who have the potential to haunt people. |
submissions
| The Motels – Suddenly Last Summer Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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It certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Tennessee Williams play. I don't know what it's about, but I like to imagine it's about the very dreaded death of a relationship with someone. Not necessarily a romantic relationship, and not necessarily on bad terms. |
submissions
| Lisa Germano – Victoria's secret Lyrics
| 20 years ago
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Many performers would have made this song awful, but Lisa Germano has that soul-laid-bare, disgusted-with-her-own-confessions tone that manages to pull it off. |
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