| Johnny Cash – Shifting, Whispering Sands Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| This song doesn't really explain what it claims to explain. Is it meant to be enigmatic? | |
| Heart – Wait For An Answer Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Useless comments above. Who and what is the song actually about? | |
| Supertramp – Rudy Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[MattBianco:25922] The lyrics say "it's not as though he's fat..." and I don't see a chubby reference elsewhere. The song is about a guy who just isn't with the herd. | |
| Supertramp – Rudy Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[mobileinfantry:25921] To me it's just that the movie took him temporarily away from his standard slog aka train to nowhere. No need for mental illness there. People read too much into things. | |
| Supertramp – Rudy Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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@[BNLFTW:25920] If you chance upon this reply, do you have an official source for all that "TRUTH"? I don't see any references in the song about a hospital, though the album theme makes some sense. To me, it's just a guy who never seized the moment. I'd pair it with "Day After Day (The Show Must Go On)" by Alan Parsons, with a similar theme of too much time wasted and not enough left. Both aren't easy to listen to when you see elements of your own life! |
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| Joe Walsh – County Fair Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Knowing nothing of its origin, I always imagined this as being about a general mystery, not meant to be understood. Visions of hay bales, dust and thrill rides were secondary. My favorite part of this song is the guitar trailing off with the end fade. I wish he'd extended that section. |
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| Steve Winwood – Night Train Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this is one of Winwood's best tracks. A great driving song, especially at....night. My take is that it's about modern alienation and people searching for something elusive that never seems attainable. I'm guessing he may have based it on a train ride through Europe or some other real events. "Use up a lifetime looking for the break of day" sums it all up for me. |
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| Tracy Chapman – The Rape Of The World Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Chapman's lyrics are strong on the surface, but I think her message is too vague and politically correct. Indirect blame will never solve the root problem of human carrying-capacity overload. Also, many people who claim to be oppressed have the highest birthrates, so they're not mere victims of "the system." I'd like to see a song that covers the main drivers of planet-rape, namely overpopulation, economic growthism and globalization, which chases shrinking resources around the world and treats them as local. Peak Oil is making that fantasy more difficult to perpetuate, though. Cheap global transportation is no longer a given. Of course, there are many people (like the G.O.P.) who will never really respect nature. They think it's mainly something to be pillaged for money. They're convinced that a supernatural deity keeps them alive, so conservation isn't necessary. The word "conserv"ative doesn't apply to them anymore, if it ever did. |
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| Tracy Chapman – The Rape Of The World Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I was reminded again of this song after reading that Las Vegas is going to pilfer scarce central Nevada water aquifers to feed its mindless growth, causing inevitable extinctions of species that depend on groundwater in remote valleys. Just one of many examples. The massive proliferation of gas fracking wells and "green" wind turbines is also scarring the land more and more. The rape of the world continues unabated, mostly due to human population growth and the "economic growth" that coddles and excuses it. There is no real balance between Man and nature, just more people and less nature, almost every day. It gets called "balance" to assuage the semi-apathetic. Leave a few trees standing after you bulldoze another hillside for homes, and pretend nature somehow won a victory. |
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| Tracy Chapman – The Rape Of The World Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Nature keeps you ALIVE, you G.O.P. parrot. It's not just a warehouse to fatten your bank account. Show it some respect. True environmentalism is common sense, not a hippie cause. Read about the history of why the EPA was created. Pollution is anti-life, not patriotic. It's ironic how you folks claim to be "pro life" but only in the context of cranking out human babies. You ignore the effects of human overpopulation; arguably the biggest environmental problem of all. This finite planet can't keep absorbing ~80 MILLION more people each year. It's an obscene number, amplified by technological impacts. Creationists assert that Man can't really harm nature ("cuz Gawd wouldn't let us") but they refuse to understand how nature actually functions. Republicans' beloved money is not a natural resource, nor is it sustainable in its current debt-based form. Much of that debt is ecological, not just monetary, and those two forms of debt are ultimately the same. |
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| Christopher Cross – Poor Shirley Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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My take on this song has always been that Shirley is an Eleanor Rigby type, and the song is about hope for the lonely and lost. The sum of the lyrics seem to point to that. It is a powerful message, perhaps open to private interpretation. A very melodic tune, with or without that message. I hope this answer was worth the 6-year wait! |
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| The Byrds – Wasn't Born to Follow Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This is one of the best road songs, with or without the Easy Rider context. It's about not being able to stay in one place or with one woman indefinitely. All the versions I've heard (about 2 minutes long) lack the lyrics from "And I'll stay awhile... (to) ...as I stand in that cathedral," and instead have a distorted guitar bridge in that section. |
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| Genesis – Heathaze Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I see this as being about someone who's tired of modern life and responsibilities, maybe considering deliberate homelessness. I envision a bum sitting on a stump or rock looking out at a semi-parched vista (like an orchard in summer). It's someone who sees human endeavors as pointless and doesn't "get" the agenda of most people. Many of us enter that mindset at times, and this song hits the right notes. Why get up to an alarm clock and commute like a lemming just to own a bunch of chattel? What's the purpose of all this mindless competition with other lemmings? The term "heat haze" is typically defined as a distorted view through a mirage of sorts, which fits a non-conformist vision. This song can be taken quite darkly, as if the character is on the verge of throwing in the towel. It's not upbeat but the music itself is quite powerful. |
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| Dire Straits – On Every Street Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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In answer to the top poster: "ladykiller - regulation tattoo" just means a slick Rick who picks up women and has the "regulation" (typical) tattoo of a guy who cruises for babes. The woman may have a weakness for one-nighters and it could be part of the reason she left the (searcher) man. The intro lyrics imply that she's moody. For the poster who interprets the man as searching in rage: I think he's more melancholy than anything. No anger is indicated toward the lady-killer, just a gathering of information. They probably never knew each other. The fireworks allusion strikes me as mostly literal, with a symphony playing in sight of the Statue Of Liberty. People gather at those events and he's searching for her in large crowds out of desperation. I don't think this song has much of a hidden meaning once you study it, but it manages to keep a sense of mystery. |
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| Dire Straits – On Every Street Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This song it about a complex woman whom a guy has become obsessed with. It could be his old girlfriend or ex-wife, and he's tracking her like a PI. It may be an unhealthy obsession but it's hard to tell. The poster who thinks he's tracking a killer should learn the subtleties of language! He asks around at places like bars where he meets the "lady killer," who says she couldn't help hooking up (threw herself under his wheels). There doesn't seem to be jealousy over that. It's just a lead he's pursuing. He also searches for her in crowds during a fireworks display. The symphony is probably playing in NYC, hence "fireworks over Liberty..." I get the image of him wandering around a city with no real hope of finding her. The song has a nice instrumental ending that alludes to an endless search. |
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