| The Menzingers – The Obituaries Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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The "I've cursed this lonely memory with picture-perfect imagery" line is one of my favorites but I might be reading way too far into it. I see it as a description of having an identity as a "writer." As a writer, you spend a lot of time documenting and describing your own existence which is almost certainly sort of lame, and if it's got any hope of being interesting, occasionally miserable. Your imagery might not be picture-perfect but calling it that says something about how lame you know it all is. It sounds like a nuanced and self-loathing line. Of course it also mean "I have such a good memory that it's actually bad. #humblebrag." |
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| Sufjan Stevens – Christmas Unicorn Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I really don't feel confident even after studying the song that I know what a Christmas Unicorn is. | |
| Alex Clare – Too Close Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Is this song remarkably bland to anyone else? It's a sham because the vocal performance is super-powered and the dubstep-influenced arrangement is a great commercialized interpretation of the James Blake kind of thing. It's just that he says a lot of words to say almost nothing at all. Does anyone get something real from these lyrics? | |
| Miike Snow – Plastic Jungle Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The chiptune sounding synths in this song make me think that this isn't meant to be about a literal experience or a real suicidal desire. Instead, it's a dramatization of a feeling one gets playing video games where the game is too easy and the player starts doing tactically/strategically stupid things in the hope the game will return to being a challenge, or at least end, putting a cap on the mediocre experience. Lines like "born into money" and "son of a junkie is ancient Korean" probably serve to obfuscate/universalize the emotion and take some of the inherent lameness away from singing about what it's like to play a video game. | |
| Stickshift Rocketship – Bronco Billy Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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@superbang42 I know I'm missing a lot of songs, suberbang42. I transcribed all the ones up here myself. The missing ones are songs I either didn't like as much or had trouble understanding the lyrics of. I'm pretty aware what I'm missing. That said, it's awesome you're close to the band. They're definitely one of my favorites. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – Wish Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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@superbang42, That is so awesome. I watched that movie a few weeks ago. I'm shocked I didn't catch that. Regardless, that intent of the song is far more awesome than the one I'd pondered. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – The Sound of Fire Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I'm quite certain it is. It's really new and you can download it from their site. I'm feeling confident that the Jesus-centricity is sarcastic. At the very least, I'm hoping it is. I'd not be happy that my favorite band has gone Christian all-a-sudden. | |
| Stickshift Rocketship – Cubicle B-52 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| You sure? I assumed it was about the loneliness and shyness that characterize modern living, not a break-up but a failure to ever make a connection with someone special. | |
| Jonathan Coulton – Re: Your Brains Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think the point of all the office jargon here is to say that office workers are actually zombies. | |
| Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The key to this song is hazardous materials. (hazmat) This song tells the story of a hazmat truck driver who, in a state of overmedication, and having drunk a bit too much, crashed his truck, spilling its contents all over the tarmac. When all these substances collided, he really should've died but somehow survived. The hazmat goes undelivered and doubtlessly causes death for many. Ridden with guilt, he watches the history channel, hides blisters in flannel, and only speaks things banal. He just wants his life back. Hiding, the only thing that comes out from under his surface is a nervous tic motion of the head to the left. That nervous tic represents so much about him. What's in that paper knapsack? It's what goes undelivered, the normal course of his life. He is what happens when two substances collide, not just the hazmat and tarmac, but also sperm and egg. His chances of even being here when it could have been any one of the millions of sperm are impossible. By all odds, there's no reason for him to be but he's here now, going undelivered. |
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| Huey Lewis and the News – Hip To Be Square Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| It's a song so catchy that most people probably don't listen to the lyrics but they should because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity or the importance of trends but a personal statement about the band itself. | |
| Marcy Playground – Death of a Cheerleader Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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It's something that happens. When a student in a high school dies during the school year, nearly the entire student population will be affected, even the vast majority who never knew that person. Nearly the whole school attends the funeral and nearly everyone gets really sad about it. I've seen it happen twice at the local high school. It's incredible to see almost everyone unite like that but, it is of course, tragic. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – Bronco Billy Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I still can't figure this one out all the way but there's some really wonderful imagery here. They're probably the most interesting lyrics that SSRS has done. I think it's about how the narrator's friends have all been crushed by city life and it can seem like the only escape is to numb yourself to all of it. Maybilene and Margaret Mary are crushed by the city, reduced to patheticness and puddles. Bronco Billy coolly lives on with his cocaine. The city's work to crush his friends has made the narrator question himself, wondering who he is when his friends and past are taken from him. He feels guilty because he should have known this would happen. (see the underside) He also wants to save them but is afraid that any attempt to help his friends might push them farther into their drug addictions or other problems they might be caught up in. Even a killer wouldn't dare attempt the heroic. He could so easily crush them as Gulliver almost crushed everyone in Lilliput. Bronco Billy and Mother Nature are just trying to tell him that he needs to let it go and stop caring; just start thinking of the people on the streets as organ donors. Torn between his empathy and the ease of not caring, he asks for love and cigarettes. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – Wish Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song is about an egotist who falls in love with someone and wants to impress her but the only thing he can fall back on is this idea he has that he is so great. Unable to win her affections this way, he is hurt and starts to think of her as some wrong-headed idiot. He comes back hurting and perhaps earns a second chance with her only to blow it again, this time so badly, that he leaves the date/meeting/relationship screaming angrily that he'll take her to court for what he believes she's done to him, completely unaware that he did anything wrong himself. |
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| Marcy Playground – Paper Dolls Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I love the way the blah blah blahs almost get lost in the lyrics, as though they sound like real words. I like the lyrics. They seem to me to be a celebration of the way that as a teenager, you start to come into your own, stop needing your parents advice so much, and start to see your life as your own. Proud defiance of the bla blah blah blah we were fed when we were five. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – Glaucoma Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song is about meeting up with someone who you haven't known for a while and finding that so sadly, they're no longer the person you once liked and not only that, but they seem like their in danger of wasting their lives, perhaps to a point of their ruin. I love the song though. My interpretation is quite pessimistic. |
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| Stickshift Rocketship – Cool Hand Lucas Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song is about a disconnect between reality and expectations. It mentions TV shows and I think what they're commenting on is how in so many TV shows, people and characters seem so purpose-driven. And in the real world, we're left just trying to pretend there's a purpose, but realizing that's pathetic, we just end up looking for leaders and father figures and they disappoint us but someday, we'll be something. That's my interpretation anyway. I'm not sure if they're actually saying "Little vice." There's a lot they could be saying. I'm totally not sure. |
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| Scissor Sisters – Intermission Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This song is awesome. I simply love how this song so incredibly upbeat but the lyrics are about what's wrong with the world. I think that's the point of the song, a juxtaposition of the happy and upbeat optimism of a person who recognizes pessimistically that the world sucks. |
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| The Flaming Lips – Fight Test Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Actually, I thought about it some more and I realized something. sunbeams don't really end when they hit your eye. They are turned into heat energy which eventually gets transfered and transfered forever to the point where electricity is equally distributed. It doesn't end, but at some point it stops being useful. So then the question is, do sunbeams end? It's subjective, arguably a mystery. Once again, I'm unsure how this relates to the song but I think it's worth noting. |
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| The Flaming Lips – Fight Test Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I like this line, "I don't know where the sun beams end and the star Light begins it's all a mystery." It's interesting because if you think about it for even a few seconds you can realize, that starlight begins at a star and sun beams end where you see them because that's where your eye absorbs them. "there are things You can't avoid you have to face them when you're not prepared To face them -" He's not prepared to face the mystery. It's so obvious, but he just has to deny it a little longer, afraid to realize the full burnt of his failure. It's an awesome and sad song. |
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| Red Hot Chili Peppers – Death of a Martian Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I didn't know anything about the dog but for some reason this song reminded me of Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land. I'd like to keep pretending it's about that book. | |
| The Shins – They'll Soon Discover Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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@Plateau, I haven't seen the movie, but I think they did make the song just for the movie. I know the movie has something to do with looking for a crown so that Spongebob and Patrick can save their town. It's under water in the ocean and if memory serves, Patrick and Spongebob both have buck teeth and are invertebrates. I'm certain they wrote this just for the movie. |
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