submissions
| Jethro Tull – My God Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
When I saw them live, Anderson came out in the middle of the show on his own to do a few acoustic numbers:
IA: See if you recognise this one. (plays a few notes)
Audience: Waaayyyyyy!!!!!!!!
IA (stopping playing): Bollocks! You can't tell what it is from that!
Audience laughs
IA : Go on then! What was it?
Audience: My God!
IA: Hmmm - lucky guess |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Oliver's Army Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
|
Having grown up in 1980s Liverpool, I don't need reminding about Thatcher thank you very much! Costello did/does indeed despise her and her policies - I was just pointing out that this song wasn't about her or her policies. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Oliver's Army Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
|
One slight problem with this analysis big ee - the song was recorded in 1978 before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. Although to be fair the song probably became even more relevant under Thatcher. |
submissions
| The Beatles – I Saw Her Standing There Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
Paul played this to close the set at the Liverpool Sound Concert at Anfield recently. I love this song, because for all the amazing music they went on to produce, this captures the energy of early Beatlemania and was written in an exercise book by two teenage lads around the corner from the house I grew up in. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Oliver's Army Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
Sorry warmerdays, but:
Oliver's Army is not a general slang term. Cromwell's New Model Army was Britain's first professional army - soldiery as a profession being the key theme of the song.
White nigger is a term of abuse used for Catholics in Northern Ireland. Not sure it goes back centuries as suggested by another poster, but certainly used in the late 60s/early 70s when the Catholics of Northern Ireland modelled their civil rights movement on America's black civil rights movement. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Shipbuilding Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
Incidentally - it's probably only fair to note that the music was written not by Elvis, but by Clive Langer ("Cliff Hanger" of Deaf School fame and acclaimed producer of Madness amongst others). |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Shipbuilding Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
Never looked at it that way foreverdrone - you could be right. And although I still prefer EC's version, I also love Robert Wyatt's. |
submissions
| Half Man Half Biscuit – Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
Nigel once said that there is a HMHB tribute act from Sunderland called "It Ain't Half Man Mum!" so I wouldn't take his public utterances all that seriously if I were you! He also had John Peel read out a list of tour dates that culminated with a gig at "The Climie Fisher Memorial Gravel Quarries, Bridport in Dorset". |
submissions
| Carly Simon – You're So Vain Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
I liked the explanation a friend of mine once put forward. It is about anyone who ever bought a record (the way people try to project songs onto their own situations and feelings). |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – New Amsterdam Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
It IS Rotherhithe. Rotherhithe is a docks district of London, and Liverpool is also a major port. Costello grew up in London and Liverpool. The "other side" is therefore the other side of the Atlantic from New York (New Amsterdam). |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Shipbuilding Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
In 1982 when the Argentinian military invaded the Falklands, Britain's Northern cities were falling apart, largely due to Thatcher's economic policies. Unemployment was rising at a dizzying rate, and heavy industry was closing down whilst the new "service economy" was still decades away for anywhere outside London. Of the 1.1m jobs lost between 1980 and 1985, 1m were in the Northern half of the country. Set against this, the first thought of many working class long-term unemployed on hearing about the "Task Force" to be sent to the Falklands was that Britain would need to make more ships, and that therefore the shipyards might reopen, providing work. It is not so much that an individual father might build a ship only for his own son to die in it - more that working men were building ships that younger working class men and boys would die in. To me it sounds more than an indictment of government policy, but is also critical of the working men who turned a blind eye to this fact in order to buy "a new winter coat and shoes for the wife". I think this is one of the most powerful songs ever written, even though I think that not having experienced being a long-term unemployed man trying to provide for a family makes Costello harsher than necessary on the working man's actions.
The "back by Christmas" is (as lunaspie mentions) a cliche from WW1 (and WW2) where both conflicts were expected to be short-lived.
"..take me to task" is a pun linked to the reference by Thatcher to the fleet as a "Task Force". |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Watch Your Step Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
It should be "Singapore to Widnes" (not "witness"). Widnes is a small town just outside Liverpool. Paul Simon wrote "Homeward Bound" whilst at Widnes train station. |
submissions
| The Bangles – Going Down To Liverpool Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
|
"Green and Pleasant Land" is a description of England from Blake's hymn "Jerusalem". Here I think it is being used ironically to describe the industrial wasteland created by the Thatcher government. |
submissions
| U2 – I Threw A Brick Through A Window Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
'I love the line "No one is blinder than he who will not see"'
Err...
John 9:40-41 actually. I don't think Bono would want to claim credit for that one. |
submissions
| The Sugarhill Gang – Rapper's Delight Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
|
Apparently Grandmaster Flash nearly blew a fuse when he first heard this on the radio. Flash and the Furious Five had been doing stuff like this for a while, but just for block parties with no idea of the commercial potential. They'd never heard of the Sugarhill Gang - but any animosity drifted away when they signed to the same label and realised Rapper's Delight had opened up huge possibilities for all of them. |
submissions
| Space – Mr. Psycho Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
"It's not the fact that he's following you
It's that he's not trying to hide it that's bothering you"
Utterly brilliant but impossible to sing. |
submissions
| Gerry And The Pacemakers – You ll never walk alone Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
|
Admittedly before many games Liverpool fans "go through the motions" with the song, but on the occasions when it is sung properly (at big games, on anniversaries of the Hillsborough Disaster etc.) it seems to sum up everything about being from Liverpool and supporting the club. It's about dignity, loyalty, defiance, love, community - basically all the positive aspects of the human character. It was a strange song to pick for a Merseybeat band - being originally from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but it works so well. I also always enjoyed singing it at maximum volume during the "National" Anthem at Cup Finals to emphasise how little the Queen means to the ordinary working class football supporters of Liverpool. You'll Never Walk Alone is OUR anthem. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Beyond Belief Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
|
A gin palace is a particular kind of ornate Victorian pub of which some still survive. There are a few great examples in Liverpool where EC spent a couple of teenage years. Bone orchard is a common term for a cemetery in Liverpool (and elsewhere I believe). |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Oliver's Army Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
Jackofhearts has the best explanation. As he says, Oliver Cromwell created Britain's first organised army. Specifically it was Britain's first PROFESSIONAL army which links into all the "professional career", "have you got yourself an occupation" stuff. Cromwell was responsible for brutal repression in Ireland, but the song only makes passing reference to the modern day Irish troubles.
By the way - have you noticed the blatant steal from ABBA's Dancing Queen in the keyboard intro? |
submissions
| U2 – New York Lyrics
| 17 years ago
|
|
Although you can probably layer metaphorical meanings on top, I think it's meant pretty literally. I was blown away by this song, as it seemed to sum up my views about the place. At the time my marriage was a bit rocky, and professionally I was thinking about how great it would be to work in New York. But I knew that what I wanted was basically a single guy's lifestyle there and that it wouldn't work if I took my wife and kids. The whole midlife crisis, iceberg in my life, lose your wife in the queue for the lifeboats stuff seems to fit this perfectly. As does the "living happily not like me and you". |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.
