| My Chemical Romance – Mama Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I always thought about war in general whenever I heard this song, but recently I watched a movie called "Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny" and I noticed that in it Rasputin repeatedly calls Tsarina Alexandra "Mama." During the part where he tells her that millions will die in rivers of blood (referring to World War I) I just thought to myself "Mama, we all go to hell." And then I listened to the song again and it fit the movie reeaaaaally well. I dunno if MCR actually wrote it with World War I/The Russian Revolution in mind, but that's what I'm going to think of when I hear it from now on. | |
| Tori Amos – Mother Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| A few years ago in school we watched the movie Sybil, and I don't remember much about it now, but I remember that when I saw it I would always think about this song. Especially the "somebody leave the light on" part, since in the movie Sybil draws pictures of lightbulbs a lot when she slips into her other personalities... And also the "And I cross my legs, oh my god" line, there's a part in the movie where Sybil's mother is making her wait to go to the bathroom until she finishes playing the piano. I don't know, I'd have to watch the movie again to make more connections. | |
| Joni Mitchell – Cherokee Louise Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Yes, it is about one of Joni's childhood friends. I have a live version of this song where she introduces the story behind it, and says that "Cherokee Louise" in real life was a Crie Indian named Mary, so the song is really about "Crie Mary." Interesting. | |
| Tori Amos – The Waitress Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| This song is SO great to listen to if you went to an all-girls high school like I did!! The drama was always on, and always overblown, everyone hating each other, acting stupid, etc. Sometimes you just wanted to scream at them like Tori does in this song, "I believe in peace, BITCH!" Cornflake Girl is also really descriptive of this sort of thing too... no wonder my whole circle of friends was obsessed with Tori, she's just so good at cutting through all the drama. | |
| Tori Amos – Silent All These Years Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
Like a lot of Tori's songs, I've loved this one but I didn't really understand it all... but yesterday I ended up reading this play called "Death and the Maiden" kind of by chance (it's a long story), and the song actually fits a lot of what happened in the play. I'm not saying that Tori read the same thing I did and wrote the song about it- the song is probably about her own experiences- but it makes more sense to me now, in that context. So I'll analyze the lyrics in relation to the play... it's probably not what Tori intended, but it might open up some new symbolisms. "Excuse me, but can I be you for a while? My dog won't bite if you sit real still I got the anti-Christ in the kitchen yellin' at me again Yeah, I can hear that" The play is about a woman who was tortured and raped for two months, and then 15 years later finds the man who tortured her and ties him up in her kitchen until he confesses. So the "can I be you" means that she wants to be the torturer, so he feels what she felt. The "my dog won't bite" isn't a literal dog- she was holding the man at gunpoint, so she means 'I won't shoot you if you cooperate.' The "antichrist" yelling at her is her husband, who was horrified at what his wife was doing, but couldn't stop her because she said she would shoot the man if he tried to free him. "Been saved again by the garbage truck I got something to say you know but nothing comes Yes I know what you think of me you never shut up Yeah I can hear that" While she was tortured she was forced to drink her own urine and other sorts of horrible things, so "saved again by the garbage truck" is how her waste was keeping her alive. "Got something to say but nothing comes"... for 15 years she pretended that things were normal, and never even told her husband the extent of what happened to her, because if she brought it up she would begin to panic. "I know what you think of me, you never shut up"- while she was tortured, the men who held her there would talk about her, vulgarly, as if she wasn't in the room. "But what if I'm a mermaid? In these jeans of his with her name still on it Hey, but I don't care 'Cause sometimes I said sometimes I hear my voice And it's been here Silent all these years" I think what some other people said about the mermaid line might be true, how she wanted to "swim away" from everything... also, the character lives on the seashore, and so does the torturer. "In these jeans of his with her name still on it"- when she was finally let free she found that her husband had slept with another woman. He had started to give up on finding her and was beginning to heal, and although she forgave him for it, she never truly erased how much it hurt her from her mind. "I hear my voice and it's been here, silent all these years"- she hasn't mentionted anything of what she went through in fifteen years. "So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts What's so amazing about really deep thoughts? Boy, you best pray that I bleed real soon How's that thought for you?" This part is talking to her husband- he had slept with the other woman because she said she could "help him", probably heal from the trauma of his wife being kidnapped. She asks "what's so amazing" about the woman helping him, when he should've been out looking for her. The "boy you best pray that I bleed real soon" is a way of telling him just how real the things that happened to her were... she was raped, she was tortured, she could be pregnant, she could be sterile, anything. "My scream got lost in a paper cup You think there's a heaven where Some screams have gone? I got 25 bucks and a cracker Do you think it's enough to get us there?" Her "scream got lost" because although she is tortured by her past on the inside, she doesn't show it or talk about it. "There's a heaven where some screams have gone" because some people didn't survive being tortured, she was one of the lucky ones. I'm not exactly sure about the cracker part, but it seems like she has very little, but she's going to use what she has to try and get her and her husbands' lives back to normal. What she has is the man tied up in her kitchen, and she has to hope that his confession will be enough to heal her. "Years go by Will I still be waiting For somebody else to understand? Years go by If I'm stripped of my beauty And the orange clouds raining in my head Years go by Will I choke on my tears Till finally there is nothing left? One more casualty You know we're too easy, easy, easy" Basically this part is just about her desire to heal, and have someone there to understand her pain, before it's too late. She doesn't want to become "one more casualty" who no longer has a voice to tell of what she went through. "Well, I love the way we communicate Your eyes focus on my funny lip shape Let's hear what you think of me now But baby don't look up The sky is falling" She's taunting the torturer in this verse, her "loving" how they communicate is sarcasm. She's still trying to get him to talk, and she says she will kill him if he refuses. "The sky is falling"- sort of like the end of the world, or at least his world. It's either tell or face the end. "Your mother shows up in a nasty dress And it's your turn now to stand where I stand Everybody lookin' at you Here, take hold of my hand Yeah, I can hear them" In the torturer's confession, he says that he liked to live out his fantasies on the girls he was holding prisoner, those things that his mother told him he could never even mention. This part is sort of like putting him on trial... "Your mother shows up in a nasty dress"- she's looking respectful in court- "It's your turn now to stand where I stand"- he has to feel the shame and embarassment that she felt after she was set free, with "everybody looking at you." The "take hold of my hand" is like the false kindness she would sometimes show the man- she would constantly switch her story, whether she was going to kill him or set him free. In the end she gets the confession she wants and begins the process of healing her life, but she decides to let the man go free, so no matter what she does, she is always reminded that he is out there too, somewhere, maybe listening to the same music she is, etc. It's a beautiful play- I suggest it to anyone who wants an interesting, quick read (it's only 67 pages). |
|
| Regina Spektor – Ne Me Quitte Pas Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Actually, this is *NOT* a Nina Simone song. Nina Simone did sing a song called "Ne Me Quitte Pas," but it was entirely in French and was a cover of a Jacques Brel song of the same name. Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" has very different lyrics then Regina's when translated into English... I'm guessing Regina has heard the song before and was inspired by it to write one with the same sentiment, and the same title. You can find english-subtitled videos of Brel singing his song on YouTube, if anyone's interested. | |
| Johnny Cash – The One On The Left Is On The Right Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Are you sure Shel Silverstein wrote it? The album I have and Wikipedia both credit Jack Clement. Anyway, I love this song because the humor in it is very true... people can get incredibly heated over political beliefs. In fact, you can even look at the performance of the "folk group" in the song as politicians at a debate, where as we all know shouting matches can occur, and it always seems like a "free-for-alls" will break out. | |
| Bob Dylan – Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell cover) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Joni apparently likes Bob's verse too... in all her performances of the song after Dylan's version came out, she sings the original "a big yellow taxi took away my old man" verse, and then she sings one that says "a big yellow tractor took away my house, it took away my land." There's even one performance on YouTube (from her "Painting with Words and Music" DVD) where she says "Bob Dylan wrote this verse" and then sings it in a comical nasally Dylan voice. | |
| Joni Mitchell – Twisted Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Depending on the source some list it as a Joni original, and others credit Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. Wikipedia says she covered it, and the original was done around 1960. I'm guessing the label probably miscredited the song on the album. Kind of comforting to know it's a cover though... when I first heard the song it gave me an entirely different picture of who Joni was. :P | |
| Cat Power – Song for Bobby Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
I believe the line in the middle of the second verse is "You were wet with sweat," not "You were waved this way"? Also I can never tell at the end if she says "to be my man" or "my friend"... |
|
| Tori Amos – Yes, Anastasia Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| ^^Sorry about the double-comment thing... I have a stupid computer. | |
| Tori Amos – Yes, Anastasia Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
We're studying the story of the Romanov family in history class, and amazingly, there WAS something they left on the windowsill... Anastasia's mother Alexandra carved a swastika and the date into a windowsill of the Ipatiev house, the place where they were executed. (This was before World War II and Nazism... a swastika at that time was a symbol of good luck.) I just thought it was really interesting. |
|
| Tori Amos – Yes, Anastasia Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
We're studying the story of the Romanov family in history class, and amazingly, there WAS something they left on the windowsill... Anastasia's mother Alexandra carved a swastika and the date into a windowsill of the Ipatiev house, the place where they were executed. (This was before World War II and Nazism... a swastika at that time was a symbol of good luck.) I just thought it was really interesting. |
|
| Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
Am I the only one who did it the other way around? I just read the book, and then I discovered there was a song about it. When I listen to this it seriously makes me tear up, it's such a perfect representation of the story. Most of it is pretty straightforward, but there are some parts of the song that aren't as meaningful to people who didn't read the book, so I'll explain those... ***SPOILERS*** The "Bad dreams in the night/they told me I was going to lose the fight/leave behind my Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights" refers to a part where Cathy talks about a dream she had in which she died and went up to heaven, but she still wasn't happy, because she wasn't near Heathcliff. She felt Wuthering Heights was the only place she truely belonged, and later in the story when she is gravely ill and now living at Thrushcross Grange with a husband she doesn't truely love, she constantly longs to return to Wuthering Heights (and Heathcliff)- but never does before she dies. Also, the "I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window" line is probably based on something that happened early in the book, where a visitor, Mr. Lockwood, stays the night in Wuthering Heights. He is accientally lodged by one of the servants in Cathy's old room. Lockwood sees her name carved into the wood and her writings in various books, and thus when he goes to sleep, has a dream that she is banging on the window outside, saying that she has been outside for twenty years and begging to be let back in out of the snow. Should be a little easier to interpret now... |
|
| Joni Mitchell – Conversation Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
I love this song. Has anyone ever heard the recording of this from the "Second Fret Sessions" album? (It's somewhat rare, but you can find it on certain file-sharing and bittorrent sites.) That's where the "grapes and cheeses" version comes from. It also includes an extra verse which I'd never heard before. I tried my best to transcribe it. Some of the words I wasn't sure about, so I put those in parentheses. But it doesn't change the meaning that much if they're wrong anyway. It went like this: He’s acting (down and beaten?) And maybe it’s over now Maybe she’s finally leaving I’d like to show her (out/now) But friends are friends forever It’s so hard to change the role Laugh with him, cry together Hey friend, (it) feels so (whole?) But you keep your feelings deep inside You talk of them, you think you’ll cry Now is the wrong time But maybe, if a dozen days Are warm and right You will hear him say “I want you, baby, for such a long time” I think it's a great verse- no idea why she left it off the Ladies of the Canyon album. |
|
| Ted Nugent – Free For All Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
I heard this on the radio the other day and I seriously thought it was a Queen song. By any chance did Queen have a part in recording the song, or was my brain just really tired when I heard it? Because it really sounds like their kind of thing. Well, whoever sang it, it's great. ;) |
|
| Joni Mitchell – The Priest Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
Well, it's obviously about religion. Specifically, I think it's about the questions and confusion that can arise when someone is wondering if they should join a faith. When she says "he was wearing his father's tie", I think that means the traditional collar of the Catholic priest, being the Heavenly Father's tie rather than that of a biological one. It sounds like a story about a conversation with a priest, him advising her on whether she should become Christian or not and her wondering what to chose. The lines: "He said, you wouldn't like it here It's no place you should share The roof is ripped with hurricanes And the room is always bare" Seem to be the priest explaining that entering into Christianity means also entering into the burden of the centuries of conflict and controversy it has been through, or the "hurricanes." The "room" always being bare is because more and more people are turning away from the faith. The "Then he took his contradictions out And he splashed them on my brow" part seems to be a reference to Baptism, because priest usually pour water over the Baptized person's head. The "contradictions" in the holy water are probably the controversies surrounding Christianity, and how often times in the Bible one page can say "this is right," and then the next page it can say "no wait forget that, this is right." The next lines of that verse are her wondering if she should then accept all of Christianity and become part of it. (BTW a line is missing... after "should I choose them all, should I make them mine" there is "the sermons, the hymns, and the valentines.") The Priest's response to all of her questions at the end of this verse is that he wants her to be honest about whatever she decides, and not choose something just for the sake of not disappointing him. I'm not entirely sure about the last verse... "Now the trials are trumpet-scored" may reference how Christianity is no longer modest but nowadays needs a big show-and-tell to go along with it. "Will we pass the test" is probably asking whether or not she will continue to be fond of Christianity, or if she will love it "less and less." Perhaps the use of "we" in this verse is supposed to embody the hippie generation, just like in the song "Woodstock" which was on the same album. In this verse, I think she's connecting her struggles with religion to the same confusion about beliefs that most hippies were feeling at the time. "Oh come let's run from this ring we're in Where the christians clap and the germans grin Crying let them lose saying let them win Oh make them both confess." This part probably means that she wants to get away from all the people who make simple things like one's personal religion into an institution somewhat like a dictatorship, which is probably why the "germans" reference is in there. She wants to get back to the simple truths that Christianity used to stand for, like 'Love thy Neighbor', which seem to be lost now to everyone who decides what the Church stands for. "Make them both confess" talks about how even the Church and Governments have sinned, and they need to repent and better their lives just like everyone else. Anyway, that's my take on it. Could be totally wrong, but whatever. :P |
|
| David Bowie – Andy Warhol Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Does the first 40 seconds of this song remind anyone else of The Legend of Zelda??? lol. :P | |
| U2 – A Celebration Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Ever since "The Complete U2" was released on iTunes, this song has been available for download there. But I can only imagine how hard it must've been to get before that. | |
| Tori Amos – Cornflake Girl Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Anybody stuck in all-girls Catholic high school like i am is going to blare this LOUDLY and FREQUENTLY. Even if the lyrics go deeper than just betrayal, it is 100% true about that much. | |
| U2 – The Refugee Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Amen, Major Valor, amen. | |
| Queen – Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
"Absolutly beautiful. I don't quite think its about death. When Brian says 'Let us cling together as the years go by' I don't see it as the person is dieing but rather he is going away for a long time." ^^Regardless, it is absolutely haunting to hear Freddie singing this song. Amazing how songs written years later when they knew he was dying, like "The Show Must Go On", can have the same effect as a song like this written about fifteen years earlier. When sung, this song is almost like a letter to the fans. Especially the "Hear my song, still think of me the way you've come to think of me" part. (yes i know Brian was the author, not Freddie) Also the way he sings "When I'm gone, they'll say we're all fools" so powerfully... chills. |
|
| Judy Collins – The Moon's a Harsh Mistress Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Judy's first recording of this song was in 1975 on her "Judith" album, not 1989. But yes, it wasn't written by her. She's mainly known as a great interpreter of other people's songs, but she does have a few compositions of her own (which are brilliant). | |
| U2 – The Electric Co. Lyrics | 17 years ago |
|
"Send In the Clowns" was written by Stephen Sondheim for a musical, but the most well-known version is by Judy Collins. Bono's lyrics in Under A Blood Red Sky are "Why must I hide from myself, when I need a crowd? Bring on the crowd. I love the crowd." |
|
| U2 – Another Time, Another Place Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Well, he did fail Gaelic in school, right? Maybe it is just gibberish. :P | |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.