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Dils – Sound of the Rain Lyrics 9 years ago
I came in search of an answer to the lyrics "Listen to the sound of the loss and gain(?)," because all I could hear was "Listen to the sound of the Boston game." Loss & gain sounds way more accurate, but I kinda wish it were Boston game (even though I hate all Boston sports teams).

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The Records – Starry Eyes Lyrics 11 years ago
"Won't you take this number down before you go off to judge" -- If you are performing this song acoustically you can alternate singing this with "before you call up the judge." It's really hard to decipher which one is correct but they both make sense.

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Joie de Vivre – Vicodin Lite Lyrics 15 years ago
"I can't save you from anything
From anything"

red white & blue

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Joie de Vivre – Upper Deck San Diego Lyrics 15 years ago
the final line is taken from jdv's previous band your city/state's song "you drive a what?"

i can't remember what it was before, and i don't know what it means, but singing along to this live is still the most fun i have at shows

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Joie de Vivre – Sundays Lyrics 15 years ago
i can't believe this is on here! i sang the backup vocals! the drummer of my band (the please & thank yous) has "like august in a midwestern state) on his leg. fell in love with these dudes before we played our first show with them in june 2007. they might always be my favorite band.

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Jets to Brazil – Starry Configurations Lyrics 15 years ago
"starry configurations am just a receiver / divine recombinations am just a recordist / receptionist - unhappy medium / receptionist - unhappy medium / excellent accommodations am just a bellboy / beautiful surroundings am just some gravel"

it seems that the speaker is cursing his position in life. he is in a way part of these things, but in a remote, isolated, or insignificant way.

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Misfits – Children In Heat Lyrics 15 years ago
why would they change their names to chicago? the only context clue i can grasp is the line before about burning the children (they are in heat, after all), and possibly an ironic name to give oneself because of the chicago fire.

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Misfits – Children In Heat Lyrics 15 years ago
why would they change their names to chicago? the only context clue i can grasp is the line before about burning the children (they are in heat, after all), and possibly an ironic name to give oneself because of the chicago fire.

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The Pogues – A Pair of Brown Eyes Lyrics 15 years ago
there is a series of books called "33 1/3" that goes in depth on classic albums and for the explanation of this song it says that it's about a heartbroken youngster being bummed about a girl. when he goes to the bar, the "old bastard at a bar who wants to tell you his life story" tells his story to the main speaker in response to his somberness, basically saying, "what the hell do you know about pain?"

thus, the first half of the first verse is the youngster, and the old man's story interjects in the second half and lasts until halfway through the second verse. the young man's story continues with him leaving the bar. in this reading the first chorus is part of the old man's story, and the second chorus is part of the young man's story. they were or are both in search of a pair of brown eyes but for different reasons. perhaps it's an older version of the same person trying to tell the kid to stop being emo and grow up.

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Weezer – Modern Dukes Lyrics 15 years ago
I'm not entirely sure what he says in the second half of the first verse, but what is up there is for sure wrong, and given the context of the song, and Rivers' life, this is probably more correct...

"
Every time that I turn around I just hear the same old thing
Jester(s) trying to ride my back to the place I could be king
"

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Rancid – Time Bomb Lyrics 15 years ago
wouldn't it be "he's gettin' deep in" ?

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Rancid – Time Bomb Lyrics 15 years ago
after analyzing the lyrics to this song, i no longer like it, and am thoroughly convinced that tim armstrong has downs syndrome. furthermore, the only thing he tried to do here is emulate jesse michaels' amazing skills as a lyricist. the second verse alone is a testament to all of my arguments

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The Hold Steady – You Can Make Him Like You Lyrics 16 years ago
unless this is how it's printed on the inlet, i'm pretty sure it's "if you get tired of your boyfriend's bends/.../if you get tired of your football friends/..."

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Ramones – Bonzo Goes To Bitburg Lyrics 16 years ago
...because you're a douche and, not coincidentally, republican.

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The Copyrights – Stuck in Summertime Lyrics 16 years ago
this song contemplates the deathly feeling of summer in a college town (carbondale is home to southern illinois university). the speaker feels the emptiness left by the vacant dorms and frat houses. while he's glad those shitty college kids are gone, he seems to be missing someone in particular.

highway 51 runs right through the center of carbondale and heads north towards chicagoland hitting other college towns on the way. the band is now based out of chicago. apparently the speaker got sick enough of the desolate and brutally hot summers that he decided to bust out of that one horse town once and for all. a lot of their other lyrics make allusions to carbondale's basement punk scene though, which centers around the longest standing punk house in the world, Lost Cross.

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Blink-182 – Wrecked Him Lyrics 16 years ago
does anyone think tom is saying, "you need some time to SOAK all those bridges that you burned?" ... it does sound more like "sew" on the 7", but i feel like "soak" makes more sense, because bridges usually go over water

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Harvey Danger – Problems And Bigger Ones Lyrics 16 years ago
it probably has a double-meaning...the one that's up there and the one you said. whoever was the songwriter in harvey danger was certainly aware of all the different meanings of a word when he wrote.

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Harvey Danger – Problems And Bigger Ones Lyrics 16 years ago
i love how harvey danger crosses genre boundaries on both this album and king james version. this song is so 90's emo it makes me smile, whereas flagpole is definitely in the canon of 90's hits, and the rest can't be defined by anything more specific than alternative rock, which often is a bad thing but in this case i think it's good.

It doesn't make me cry to hear dylan say
Most likely you go your way
I'll go mine

props to that reference

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Harvey Danger – Sad Sweetheart Of The Rodeo Lyrics 16 years ago
these lyrics are way too cryptic to be summed up by what cocobunny73 said. for instance, how many ways can the opening stanza be interpreted?

i'm wondering if by norman he means norman rockwell? it could make sense because his art was all about suburban plight and homogenization, which this and tons of other h.d. songs are a smart, strong reaction to (among other things)

The marlboro man died of cancer, and he wasn't a rocket scientist when he was healthy ha ha ha. <---wtf?

that line is so awesome, but i can't figure out what its purpose is in this song.

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Harvey Danger – Private Helicopter Lyrics 16 years ago
i just learned that this was harvey danger's second song that was supposed to be on the radio & mtv etc...i never heard it until i got the album about a year ago (they just broke up a month ago)...i think the fact that this song flopped and turned the band into more of a commercial failure and one-hit wonder shows that the average american doesn't know shit about songwriting, or rock and roll for that matter.

i hate to call harvey danger a one-hit wonder, but for what they were essentially, they have the best damn catalog to back it up.

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Harvey Danger – Flagpole Sitta Lyrics 16 years ago
he's talking about a GIRL sitting on his flagpole. in that sense, the song is addressed to her by having "flagpole sitta" as the title

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Blink-182 – A New Hope Lyrics 17 years ago
"every night i fall asleep with you and i wake up alone"

beating off to princess leia, waking up alone


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The Velvet Underground – The Gift Lyrics 17 years ago
great question! the narrator really doesn't ever reveal whether or not they knew or not. perhaps the girl who says "" "I got an idea." "What?" said
Marsha. "Just watch," said Sheila touching her finger to her head."" is suspicious and takes matters into her own hands. maybe marsha wanted this to happen if she also realized waldo was in there. and maybe they didn't want to say anything because he'd say something, then they couldn't kill him.

the conclusion is out in the open too...it doesn't say they were surprised and mourned his death afterwards...they just do it and we forget about it, perhaps like the girls do, as the song ends.

not saying this is the truth, but it's one possible interpretation!

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The Velvet Underground – The Gift Lyrics 17 years ago
i'm a prospective high school english teacher and i'm thinking about having my students read this story one day, not revealing the author(s)...and have a discussion about it as literature, and talk about the outcome @ the end, the feelings that waldo goes through, if the murder was intentional or not (thanks jhillst!)... and i'll show them the song too

or maybe i'll do it the other way around if the kids don't want to read, introducing the song first to get them into literature through music. lemme know what you think about this

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Pavement – Summer Babe (Winter Version) Lyrics 17 years ago
i think it's just to make it more ironic. or possibly some time has elapsed and now malkmus is remembering his summer babe in the winter

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The Album Leaf – On Your Way Lyrics 17 years ago
that is very high of you, hellbug. i like your interpretation...i still don't know what my own interpretation would be, but it would probably be similar

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The Faces – Ooh La La Lyrics 17 years ago
"They'll come on strong and it ain't too long
For they make you feel a man
But love is blind and you soon will find
You're just a boy again"

an old man passing down wisdom, warning of the pitfalls of having feelings for women. the part i quoted talks about how men think, "i'm the sh*t!" after they laid, or if they mutually fall in love with a woman, but the grandfather is warning that the grandson is going to get his heartbroken and he'll handle his heartbreak like a little boy. there's nothing he can do to avoid it, and there's no other way to learn but the hard way. it sucks, and it's true, and this song is so bittersweet as a result

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Built to Spill – Fling Lyrics 17 years ago
it's kind of ambiguous: "since my fling"...that could mean either since it started or ended.

whichever one you interpret it as, he's obviously cut back on popping off.

is that because he has a girl that's fulfilling him almost all the time?
or, if it ended, does it mean he's getting less action/masturbating less?

it's obvious what popping off is, but we don't know how it is administered: via his own hand or someone else's parts?

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The Copyrights – Caveat Emptor Lyrics 17 years ago
it seems like this is aimed at young kids who think they're gonna go out and become a rock star. once they've been around the block a few times, though, they start to see the reality of the music biz. the second verse seems concerned with perspective, and having been through all the bullshit that bands and people must go through, i think the message is to enjoy the moment, even if you're getting jipped because that's what really matters.

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Weezer – Susanne Lyrics 17 years ago
just a hypothesis:
"I'm your child
Make me blush
Drive me wild
"
could be a freudian slip or a reference to the oedipus complex

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Bomb the Music Industry! – King of Minneapolis Pts. I & II Lyrics 18 years ago
from quote/unquote records website:

"Okay. You're gonna have to work with me here. For a very brief period of time I was going to write a concept tape based on a "tape" I was going to "claim" to have found "on the beach" that was "left behind by a cruise shipafter it was shot down by a russian submarine in international waters during the cold war." Surprisingly, I decided this was a stupid idea (although i did tell people on last year's ska is dead that i would be writing a record about the tape) but I still had a few songs that I really liked from that tape (this, mpls pts. 3 & 4, grudge report and tell my boss 'i hate you.') So about Minneapolis... A lot of my favorite bands are from there and we were actually playing at my favorite band (Dillinger Four)'s club (The Triple Rock.) So finally playing there was a very exciting thing for me but due to overthinking and planning to "drink to relax" but then drinking so much that something very strange happened to me - everything in my head went from spinning and being confusing and whatever to EVERYTHING ABOUT MY LIFE BECOMING CLEARER THAN IT HAD EVER BEEN. And what was clear was that my life was a total joke. Did I kill myself? Wait 'til the sequel to see!!"

-[probably jeff rosenstock]

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Bomb the Music Industry! – Side Projects Are Never Successful Lyrics 18 years ago
honestly top notch songwriting and composition. jeff rosenstock is a tortured soul but a motherfucking genius. i feel bad that he suffers so hard, but he wouldn't write such amazing shit like this if he didn't.

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Bomb the Music Industry! – All Alone in my Big Empty Apartment Lyrics 18 years ago
for sure...winter break anybody?

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Bomb the Music Industry! – Brian Wilson Says SMiLE aka Beard Of Defiance Lyrics 18 years ago
"you wake up every day, and you go to that job interview. but before you go to your job interview, you shave off your beard. and you know what happens when you shave off your beard? 10 kids die in third world countries. 15 kids die in communist countries. and 20 kids die in socialist countries. don't conform to gilette. don't conform to schick. don't conform to the mach 3 turbo. don't conform to the venus. don't conform to the mach 3, don't conform to the mach 3."
"and then when you wake up in the morning and you go into work and your friends say 'that's a shitty beard,' you say, 'fuck you! you're a shitty fucking, non...beard"

golden.

it seems like a tongue-in-cheek rip on punk beards.

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Bomb the Music Industry! – Congratulations, John, On Joining Every Time I Die Lyrics 18 years ago
i wish i could say something interesting about this song but keasby knights said it all. too bad he didn't cite the source. anyway, this was the first btmi! song i heard, and if they had a 'hit' i would make an educated guess that this would be it. i talked to the band after a show in chicago and jeff [lead singer] had no resentment towards john and john had no resentment towards jeff, so it's all good in the hood that is btmi!

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Hüsker Dü – Something I Learned Today Lyrics 18 years ago
anyone who remembers freshly what is said about 'zen arcade' in "our band could be your life" should elaborate...

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Hüsker Dü – Something I Learned Today Lyrics 18 years ago
i think this song is semi-autobiographical about bob mould's life. he had some family issues, was homosexual and had drug problems. i think the character running away from home was supposed to be him.

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Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop Lyrics 18 years ago
this song is a precursor to the mosh pit and just about how punk music gets its fans riled up.

i have heard that this song is also responsible for spawning nazi punk, which is the dumbest shit ever if it did. and even if it didn't, nazi punk was still retarded. how can you be a punk in a totaltarian system? you can't say "fuck authority" and "heil hitler" and mean both.

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System of a Down – Chop Suey! Lyrics 18 years ago
it seems to me like a member of a christian family has been on the receiving end of abuse but covers it up to look good at church because looking good at church is what a lot of people think being a good christian is. this person is living the twisted, torturous lie that christianity often ends up being. in this person's soul, they are scared of christianity because they have been faithful yet something terrible has happened to them: "why'd you leave the keys up on the table? you wanted to." ...trying to communicate that they do not want to go to church anymore.


the lead singer is speaking from the first-person standpoint of Jesus. he says he doesn't believe the person's faith, but can you blame them?

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Pulley – Cashed In Lyrics 18 years ago
maybe not necessarily that pulley weren't good enough, but that their music (as necessary as it was/is) was not cool around their town or time.

"it was at my expense, now you're cashing in"
to me that line represents how there are bands at the way bottom of the food chain, so to speak, who are the true innovators that put a lot of time, money and love into what they do. unfortunately, there are nasty bands out there who do not work for their own originality and instead take the cheap, profitable, easy and "more effective" way out by stealing another band's shpeal and make money off of it. these rip-off bands cash in on the innovations of the other band, who have probably spent a lot of money on their efforts and did it for love.

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Wire – Three Girl Rhumba Lyrics 18 years ago
dressed2depressed...i don't think your comment really helped the cause at all.

i think there's a flaw in the lyrics up there. i think it should be "don't think of a letter", instead of, "don't think of an answer."

i can't figure out where the girl comes from in the title. "three" probably comes from thinking of a number and "rhumba" from the penultimate line

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Wire – Ex Lion Tamer Lyrics 18 years ago
all i know is that wire had very intelligent lyrics. they always throw in unexpected big words and distinguish themselves from the dead-end street punk scene

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Wire – 12XU Lyrics 18 years ago
actually now that i've thought about it a bit more, the porn thing makes a bit more sense. porn mags were definitely around by that point, and cigarette ads would have been all over them. even if it wasn't an advertisement, many people associate cigarettes with sex and the "smoking a fag" line might come from that post-sex association.

maybe the "got you in a corner" part is about how the speaker knows about "you"'s appearance in a porn mag, and now they could use it as bribery. idk, just throwing it out there, i'm not sure how much of that i believe myself.

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Wire – 12XU Lyrics 18 years ago
not necessarily "want to fuck you," it seems like he's just counting off the song with a big "fuck you". i love punk for that. this song is really ambiguous...i read on the minor threat one someone say it was about a cigarette ad in a magazine, but honestly who knows for sure? does anyone know the sexual orientation of the band members? that might help...

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Minor Threat – Salad Days Lyrics 18 years ago
in "our band could be your life", azzerad mentions that the rest of the band was getting really into U2 and ian wasn't having any of that gay shit. that helps to explain the difference in the bands sound towards the end. if you watch some minor threat live footage [check youtube or the minor threat dvd], you can see for yourself how intense their shows really were. it's no wonder to me why shows aren't that crazy anymore: we are much safer than we were back then. the 80's we're kind of like the 60's in that a bunch of liberal kids in DC could pack into a room and tear it apart without having to deal with stupid security. however, so many people must have realized that all that danger is really stupid to put themselves in. the scene will never be the same...but i'd [almost] kill to play a show as crazy as a minor threat show.

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Minor Threat – 12XU Lyrics 18 years ago
or is it post-punk?

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Minor Threat – 12XU Lyrics 18 years ago
both versions are great. i tried to figure out what ian is saying before "12XU!" in the beginning...i think he says, "together everybody, ready?" but i'm not sure. help?

i love the wire version: "alright. there is--a game. and it's called......"

in any case, nobody should hate on wire or minor threat. maybe wire's later stuff...new wave?!

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Chicago – 25 or 6 to 4 Lyrics 18 years ago
writers tend to like being ambiguous. if a lyricist writes something that is debatable, their mission is accomplished. i think this song is meant to be interpreted in a number of ways, which the more logical ones are true. the one about taking route 25 or routes 6 & 4 to get to chicago are totally wrong though...they're not here.

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Hüsker Dü – Gilligan's Island Lyrics 18 years ago
which band member wrote these lyrics?

i don't know any more about hüsker dü than the stuff i read about in our band could be your life, but this might explain why the two songwriters (grant hart and bob mould) were so prolific. these lyrics seem like they were written while whichever member wrote them was hypntoized...like the scene in donnie darko where jake gyllenhaal rambles on about wanting to fuck christina applegate.

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