| The Dresden Dolls – Sing Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I hear the line: "We're inviting you anyway" as "we're invading you anyway", which would make at least part of this song (I think ALL of the song) about US imperialism. This would tie in with the references to the president, the terrorists, the janjaweed, the children shooting the children and "all the world's history gradually dying of shock". The second verse - about fear keeping "everyones lungs and lips locked" is a reference to the new zeitgeist of post 9/11 Bush-era, American society in which the Patriot Act gave the government unprecedented powers to invade the privacy of citizens. During this period of hysteria, on December 23rd 2003, the department of Homeland Security raised the American security alert to code orange promoting fear that many believe was based on no evidence at all (just like Sadaam's WMD's). It was all about keeping people under control. Hence the line "but for now let's just pretend we're all gonnna get bombed". Like some other people on this page, I also heard the last line as: "you motherfuckers, you sing something" - which, in context of all the above, seems like a very menacing instruction from imperial, military America to the nations being invaded, along the lines of: "you do what we say, when we say, whether you like it or not". Juxtaposed with all the above are reminders about the ordinary and extraordinary people from both sides, the invaders and the invaded, whose lives are affected by all the madness. And when we are urged to sing for these people, we are being urged to raise our voices in protest. "Sing coz it's obvious". | |
| Bruce Springsteen – The River Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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There's a layer of meaning to this song that Springsteen may or may not have been intended - but it's there. MusicLover-MRM points out that the River is figuratively meant as "belief in how good things would always be". The river offers a baptismal soul-cleansing. When the narrator was young it never mattered how bad things in life got because he (and Mary) could go down to the river and somehow that would make everything alright - at least for a little while. This is why the symbolism towards the end of the song is so damn heartbreaking. In the end even the river isn't there anymore. It dried up. Now there's no escape, no source of redeption for the narrator. You grow up and there's nothing that can make things right anymore. Springsteen is a pretty switched-on writer - and I think he's hip to the multiple layers of meaning that can be contained in a rich powerful song like this. |
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| They Might Be Giants – The End Of The Tour Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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This is what this song means: Kurt Cobain died April 1994. John Henry was released September the same year. Kurts death was THE issue on the music industry's nimd during the second half of that year. The girl with the crown and scepter is Courtney - look at the cover of the Hole album. The references to the two of them being flaming wrecks etc are metaphors for their troubled - drug ridden relationship. The people inside are the fans, the industry, the entourage, all the hangers-on whose existence was facilitated by Kurt and Courtneys success. When Kurt killed himself he opened the doors and let all those people out. The end of the tour is the time of Courtney's death when she and Kurt will supposedly meet up again in heaven/the afterlife/whatever. |
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