| Tokyo Police Club – In a Cave Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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well if Dave and Graham explained what the song is about, i think that they would know... but that doesn't necessarily contradict everyone else's interpretation. i think that if you take the basic idea or feeling of safety from the literal lyrics, and you extend that in any direction that the feeling of the music might bring to you, you are probably on the same wavelength that gave rise to the song. the comments about longing for the warm safety of the womb, or of returning to the safe innocence of our youth both fit pretty well with how the song feels to me. I've never had the opportunity to chat with the police guys, but i'm guessing that at least some of the time, maybe all of the time when they write / make a song, they're more interested in communicating a feeling than one exact narrative or another. I love this song. I remember waking down Yonge street looking up at the crisp clear bright December sun with this song blasting through my head over and over again. At first you only sing along when no one is walking nearby, but after a while it doesn't matter who's there because its just too good. |
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| Wilco – One Hundred Years from Now (Gram Parsons cover) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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All of the best songs combine some comment or thought or observation, usually one that all of us have at one time or another, with some kind of universal or personal message. This song muses on the how the various big deals of our lives and our times eventually get re-interpreted or forgotten altogether- victims, as are we all, to the mere passage of time and memory. To that, Gram adds a more personal note about a relationship- "everyone said I'd hurt you..." ...but what does "everyone' know anyway? People are always talkin,' you know, and nothing they say matters anyway, in the long run... so best not to pay them any mind. Just listen to me, when I tell you that, if I go away, you know I'm gonna get back somehow. And Gram can get away with that, he can make that stick, because his voice projects a natural honesty and heart that makes us want to believe, and we do. |
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| The Pogues – Fairytale Of New York Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I can't say that I'm sure about the exact [original] meanings of every line, but I have a pretty good feeling about what the song is about. At the surface, it is a little movie or video of the arc of a long term relationship, quite likely a marriage. In short, it goes like this: Infatuation --> Reality --> Accommodation. Nothing wrong with that, no value judgments about it, just drawing the picture the way it is. The song does a beautiful job of telling us, showing us, that story. But I'd differ a bit from some of the other posts that assume that they've stayed together only because they've no other choice- I'd suggest that there is an enduring level of... something... that holds them together, which is why the song is, after all is said and done, so sweet- as to bring tears to so many of our eyes. The deeper level that it suggests to me is the basic Irish reality- a resilient, optimistic, mystical character, tempered or overlaid with a very deep sadness and longing for things lost- times lost, a land and language lost, loved ones lost. That is the same reality played out so well in Thousands Are Sailing, the other great sad and beautiful song on this album. |
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| Tokyo Police Club – Breakneck Speed Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I agree with the interpretation that the singer is singing to someone who came through some bad experiences early in life, but "lived to tell about it." For me, the key lines are "born on your feet, running forest fires underneath your bed." Born on your feet suggests that the singer's friend had to grow up fast, and deal with things that most of us were, hopefully, sheltered from. Forest fires underneath you bed could mean something more specific, maybe even as extreme as sexual abuse or violence. But to me it suggests that, whatever the specific problem or torment was, how sad that even a place that is supposed to feel safe and warm like your own bed was not safe- did not feel safe- because the ever-present danger or torment was always that close. I think that is why this song is so moving- because all of us can relate to that safe place that we had, or wished we had, in our childhood, protected by our covers, our room, our house, our dog, and our parents. But many of us also remember the things that tormented and threatened us when we were children, and have memories of bringing those fears to bed with us, and trying to forget them in the darkness of the night. This connection makes the song real, and since the song seems to have a happy ending "you made it out alive," we can relate happily to that too. |
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| The Beatles – A Day in the Life Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I remember listening to this song first in like.. 2006 or so One of my favorites before they got all lame and mainstream. |
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| Tokyo Police Club – End Of A Spark Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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...or, in the words of the Ancients: "such a long long time to be gone, and a short time to be there." |
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| Tokyo Police Club – Bambi Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| so anyone got any idea what he's talking about besides possiby addiction? | |
| Tokyo Police Club – End Of A Spark Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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i think christa has it right... although i also wonder if the "spark" could mean life itself- we think of our own life as a comparatively long time, measured in many decades. but even a very long life, measured in terms of the life of the earth or the universe or "eternity," is really a tiny spark- here and gone in an incredibly short instant. so i wonder if that is part of the image in the song as well- that whatever period of our lives we look at- innocent childhood, or the whole thing- it is a preciously short flash, or spark, and then its gone. |
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| Surfer Blood – Slow Jabroni Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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re: "this and anchorage are the best two songs on the album." This song and Anchorage share something really powerful. In this song it happens at about 3:23 and in Anchorage it happens at 2:58 (and then completing at 3:28). In both songs, a musical and lyrical foundation is established, and then the song moves to a whole new landscape. The transitions work both musically and in terms of the lyrics... the songs are coherent, yet they move definitively forward. I guess this is the "arc" that people talk about with Surfer Blood's music. I get it. I like it. |
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| Surfer Blood – Swim Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I think its all right there at "standing up on the rooftops, remembering everything she said." Its over and he's sad about it, doing crazy stuff like standing on the roof thinking about her. But he's also telling himself "what else can you do but get on with your life, one step at a time" or in this metaphor, one stroke at a time, just keep swimming until you get somewhere [somewhere else]. So I guess I kind of agree with easytrick on "you can't depend on anyone but yourself." I think the Cosmopolitan scene is a way of saying, "I'll get past this... you'll all see." Likewise, "relish in your energy" = its all up to you, you can do this, you can get past this dark time. I don't know what "that's the line of symmetry" means in this song, but it is a great line anyway. This song is such a great song to sing/shout with your car CD player very very loud. |
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| Surfer Blood – Catholic Pagans Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I'm pretty sure its "we fell in on each other for love, survival, and everything else" The whole "I really cleaned up my act for you" part is pretty clear. My guess though is that he's also saying "but now I would like to put our relationship on a little better-grounded foundation... I'm into you a lot, but not to the point of converting to your religion or otherwise completely abandoning my own perspective in order to be with you." That interpretation seems to work with his not wanting to become a Catholic, or to be her "Russian bride" (in both cases abandoning his own "homeland" in favor of hers). I'd guess the bombshelter is a real one that the writer encountered somewhere, where kids could go and get shitfaced with no adults around to stop them, which he uses to illustrate his life before he met her. Although it's interesting that he asks her not to let them destroy it.. again suggesting that he's trying to achieve a balance of power in the relationship- as in "I know that you disapprove of drinking, but that doesn't mean you should screw it up for everyone else." I don't really get the Obama part... maybe it was just a clever name to drop at the time... whatever it meant, I know it got lots of mention in the music press. Musically, if you listen to just the first few seconds and then the last few seconds... what a distance this song covers, from the intro surf guitar, alone in its retro reverb, to the orchestral cherubim crescendo of the ending. I especially like the part at about 0:52 where the power guitar comes in and propels the song on towards its eventual volume and glory. |
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| Surfer Blood – Twin Peaks Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This song has a lot going for it- I think the story line is clear enough... the music has lots of energy and variety, from the chunky clean chords at the beginning to the Caribbean party-gone-out-of-bounds in the middle, and back again... a variety of emotions expressed in the singing... sentimentality, hope, frustration, disappointment, anger, wistfulness... and IMHO, a little micro-anthem in the very energized "I'M TOO YOUNG TO BE DEFEATED!" | |
| Surfer Blood – Neighbour Riffs Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| A great song to drive [fast] to. | |
| Surfer Blood – Anchorage Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Slow Jabroni lyrics are on the CD jacket... if I find it I'll try to post them. BTW I think it's "old convicts lie awake" and "babe you've got a reputation for knowing how to lose your mind." Back to this one- yeah I feel the same way- volcanoes or something- whatever- but something to break the log jam, open the door, make it all just happen the way it should... well really nothing sounds better than "erupt." |
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| Surfer Blood – Anchorage Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Slow Jabroni lyrics are on the CD jacket... if I find it I'll try to post them. BTW I think it's "old convicts lie awake" and "babe you've got a reputation for knowing how to lose your mind." Back to this one- yeah I feel the same way- volcanoes or something- whatever- but something to break the log jam, open the door, make it all just happen the way it should... well really nothing sounds better than "erupt." |
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| Surfer Blood – Anchorage Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I think the Alaska setting is mostly/merely a backdrop or juxtaposition for his words to the once-closer friend he's singing to. I think that's really why he wrote the song, and what its really about... It could have worked out... it seemed good at the time... maybe someday it will come together again... but for now we've gone our separate ways, and you've been getting into some stuff that I don't really want to be around right now. Sounds like maybe the girl he's singing to ("babe you've got a reputation...") is the same one he's singing to in "I'm Not Ready." Anyone got the lyrics to the last part of that song figured out? Having talked about the meaning... I think the music is great... starting with the 6/4 part, then through the "cloudy" transition, and then hitting full speed in the last section. Great song. |
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| Born Ruffians – Hummingbird Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Agree with MostlyGhostly... Vampire Weekend is kind of light in the loafers compared to these guys. I hear the same Vampire stuff about Surfer Blood, and think its even further off with them. I like the Ruffians' more ragged edges... while at the same time some of their hyper-tight bass and drum bits make me think of (hyper-clean) Rush... but I better stop talking about the music before the "song meanings" people come after me. Maybe I'm way off, but i thought the singer was describing some girl on a downward spiral... needing "supplies," talking romantically about her own death.... and reacting against it by singing (in a totally awesome section), "sing it wIth me it goes like this 'we’re not gonna die lIke this.'" Before I heard or thought much about the rest of the lyrics, that section is what got me replaying the song over and over. Just by itself it reminded me of "we're not gonna take it," or SB's "I'm too young to be defeated." As in, "choose your own poison, if that's what you want to do, but I'm not touching that shit." |
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| Surfer Blood – Fast Jabroni Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Leading up to the where the singing starts, the song is such a big, driving, Springsteen/Marlboro Country wall of sound. But then when the vocals begin, they're so direct and personal and heartfelt. A great combination or juxtaposition that really works for me. I can't really follow all of the details about whose driving where and all that, but I think the basic meaning of the song is pretty straightforward- boy has been smitten with girl, hopes/expects that the feeling is mutual, and wants to find out what comes next. Getting back to the intro, and the melodic theme with the rising octaves, if that's what the are- that is why the song works so well- the combination of the big wide open landscape of a sound and the direct, pure, personal message of the lyric- because the lyrics, and the vocals, express such pure and unabashed confidence, and that is exactly what the music behind the singing sounds like. It sounds like its all good and can only get better. No wonder that listening to this song makes us feel good and confident and happy too. |
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| Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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yeah that's what i thought at first too. but after listening to it and the rest of the album a million times, and seeing a bunch of their videos and interviews, I don't think that anymore. i think that, in addition to any specifically biblical meaning, "the second coming" has by now become a catch phrase that is used in other contexts. Like saying something is a "crown of thorns" or that someone has a "cross to bear." maybe i'm wrong. do you have an interpretation for the napkin scene? |
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| Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The lyrics that come with the disc say: "You can seal it in an envelope, Tuck it away in your sleeve;" |
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| Surfer Blood – Floating Vibes Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The singer is reflecting on the ups and downs of early stardom... one night you're a rock god and the next big thing, the next morning you're waking up in the same old dump and the rent is due. that's what all the "you can't take it to the bank" is about. He's singing to a girl, not to god. She's left, for the coast, but he expects that once he goes big time for real, it will be like the "second coming," and of course she'll want a piece of that, which is why he knows that she'll be back. So he's asking her, "why do we have to wait for that, or for me to write some song about you that gets played everywhere so that everyone has to become involved in our story? Instead of all that crazy shit, just come back now, OK?" The band makes a big point of telling us that they don't really surf, which to me makes all of the surf metaphors kind of funny, but it's a free world, and the more I listen to this album, the more I like it, so I'm not complaining. And only one of the Beach Boys surfed, and that didn't stop them either. So, OK (AOK?), gotta go catch some waves now... |
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| MGMT – Pieces of What Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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i have to wonder what filter of prejudices you are hearing this band through. I say this not to be rude, but because the only way to miss the tragicomic fantasy of Time To Pretend, the calm recollections of lost youth of Kids, is to not be listening very closely, for one reason or another. |
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| Bob Dylan – Girl from the North Country Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair" appears to derive from an older (and now obscure) Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight, which has been traced at least as far back as 1670 and may well be earlier. From what I can gather, young Paul Simon and Bob Dylan both learned it from the English folk musician Martin Carthy, and then adapted it into their own songs. During the same period, Paul Simon did something similar with the English folk children's rhyme "April Come She Will," using the first lines for each month as he found them, and adding the lines in between. I happen to be looking at this song now because its one of those songs that has haunted me, and stayed somewhere in "my back pages" since I first heard it. The version that I first heard was the duet with Johnny Cash on Nashville Skyline, which is quite magical and beautiful. I especially like where Cash sings the wrong words to: "remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine" instead singing "say hello to one who lives there". I think it was great that they left that mistake as it was. It only adds to the authenticity of the song, and of the friendship and mutual admiration that is so evident in the recording of the two voices. I guess in a way it also is a small pointer to how this song marks a meeting place between the ancient culture of the British Isles, and the younger, brasher spirit of her lost colony across the sea. |
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| Modern English – I Melt with You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Here i was trying to imagine some arty metaphor for the ultimate, cold, earthbound material of "this mortal coil," or whatever, when apparently mesh and lace is... undies. http://www.yankeepotroast.org/archives/2006/01/mesh_lace.html |
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| Modern English – I Melt with You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I hear the second verse as something more like "Never comprehending the race had long gone by" Anyone got any idea what the mesh and lace are about in "Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace" ? |
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| MGMT – Time to Pretend Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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i'm a musician. most of my posts, including the one for this song, say something like "well it think it means this, to me at least, but i'm really into it for the sound, the feeling, and the attitude, so in the end who knows or cares what the writer had in mind." i was a listener before i was a songwriter. i like the mystery that is part of listening to other people's songs, so now as a writer i try to leave room for my listeners to imagine or feel what they will. i could be wrong, but i expect that any musicians whose work I am drawn to or moved by have a similar attitude about their work. so whatever evidence or insights anyone has into what some artist was thinking when they wrote some lyric, in the end their version becomes just one of many. i expect that's what they had in mind in the first place. |
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| MGMT – Time to Pretend Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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the first time i heard this song was with its video, so anything i feel think or say about the song is really about the combined experience, since i pretty much see the video now any time that i hear the song. while i do have a thing or two to say about the 'song meaning,' i'd qualify it that my first interest and involvement with the song remains with the sound, the feeling, the mood, and above all the attitude with which it so easily overwhelms me pretty much every time that i listen to it. whatever it might mean, to me or for that matter to them, is of some interest, but given the choice i could take or leave it, as long as i can have this three minutes of soaring floating synthetic yet visceral soundscape. as for the meaning- my login is the taken from the name of a classic song from another era. DCBA 25 was written on Fulton Street in San Francisco during the Summer of Love. To my ears, the utopian optimism that it breathes is absolutely honest and real to the singer. They honestly believed that the magical era of rainbows and peace and bliss that they were helping to mythologize really was right around the corner. At least that's what my ears and heart tell me when i hear that song. mgmt's attitude towards the vision so grandly illustrated in Time To Pretend is quite a bit more complex. they want it, they can feel it, god knows they can share it with us, they know it is unobtainable, or at least they know that it is not a good idea to obtain it, and, thanks to the work of previous artists, they know, as we all do, "how it will end" if they do. as a result, this song is deeper, wider, and more, than a song that merely describes something pretty and desirable. instead, it is painted in dozens of additional colors, colors of sadness and irony mixed in and overlayed with the colors of joy and bliss and desire. aren't the best songs always about something or someone that just can never quite be had? love this song. love the video. love it when that arrow hits the monster on target and frees the happy tribe of dolphins. |
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| Minor Threat – Salad Days Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Yeah... and I think that "wishing fort the day" stuff is on the rise. If I hear "back in the day" one more time I'm going to hurl. | |
| Minor Threat – Salad Days Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Well first off, "the rest of the band was getting really into U2 and ian wasn't having any of that gay shit." Really. I love this song to death, and one of the very first impressions that it makes is when those bells happen in the intro... and that could very well have been in an early U2 song. IMHO U2 has long since gone off the schmultzy end, but they started out pretty straight-ahead, and anyway calling shit gay is fucked up. OK... back to the bells, and the roaring wall of noise that is Salad Days. This song is mighty and magnificent and in a league with Won't Get Fooled Again. Playing loud and fast and confidently is powerful, but when you combine that with singing about something meaningful, heartfelt, and universal, the power is squared.... or more. That's when the sum of the parts blows away the small bits that we usually talk about. And that's why words don't do it justice. It is way out of the ordinary, way out of our tiny little boxes of this and that and punk and hardcore and metal and ringtones and shopping and words and name calling and being smart asses. That's why we listen to music, and try to find now and then a song like this one. |
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| MGMT – Kids Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I also like what JimmieNeverDies said; "Control yourself, take only what you need from it." Perfectly on target! Both about what (I think) the song says ( don't freak, just take the good stuff and pass on the bullshit ) and about how to take the song itself ( enjoy whatever it does for you and leave it at that ). Someone else said "take what you need and leave the rest." |
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| MGMT – Kids Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Some songs I get the feeling were written pretty explicitly about something clear and specific, and in those cases it also seems like the artist makes a pretty good effort to make that meaning clear to the listener. Other songs I am never so sure that there really ever was anything specific for us to "get," to the point where we can decode every line and assemble its meaning into a clear narrative. Poetry is best when a bit vague anyway, because it allows us to fill in the blank areas with our own imagination. And music works even better that way, because it creates an atmosphere or a landscape for our imaginations to roam around in. I encountered this song as a soundtrack to a skateboard video that my son plays a lot. So I assumed that it was written from a skateboarder's perspective, or perhaps it was speaking to a skateboarder's perspective. So that's the mood I hear it in... moody but engaged... the little vamp melody that happens at the intro and during the chorus hits that mood just right- kind of upbeat, kind of guarded or downplayed. That dark, guarded optimism, almost covert joy, is the mood and atmosphere that this song pulls me into. It maps pretty well to a common attitude of youth- life is good, but there's so much bullshit, man. Throw in a faint backdrop of anxiety about the future... as Minor Threat called it, "heading for that adult crash," and those are the colors of this song. Whatever the writers had in mind, I like wearing the feelings that this song gives me. Maybe not forever, but certainly for 3 or 4 minutes. Its kind of comfortable and kind of sad, kind of like when I remember my own childhood. I also like what riverotter said. |
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| Woody Guthrie – Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| it was a hostel, not a hostile. in fact it was quite hospitable. everyone needs an editor. | |
| Woody Guthrie – Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This is one of the hundreds of songs that Woody left no recording of. Only written lyrics. His family foundation works with artists to bring these songs back to life by giving them tunes and recording them. This one was recorded by the British singer Billy Bragg and American band Wilco on the album Mermaid Avenue. I learned it from a Dubliner on a Bank Holiday at a hostile in the Far West of Ireland. We were all sitting around the fireplace one night, following whomever was leading by watching their chords. I remember doing a double-take when I heard the line about being way over yonder in the minor key. It was so weird and so cool... Anyway I started playing the song on my return to the States... it does get some odd reactions now and then. Anyway, thank you Woody, thank you Billy, thank you Wilco, and thank you Smilin' Bob, you know who you are. |
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| The English Beat – Save It For Later Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I always thought it was about a guy who discovers that his girlfriend has been fairly seriously (?serially) cheating on him. While he is obviously not happy about this, he is reluctant to jump to any dramatic conclusions about it... "don't bother trying to explain it...' "save it for later..." Isn't that what we say sometimes when we just don't want to hear any excuses or explanations or promises or whatever... "save it." "Malaise" is not a word I use often... but I think it describes his mood on learning whatever it is that he just learned about his girlfriend. In the second verse, he extends this mood to describe his feelings about the state of the larger world- "black air and seven seas all rotten through- but what can you do?" The world is going to hell in a handbasket, but what can one bloke do about it? Nothing, really... so just don't say anything... just let me think about it.... save it for later. |
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| General Public – Tenderness Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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boy meets girl at dance... falls in love but doesn't move on it... then tries to track girl down... phones her girlfriend to get some information about her... is at the mercy of whether or not she shows up at the dance club on a given night... is generally all mixed up and messed up over this girl that he may have missed his big chance with, and now does not know how or whether he will get a second chance. sweet, innocent, optimistic, positive. great song. |
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| U2 – Unknown Caller Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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In the song, the singer gets the message that he has the power to start over, or reboot himself, or however you want to describe having a fresh start. The specific mechanics that Bono uses to convey this message are a bit questionable- if there is a direct God Requirement to the lyric, I both reject it and maintain that the song and its message work just fine without it. As for the computerese talk... I get it, although its a bit borderline silly... but I guess the silliness succeeds in taking away some of the uberseriousness that the song still suffers from. All in all, I like the song, especially the monotone commands to get off your butt and live your life like the rest of it started today. I could do without some of the vibrato-heavy vocal dramatizations... "driven to the scene of the accident" is a bit like taking a bandaid off on YouTube... uh, thanks but no thanks. But the real reason that I logged in to comment here is that I noticed how much this song sounds like a Paul Kantner Jefferson Airship kind of anthem. Certainly the empowerment message in the lyric, but also the actual sounds of the recording. The unison shouting of the "reboot yourself" parts, and the guitar work- very much Jorma Kaukonen on Wooden Ships... lots of simple bends and emotive but non-technical noodling. I wouldn't normally expect U2 to sound like Airplane 1969, but check it out. |
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| The Who – Sea And Sand Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"don't know why there are so many sea references in this album though." for starters the story is set around the Brighton Beach mod vs rocker period. and living on an island, the sea is never very far away. then you can start layering in all of the metaphors- impermanence, permanence, all-enveloping-mother, cold flea-bitten and indifferent... the sea absorbs it all, and washes it all away. makes for a great classic Who juxtaposition of the manic and the sublime. |
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| The Who – The Kids Are Alright Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I wouldn't jump to the grand statement that the Who' basic lyric story is about struggling through childhood and teenhood, and ultimately being forced to come to some kind of terms with an adulthood that for so long you regarded with hatred and contempt. But if I were to make such a claim, then this song is about as perfect a summation of that struggle as you can cram into 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Don't wanna go, but I've really got to go, I hate to leave her behind, but hey, I can trust my friends, and I really gotta go now. And despite anything I've said, or any jokes Pete and Roger may make, this song comes across completely for real. This is real. This is life. Thank god we have, or had, groups who put real stuff like this into their songs. |
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| The Who – I'm One Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is the ongoing story of my life. I'm a loser / and/but / I'm one... I'm really One... just you wait. I don't know how common this combination of opposite self-estimations is. I used to think it was just me... but judging from how this song has been received and reviewed here, I think that, as Bob Dylan says, "in this I am not so unique." Like Jimmy, nothing ever seems to go just right... how do those perfect/lucky people do it? But never give up on that Gibson. Its still all going to come together one day. You'll all see. |
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| Jefferson Airplane – In Time Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Crown of Creation, the album, occurs for me like an unplanned little side trip to a dark, warm, welcoming, yet secret kind of place. A charming, understated, quiet respite, after the raucous, joyous noise of After Bathing At Baxters, and before getting on to the serious business of saving the world on Volunteers. "In Time" captures that place so well- that feeling of being Outside of Time- "warm, soft, nice and now," that's all that matters. The lyrics walk along over Jack Casady's ambling bass line, Grace shouts out an echoing harmony, jazz riff drums tumble about and stop on a dime. This is one song that makes great use of silence. The band uses empty space as the beautiful instrument that it is. Maybe we can't really live (or stay) in the dreamy utopia that Brumus describes so well. But I'll take another hit of "Dance, sing, sleep and dream" anytime. ----- and, as in the song --- a slight return ---- what is with that whacky ending anyway? don't get me wrong, I love it-- soon be in another country, yeah. |
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| Jefferson Airplane – Wooden Ships Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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yeah, i think the basic backdrop or story line is fairly apparent. but like so many other good songs, what keeps me coming back is really the feeling, the atmosphere, the... ...well in this case also the power. this song begins so quietly and casually, and eventually reaches that peak where Grace is wailing "You don't need us!" while Jorma cracks open a lightning bolt with the treble knob on 11. after that, they really had to add the "go ride the music" section... we couldn't just go home from there like nothing happened. it is also interesting in that there are a number of different versions of this song. The CSN studio version is so much more monochromatic, or mono-emotive... a bit dry. The live CSNY version from Woodstock takes that same arrangement, but it gets transformed by the wild energy of playing a new and lightly-rehearsed song, by a brand new band, in front of half a million people, mostly on acid, in a storm. That version has a grand and scary energy that makes an interesting contrast with the more laid-back and etherial, but equally magnificent, power of this JA version. |
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| The Who – Won't Get Fooled Again Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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ya know... yer' all right. everything said here is probably completely correct. and still/yet/although or anyway, for me, this song is such an... explosion... that none of the details really have a chance to get in the way... guitar, bass, drummmmms, screaming vocals, all mesmerized together by that hypnotically monotonous sequenced synth... and yes of course the lyrics... add up to way more than anything anyone can say about anything. but i will second at least two of the previous comments- "THE best scream in rock and roll history" and "fuckin' brillaint enogh said." |
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| The Who – We're Not Gonna Take It Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I find this song, and the whole of Tommy, a bit jumbled... and still very powerful. it is what- 1968? it is all happening... full blast... welcome to the camp, put on your smiles and get with the program, cause we're about to change the world. and then the disillusionment sets in, as of course it must. but whatever it is that rises up over the course of this song, it builds to a very sweeping and powerful crescendo... how can anyone possibly beat "We're not gonna take it- never did, never will!" for an international, intergalactic rebel anthem. still sends chills up my spine. and to think that even this power and majesty would shortly be eclipsed by "Won't Get Fooled Again." |
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| The Who – Faith in Something Bigger Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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i'm a mystic. i don't look for big cosmic explanations. "don't need no religion, never did, never will." so i don't get caught up in worrying about what the Something Bigger in this song is. but i still know it when i feel it. and i feel it when i hear this song. if you listen closely, you can hear the word "can" very quickly inserted in the line "we're young and hearty again, we [can] bow to weaker men." I didn't hear this until after having listened to this song for several decades. having gotten a bit older over that time, this little discovery came as a bit of a gift. because to me it is a reminder that we "can" [choose to] bow to weakness... and specifically our own weakness... or we can choose to be "young and hardy again." this song helps me choose to be young and hearty. i recommend it. |
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| The Who – Baba O'Riley Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Musically, or really sonically, this song is a milestone. It is a bit sad that its gotten so overplayed and overused. But I will never forget how it sounded the first time I heard it- I felt like I was on a way more powerful drug than i probably was on. As for the lyrics, for me, this song is about growing up. I think its all there quite literally. The guy is fleeing the teenage wasteland, with his girl in tow, and moving on, to where the "happy ones" are. This is a guess- but I think the happy ones are one's children. That is, traditionally at least, where you go after you leave the Sugar Mountain of childhood and teenagehood- you find someone to start a family with. And then, at least in the idealized tradition, you find the new delights and satisfactions of adulthood- working out there in the fields- making it all happen. Don't cry about the (supposedly) carefree partying you've left behind, don't even look back over your shoulder; its time to move on. |
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| The Who – Pure And Easy Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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this song is one of the "capitals" of my inner world. maybe _the_ capital. i could say lots of stuff about this song, but what is really cool is seeing that so many of you have already said the same things. i've never encountered anyone who this song touches the way it touches me. it feels pretty cool to learn that i'm not the only one who connects with the "note" in this song. thanks. |
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| Jefferson Airplane – D.C.B.A.-25 Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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i have always liked the fact that this song means way more to me than anything that i can point to in any specific way. i suppose that i like the courage, the optimism in how he announces that the relationship is, for now at least, over. this kind of news is usually a bummer, but in this song it feels... kind of exciting... it is, after all, being sung in the fresh breezes of the Summer of Love- so who knows what either of us will find ourselves doing next... anything is possible... "wait and see how it will end..." I don't know who is right, but i always heard the second verse saying "if you don't mind happiness, purple pleasure fields in the sun." purple pleasure fields in the sun- now there's some LSD 25 going on there! sounds warm and bright and... groovy. "I see the people of the world- where they are and what they could be..." what a kind and generous invitation... i always want to climb into this gentle, happy, scattered little song and hang out at the Airplane House for a while. in any event, as perhaps you can tell, for some reason, i have loved this song since the first time that i heard it. |
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| Van Morrison – Into The Mystic Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Mystic River, River Misty, Mists, Ocean, Love, Life, Death... its about all of the above, none of the above. that's (IMHO) how songwriting works... something is a trigger, one image becomes another, a feeling, a sense of a distant memory... lost in time and mist. that's the mystic. we go there in many ways, and at many times. for me, the surface imagery, the scene that i go to when i hear this song, is definitely on a tiny boat floating along, bobbing along on calm waters, through a white mist that makes any notion of where we are, where we came from, or where we're going fairly irrelevant. thankfully irrelevant. but behind that scene is definitely the slow journey of life itself, as we head off into the unknowable white horizon of... the mystic. what is remarkable about this telling of that tale is the calm confidence with which Van Morrison takes us along on this peaceful voyage to the unknowable, infinite beyond. |
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