| Counting Crows – Walkaways Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
"I wrote some lyrics and kept it real short. It's about a one night stand. It's about the girl saying to the guy, "I gotta go, I'm not gonna go to the next town with you." It's not the end of the world, Well that's how things usually go for me, maybe one day it'll be different, but not today." -Adam |
|
| Counting Crows – Sullivan Street Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
According to Adam: "My last girlfriend, for the first month and a half that we were going out, her mother was living with her, and her mother's very Catholic. We couldn't spend the night together, so I was constantly making these drives in the middle of the night -- very surreal, four in the morning, falling asleep. I really believed in the relationship, but when I was writing this song, the lyrics came out: "Pretty soon I won't come around". It wasn't what I wanted -- I didn't want it to end -- but there it was. It's about the inevitability of leaving." |
|
| Counting Crows – Anna Begins Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Some of the awesome explanations compiled at annabegins.com... straight from Adam: "It's about denial -- how far you'll go to deny that somethings really happening because it's too complicated, too terrifying, too difficult. It's about me and Anna: The relationship was supposed to be light -- we met on vacation -- but we got further into it and it became harder and harder. It's about all the things you go through trying to, sort of squash your feelings. to sort of shut it down, and how much you can hurt other people and yourself by doing that. The people in the song are just continuously telling themselves they don't feel what they do feel, until the end when it's too late, and then they realize what they were really, really not ready for was, you know, never being able to see each other again." |
|
| Gin Blossoms – Found Out About You Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12123 "His then-girlfriend had left him, left him with a black eye. She had cheated on him and sucker-punched his face in the lobby of a downtown venue after an REM show. Those lines 'I write your name/Drive past your house/Your boyfriend's over/I watch the lights go out'... he lived that. You could read his depression as clearly as his words. He was wrecked by drink and heartbreak. Big dark circles under his eyes. His parents had intervened; got him help. But it didn't help much. He strummed carefully on a Gibson electric that wasn't plugged in because the pawn shop had his amp. Lyrics were neatly arranged chicken scratches on the back of a crumpled show flier. He stopped. "This won't make any sense without the bassline." So he plucked out the bass part. "The droning fifth on the pre-chorus will make the singer sound like God," he said. He stopped again because he was so proud of the "AM radio" reference in the lyric. He repeated it." |
|
| Gin Blossoms – Angels Tonight Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Doug Hopkins, man. Fuckin' brilliant. | |
| 3 Doors Down – The Road I'm On Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| For the record, they are not a Christian band. Though the members of the band might identify themselves as Christian in terms of religion, their music is not religious in nature. They do not consider themselves a "Christian band" (I read an interview where they asked that very thing.) | |
| James Taylor – You Can Close Your Eyes Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I always thought of this song as being sung to someone he loves who is struggling. He's letting them know that they can let thier guard down. In my mind it is someone who is going through a crisis and he's sitting by them saying that they can sleep now, he'll take care of things. Almost like he's telling them, "It's ok, I'm here now. You can relax, I'll take care of you." He's offering what he can give, not an extravagant love song, just a lullaby to help them sleep and the promise he'll take care of them. It could definitely be a parent child thing, but in my mind it's always been more of a love song. | |
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Perfect Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Billy has said that "Perfect" is a sequel to "1979". If "1979" is an expression of adolescent angst, then "Perfect" is an expression of being a lost and hollow 20 something. My favorite lines to compare are: No apologies ever need be made I know you better than you fake it and So far I still know who you are But now I wonder who I was Think of your best friend from youth or your first love... it fits perfectly (at least for me.) |
|
| The Smashing Pumpkins – Perfect Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Billy has said that "Perfect" is a sequel to "1979". If "1979" is an expression of adolescent angst, then "Perfect" is an expression of being a lost and hollow 20 something. My favorite lines to compare are: No apologies ever need be made I know you better than you fake it and So far I still know who you are But now I wonder who I was Think of your best friend from youth or your first love... it fits perfectly (at least for me.) |
|
| Better Than Ezra – Desperately Wanting Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
This song is haunting to me. It so beautifully describes the feelings of adolescent love with the chorus. I believe it is about a girl he loved who either suffered from mental illness, a drug problem or some kind of trauma. The part about the house and the constant hostile references to "they," presumably her family, seems to hint at some abuse. Later parts imply that her family is denying anything bad happened (as they might if they'd abused her.) She clearly overdosed and got her stomach pumped. Maybe a drug OD or a suicide attempt. It seems like she is now in treatment, either rehab or a psychiatric hospital. It sounds like she has been put on meds. He claims "they" are saying "You were never quite right/Deserving all the chills" Tremors are a very common side effect of neuroleptics, maybe that's what the chills is referring to? Either way, "they" say she was or is sick ("not quite right")and maybe they say she's making up past abuse. If she were just getting treatment for an addiction, I feel like he would not be so hostile toward "them," but if they are denying things she told him happened, that would explain the anger. I think he knows that "they" are telling her the worst is over, but he feels like it isn't. "They" are just "kicking it over" and running, not facing the underlying issues. It sounds almost silly, but maybe he feels like they are in a brainwashing, or reprogramming her. Hence, the "turn you on again" part. I think the "kick them right in the face" part is both him telling her to escape their control, but maybe also to talk about what happened to her. It could allow her to "win the war" against "them" by exposing the truth. Another reason it sounds like her parents are "they," and maybe her abusers, is the "baby burst in the world" part. As in, with them as parents she was "never given a chance." Now they are denying everything and asking "what went wrong." The letters part is clear enough, he is writing to her while she is in treatment. At first she was replying but now he isn't getting responses, even though "they" claim she's receiving his letters. It seems like he's not sure whether they have "brainwashed" her, and he wants her to come back to him, and he'll protect her. That is, if she "cares to anymore." |
|
| Ryan Adams – Sylvia Plath Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
Maybe this is too literal, but I always heard this song as Ryan indulging in suicidal fantasies. Almost like Sylvia represents giving in to mental illness and not fighting it anymore. Not living in reality, and instead going with "her" to France or Spain and dancing in some imaginary mansion on a hill. I always took the "slip me a pill, and get me pretty loaded on gin and maybe she'd give me a bath" as the act of suicide itself. As in, taking pills, drinking, and slipping away in a bath. Also, the lines about swimming reminds me of a part of The Bell Jar where she is at the beach and literally tries to drown herself while swimming. In the song, when he describes "while she was swimming away, she'd be winking at me telling me it would all be okay, out on the horizon and fading away" as a ridiculously romanticized version of drowning. In both instances, the "death" occurs in a sort of gentle, comforting manner. It seems kind of like a giant suicidal ideation, and Sylvia represents a dreamy end. |
|
| Gin Blossoms – Hey Jealousy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
"Doug once told me that he could barely remember writing 'Hey Jealousy.' He remembered clearly that it was a story about the sister of a singer he'd been in a band with, this beautiful girl that he and everyone else had a crush on but couldn't touch. He had something with her once but he blew it – the drinking. That's all he remembered about writing it. That and he hated the Gin Blossoms singer for changing the word in his lyric; he swapped "drink" with "think." Those lyrics were straight from Doug's daily vocabulary, his usual promise to a new girl." Brian Smith (one of Doug's closest friends) You can trust me not to drink/And not to sleep around/If you don't expect too much from me/You might not be let down. |
|
| The Smashing Pumpkins – 1979 Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
I think this is a song about looking back on youth. It displays what a funny thing nostalgia is, how even when something wasn't that enjoyable when you were experiencing it (adolescence)you sort of long for it when it's gone. I think the first part is about the experience of being a teen. Feeling like your too cool to give a shit, while feeling the intensity of emotions (feeling like a "live wire" when your with someone.) Maybe a first love. "Junebug skipping like a stone" being a reference to the levity of being in love, "headlights pointed at the dawn" is an obvious reference to hooking up in a car, but also the idea of possibility for the future. "We were sure we'd never see an end to it all"... so evocative of the feeling you have when you're young and it feels like what is in the present will go on forever. I have been told "zipper blues" can refer to the depression of moving around all the time. Though the sexual frustration piece also makes sense, I think he is talking about being older and moving around all the time (touring?) because he follows it up with the "where our bones will rest" being an unknown idea. He doesn't even care enough to stay in one place b/c he already knows how transitory life is. He knows that he and where is spent his life will be forgotten soon. I think he is talking about the numbing affects of being an adult when he references "morphine city slippin dues down," like he is paying his dues to live in the big city and be an adult, which is what he wanted when he was a bored teen. "The land of a thousand guilts" could be another description of adulthood, and the pull toward it. Poured cement again represents the city and adulthood while the suburbs (towns below) represent his teen years. He is talking about how he grew up faster than he thought he would, even though that was what he had wanted. Justine could be a reference to a) Frankenstein, b) Marquis de Sade, or c) may just be a representation of a teenage girl. Both of the literary Justine's were innocent but got in over their heads. I think the last part is him putting his adult self back in his teenage self's shoes, and remembering the urgency of everything then, and now realizing how far from urgent his life had been. Just my thoughts. |
|
| Third Eye Blind – God of Wine Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
To me, this is a perfect description of loving someone who has an addiction, or any kind of mental illness. Be it a significant other, a parent, a child, a friend, whatever. It's just such a sad, desperate, helpless feeling. The "get clean again" line isn't just about literally getting clean, but getting away from the toxicity of the relatioship. "I walk home alone with you, in the mood you're born into. Sometimes you let me in, and I take it on the chin." To me, that's a reference to the times when it's good, when the person is sober and "themselves" (hence "the mood you're born into") He takes it on the chin b/c he knows it wont last He keeps saying "I can't keep it all together" like he's trying to keep both his shit and the other person's shit together. He realizes he can't do both. The "God of wine crashing through the headlights" to me is that moment when the person is out of control. When they are taking things "farther than you thought [they'd] ever want to go." The line that is the most brilliant to me is "And the siren's song that is your madness, Holds a truth I can't erase, All the alone on your face." The image of the person's "madness" or addiction being a siren's song, alluring but also toxic, is so evocative. The truth is that it's never gonna work, it's never gonna be ok until this person gets themselves help. "And the God of Wine is crouched down in my room. You let me down, I said it. Now I'm going down, and you're not even around." To me this describes the moment when you really need the person and they aren't there, instead this totally messed up version of them, the "god of wine," is in their place. Fianly, "And there's a memory of a window, looking through I see you. Searching for something I could never give you. There's someone who understands you more than I do. A sadness I can't erase, all alone on your face." is a perfect way to describe the feeling of finally being done with the person, and how even though you know it's the right thing to do, it's so painful. |
|
| The Rolling Stones – Wild Horses Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
To start, I am in no way implying that what I interpret the song to mean is what was intended. This is simply what it means to me. Three years ago my best friend committed suicide. She was beautiful and kind and I still miss her deeply. Anyway, to me this song speaks to my relationship with her memory. The beginning is about how we were shortly before she died. I remember her seeming very distant in the days leading up, and I remember thinking of how much older she seemed than her 19 years, as though her innocence had disappeared. Anyway, the line about childhood living always makes me think of that. I remember trying desperately to reach her, not wanting to let her "slip through my hands." Those lines seem so desperate to me. They speak to a person desperately trying to hold onto someone they love, even when it's not working. After she died, I could barely fathom letting go of her and accepting her as being gone. I felt like she was being ripped from me, and the idea that I was holding on so tight that nothing could drag away has always resonated. The next verse obviously speaks to the time after she died. Despite the "dull aching pain" she'd felt that I was now experiencing, I could not stop loving her. The last verse has always related to the times I literally dreamed about her. The feeling that I had her there for a moment, and when I woke up hoping that maybe we would see each other again someday (though I don't really believe in that.) That's just what it means to me. |
|
| Matchbox Twenty – Breakfast At Tiffany's Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Matchbox 20 never covered this song. | |
| Third Eye Blind – Losing a Whole Year Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| So, yeah, this song isn't about the Great Gatsby. I don't really see Daisy finding her place "with the pierced queer teens in cyberspace." Whether the book was an inspiration for some of the lines, who knows, maybe. This song is about a rich trust-fund ("parachute") girl who's had a sheltered life and is rebelling. "Now you want to try a life of sin/you want to be down with the down and in." The "copping my truths" thing could be that she had adopted his outlook and is trying to join his scene while it is fun and convenient for her, but he realizes later she was just using him to piss of her Daddy. He is thinking about how great it was in the beginning, how much amazing sex they had and what a strong connection he'd thought they shared. He now realizes it was all fake, "And now I realize that you never heard/One goddamned word I ever said." He feels like he wasted the whole year they were together. The last part makes me think maybe she hasn't totally let go of the relationship and is still screwing with his head, and he has decided that he is done with her and all her drama "I don't want to play no more." | |
| Pete Yorn – On Your Side Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
I think that it is him talking to himself, at least partially. He is angry about something while at the same time realizing that it doesn't aven matter. "I'm outside your house 2 am it's dark So many mistakes Come back home from bars" He might be drunk or something and his insecurities are getting the better of him. "So many lies are taking hold It's not your fault There's many scars I am on your side" He has been hurt before and it is hard for him to trust another person but he's finally to place where it doesn't mater. No matter how pissed of he is in the moment, or how much he wants to tell her off, it doesn't change things. At the end of the day he has realized that whatever happens he is "on her side." It's a simple idea but coming to that realization is a big thing. I think he is reassuring her, or maybe even himself,of it. He keeps repeating it over and over as they discuss the argument because to be angry while loving her is such a fine line for him to walk. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.