submissions
| St. Vincent – The Party Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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It is such a hot, romantic song. To me it is what happens to Cinderella when she ignores the midnight curfew. The prince is into her anyway, regardless of class standing or money in her pockets. So they just stay and close the ball down. All the other suitors she that they have no chance and leave. I especially love when the song switches to a waltz tempo and you can almost see the glitter ball and the confetti...and streamers and what not. It's just such a great start to a relationship. The imagery of her turned out pockets and hopefully acceptance by the prince....Ou la la...it would be hotter still if this were about David Byrne. They are so good on stage together. |
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| Bob Dylan – Dreamin' of You Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I'm working on a production of Bram Stoker's Dracula and for some reason I read this and think of the character Reinfeld. He is possessed by Dracula and used throughout the play as a spy but he is also in some ways trying to get away. Of course he can't escape the pull of Dracula and is constantly forced to serve his will. It's like it's written from Reinfeld's prospective. Constantly dreaming of both serving his master and trying to get as far away from him as he can...eventually driving him insane. Freaky how well it fits Dylan's song...and who knows with Robert it's just as likely these thoughts were in his mind, along with a thousand others, swirling around to form this song. Fun to think about it anyway... |
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| Soggy Bottom Boys – I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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One of my favorite quotes (don't know if it's true or not) about Dan Tyminski's performance is from his wife who is reported to have said, "It's a dream come true - Dan's voice and George Clooney's body." The song (and songs) seems so spot on for the movie. Epic in it's own nature Man of Constant Sorrow is a man who can't escape his past and sees his peace coming when he is finally dead and buried deep in a sunny valley. It was such a great idea to not only involve so many talented musicians but to give many of them cameo's through-out the movie. Many feel the response to this movie launched a Blue Grass revival of sorts. I was lucky enough to catch one of the concerts centered around the musicians and music from the movie at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. A breath taking experience indeed! |
submissions
| St. Vincent – Marry Me Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I listen to this song and can't help but think she is giving a nod to songs like Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues" or Carly Simon's "That's the way I heard it should be". Except as others have pointed out she cleverly stands them on their head and shakes them out a bit. It has that late 60's early 70's vibe and covers much the same subject matter but from a post women's liberation/modern interpretation. The line, "...you're a rock with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will" is especially poignant. To me it's a wonderful update of the concept of something like "Wedding Bell Blues" while at the same time a pretty dismal assessment of the concept of modern marriage. Of course it's a much needed assessment and observation...it's fun to have the convenience and benefit of marriage...just so long as I can do what I want when I want...and long term commitment is definitely out of the question! lol well done St. Vincent. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Martha Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think my take is less sentimental and more sarcastic and hopeless, (which to me might make more sense with a Tom Waits song). And don’t get me wrong I think, like most here do, that this song is brilliantly written and full of passion but just not for the same reasons mentioned here. There is a scene and a character in the movie FARGO that this song reminds me of, Mike Yanagita. Mike lies to the main character, Marge to have a moment like this with her. He even gets to see her and have the coffee moment. Unfortunately for Marge Mike, as it turns out, is a big fat liar head. I think ole Tom Frost is a liar too. If it was a video I see Martha as living in a comfortable middle class existance but Tom is likely homeless, alcoholic and living in a shelter. His call is out of desperation and need. He says he is mature but I’m not buying it; he says he is happily married and most likely he is either not married at all or was at one time and went through a rough divorce. I mean why is he calling long distance to ask her out to coffee if all is well in his world? Wouldn’t he say something like, “Hey we’ll have to catch up next time I come through town.”? The line that really cements this for me is, “I was always so impulsive, I guess that I still am…” You think? Poor Martha…how do you respond to this man? And I don’t agree that the last line is Martha’s. Rather I think that is when she quietly hangs up the phone and turns on the caller ID (unfortunately he is calling from a pay phone). Final scene: Tom Frost mumbling the last line in a phone booth as the rain starts to really pick up and we hear the dial tone from the other end. |
submissions
| Fleetwood Mac – Hypnotized Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Sounds an awful like like a Magic Mushroom adventure or perhaps some sort of peyote fling. Whatever the hell I hold it up against any of the later Fleetwood Mac. Loved this time period of the band! |
submissions
| Lyle Lovett – Fiona Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I think for a lot of people he represents what they wish was considered Country Music...(because it's a whole lot closer to what once was considered Country) |
submissions
| Lyle Lovett – She's Already Made Up Her Mind Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Man this shoots through you like an ice cold bolt of lightning. Talk about the ultimate break up song. For a long time I thought this was about Lyle and Julia but came out before they were hitched so it’s just his poetic imagination but man did he nail the feelings and emotions. This song really shows his roots in traditional "Carter Family" original country music complete with a dramatic drowning at sea. To me it’s a non-linear story. Most of the song is a memory of him proceeding where he knew it was unwise and then bam he looks up and she is across from him at the kitchen table. She doesn’t have to say a word but he knows it’s over…she’s already made up her mind, before she even tells him. He has gone through this ending and is ready for it and he sees through the flimsy excuses and knows in his heart of hearts that if it’s yes it’s yes if it’s no it’s no and if it’s maybe…if it’s maybe then it is over. But just as knowing that a loved one is going to die from a terminal illness; when it actually happens it still hurts. His knowing that he is about to be dumped doesn’t help…in the end if he can’t be with her…to whom he has a line connect from his heart to hers…he would rather drowned in the unfathomable sea… Who can’t relate to the longing to have a friend “…remember me to her…” Yeah that’ll show ya. What a song…it only takes a slightly second to North Dakota from Joshua Judges Ruth. |
submissions
| Lyle Lovett – Flyswatter/Ice Water Blues (Monte Trenckmann's Blues) Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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I don't know you could get all metaphysical with this and find hidden meanings if you play it backwards but to me it's just one of the simplest, prettiest love songs. Behind every good man you find a real great woman... They sound like an older couple and he finds that anything is possible including the heat in Houston in July, getting up when he'd rather stay in bed and having to work for a living so long as she holds his hands. Him remembering at the end the first time they met would send his woman sky high with admiration too I reckon. Beautiful song from one of my all time favorite albums. |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Password Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Spot on. I'm right there with you and even though he thinks he finds out that she is cheating it's all just a little bit creepy too. Kind of like one of those "Roomate" movies...like he's going to be waiting with a hatchet when she gets home. I love songs vibe. That WahWah and the organ though out the song gives it this late 60's early 70's "Me and Mrs. Jones" kind of sound. Then the cord change is almost like glass shattering when he finds out about Anthony. |
submissions
| 10cc – I'm Not In Love Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It captures so perfectly teenage angst. Such a layered and moving work. Love the story about the "Big Boys Don't Cry" voice being a secretary at the recording studio. So captures the mid to late 70's for me (maybe it's because that's when I had my first girl friend...maybe) |
submissions
| Lucy Wainwright Roche – October Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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What a brilliant happy joyous song. Love the way Lucy's voice and the Indigo girls back up singing blend. Lucy certainly lives up to her pedigree. Really really like this song. Seems like it just describes a perfect evening plain and simple. Love the line "We've got the nerve of the very new." |
submissions
| Matt Pond PA – Snow Day Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Growing up in Michigan and we would peer out the window anticipating the next big blizzard and hoping for the snow day. It seems to me he is saying that even as an adult he still embraces the simple pleasure of the snow day. No matter how hard life gets or how deep the tracks in the snow are...you go on...hoping for the next snow day. Musically he really captures the feeling of anticipation you get staring out the window for hours looking up at the street lights trying to find the big flakes falling as well as the empty almost longing you have out in the snow after a real blizzard has just passed...quiet, white and cold. Agreed Arc 9 it's a great song. |
submissions
| Joan Osborne – Right Hand Man Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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It seems to me she's been masturbating...thus the faith and trust in the one man she can always trust, her Right Hand, Man. |
submissions
| Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Spot on! 100% I hate that people dodge around the subject...feelings smeeling beelings...it's about SEX lots of songs are. DEAL WITH IT! |
submissions
| St. Vincent – Marrow Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Oh my Yes...I also get a early Talking Heads feeling sometimes when listening to her. St.Vincent would have fit in nicely with the Art Bands of the late 70's early 80's. |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Time Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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Don't know why but when listening to this I'm always reminded of 10CC's I'm Not In Love. Like they could be a great A and other A side to a 45. I think it's the choral feeling and like so many have pointed out the great (Weird Al) backing vocals. Just this ethereal quality that makes it sound like this is all subconscious thought or telepathic messages (nerding out here). This could be a pop hit right out of 1970 something...Love the drumming on this...One of the songs that make me think Mr. Ben is the culmination of all pop music. Pop perfection...although like Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Todd Rundgren or some many others will always stay just one side of the pop-popular. Weird huh? Go Mr. Ben! What ever the hell you're doing it is cool as hell. |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Doc Pomus Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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This is a bio-tune mostly about Jerome “Doc Pomus” Felder but also to a certain extent it seems about the Brill Building sound in general. (None of this is surprising now that I see how much Nick Hornby has written about the music business) Doc Pomus along with Mort Shuman composed a ridiculous number of popular tunes during the height of the Brill Building Sound, “Turn Me Loose”, “Lonely Avenue” and “Suspicion” among them. They are a if not the prime example of this sound. Doc was crippled by polio in his childhood and confined to a wheelchair and for many years he holed up in a hotel in NYC called “The Forrest”. Doc never lacked for material as he was emerged in a time and place in New York where all he had to do was watch the life that swarmed around him. He even stopped song writing at one point and just ran a big stakes Poker game that was, as far as I could tell, taken down by the Mob. I’m so glad for this song, although it just scratches the surface of someone who reads as THE most colorful character in the history of Rock and Roll, it was great trying to piece together the puzzle pieces Nick and Ben put in the song (especially hard to find bits about Doc’s time at the Forrest). It is a brilliant piece of work as is the entire album…not bad for a “Coffee shop” work eh Mr. Ben? This link is a pretty good overview of Doc and his career in Music http://www.spencerleigh.demon.co.uk/Feature_Pomus.htm |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Belinda Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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I read recently where Nick Hornby was thinking about Eric Clapton and his song Layla which was supposedly written for George Harrison's wife at the time Patty Boyd. She later left George and was married to Eric but eventually they too divorced. Hornby wondered what it was like for Clapton to have to sing that song over and over after the feelings had gone away. Of course Clapton is no one hit wonder but speaking for myself as a 40 something I can say Layla has always been the song I most associated with him. Painful and full of longing...and just amazing guitar work...when I heard the story of it's origin for the first time I must admit the song took on new meaning for me. I think they (Ben and Nick) nail the feelings and emptiness that sometimes come from cheating and breaking off a relationship that you, after the fact, come to find you valued a great deal more than you thought. |
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| Paula Cole – Carmen Lyrics
| 15 years ago
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OR it very likely is and could be two women that have an incredibly intimate relationship that is bordering or perhaps delving into sexual. It almost certainly is not written from a man's perspective either. “I don’t know, I don’t know…if I can go back” As in go back to a heterosexual relationship again. To me this is the story of a weekend or visit with a good friend that became sexual and intimate and became a relationship of a different kind. The narrator is probably not homosexual nor bi and she hasn’t really considered the possibility but when she gets together with Carmen she is overcome by the intensity of the feelings and the sex and realizes she’ll “…never be, never be, never be the same again.” As my wife says, "…no sane person in our homophobic world wishes another person all the headaches that come with a relationship that is almost criminal in some parts of our country..." but it is biological and if you find warmth and friendship and most importantly love from being with another human being that is of the same sex...WHY THE HELL NOT! |
submissions
| Sufjan Stevens – For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I think it may be worth mentioning that Paradise, Michigan is in the Upper Peninsula (considered the gateway to some of the most beautiful land in the UP) and is the home for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (you know the Edmund Fitzgerald and the like) and that Ypsilanti was (is), aside from the home of my Alma Mater Eastern Michigan University, a bustling part of the War machine during the second World War. Planes (B-24 bombers) were cranked out in the auto factory called Willow Run, some say the idea of “Rosie the Riveter” comes from this plant. Just a little historical background and perhaps a clue to why, out of the whole state of Michigan, Suf chose those two cities for the song title. Personally I’m just excited that someone used Ypsilanti in a song title. |
submissions
| Alison Krauss – Restless Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Thank god bluemoon5. Spot on! It's exactly what it's like for people in concert touring (artist, crew et al). Its tough when you are on the road but its equally tough when you are the one left at home. Whether married or not if it's a committed relationship it is strained, sometimes beyond your capacity to endure and you seek affection in the arms of others but the key is both can feel like that and both feel restless at night. Different people deal with it different ways. In fact when re-reading the lyrics it looks like the song encompasses both povs. The first half of the song is the person who is gone on the road. They acknowledge that they have caused a strain by being away. The second half is the person left at home saying yes it screws us up. I wish I was stronger too but you know what I’m only going to tell you that it doesn’t bother me but I’m also going to let you know in other ways that I don’t like it (I’ll just pretend that I’ll leave it up to you). In the end they both think the relationship is worth the fight and the pain they feel. |
submissions
| Regina Spektor – Machine Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I can't help thinking of the robot woman from the movie Metropolis. She seems an awful lot like the woman Regina describes in this song. I told my kids when I listened to this song the first time that it sounded like filler to me...but the more I listen to it and think about the Uber Maria...it's a song that grows on you and like the rest of the music from this release it leaves a lasting impression. |
submissions
| Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem of the 80's Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I was born in 1962 and spent my 80's (aka college years) very much like this song. Life was a giant 80's Dance Anthem. Love the B-52-esque keyboard section. We were a little late to be the love children of the late 60's early 70's but it spilled over into the Disco's. So we were love children with an industrial clean groove kind of thing (and lots of polyester;) |
submissions
| Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem of the 80's Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I'm right there with you chelswild flower. Imagine how much quicker we'd get through the airport security check point. Aside from the odd cavity search we'd walk right through.
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submissions
| The Pretenders – Night In My Veins Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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Bochel can't be serious...and not love but sex or really it's about doing something that rhymes with ducking. I mean at one point she's bent over the hood of a Cadillac and he has his chest on her back. They aren’t playing hop scotch.
Head on the curb...yeah they are probably drunk but he is on top of her and she can’t produce a word because she is at the height of sexual passion and out of breath. Or to quote another raucous song I like by Joan Osborne, "I've been on the floor looking for a chair/I been on a chair looking for a couch/I been on a couch looking for a bed." Only in this case they couldn't wait...
For god’s sake we are talking about Chrissie Hynde here not some Disney Channel bimbo who wouldn’t know a good duck if one came up and AFLAC’ed on her. ;)
It’s a Pretenders favorite among favorites for me.
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