| The Doors – Light My Fire Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| seriously? i mean it's inoffensive, but... | |
| The Doors – Riders On The Storm Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| man...good band, cool tune, nice piano solo...but his lyrics are like...unbearably bad. | |
| The National – Think You Can Wait Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Here's what I heard: I was drifting, crying I was looking for an island I was slipping under I'll pull the devil down with me one way or another I'm out of my mind think you can wait? I'm way off the line think you can wait? We've been running a sleepless run been away from the baby way too long we've been holding a good night gun we've been losing out exes one-by-one I'm out of my mind think you can wait? I'm way off the line think you can wait it out? (all i have is all) think you can wait it out? (all i have is all) think you can wait? What I'm thinking is simple I'll sell apples and ice water at the temple I won't make trouble I'll pull the devil down with me one way or another We've been running a sleepless run been away from the baby way too long we've been holding a good night gun we've been losing out exes one-by-one I'll try I'll try But I couldn't be better (all I have is all) (repeat 3x) |
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| The National – Santa Clara Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think it's about watching your kids grow up ("gonna send 'em on their way/cuz they're gonna be/cool happy genius heroes/I'm gonna miss 'em so much") | |
| The National – Squalor Victoria Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"underline everything i'm a professional in my beloved white shirt/i'm going down among the saints" -gets a new job, feels confident and excited and grown up "Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens, Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria" -still goes out and parties every night because he feels so accomplished "out of my league i have birds in my sleeves and i want to rush in with the fools" -he's not equipped to hold down his new job, because he's not as grown up as he thinks he is - he still constantly thinks about getting out of work and partying with his friends "3:30 in the last night for you to save this, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out" -trying to finish a project for the next day that he's been putting off and he's just too damn tired to get it done "this isn't working, you, my middlebrow fucker" -could be him getting fired, but i really see it more as his own disgusted realization of his irresponsible and immature ways I think the entire Boxer album, save for Gospel, is about struggling to find a foothold in the adult world during the mid-late twenties transition from carefree, young, partying to responsible adults, and this is possibly it's most direct song. I think it's a description of him in his early professional days, overconfident and having not yet realized that work has become a much more significant part of his life than he wants it to be |
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| The National – Green Gloves Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I definitely think this is about isolation, and how feelings of isolation can often be emboldened, rather than assuaged, by the company of friends who seem to be able to be happy just by going out and "getting wasted". As he falls out of the group he pines for the days when he too could be happy just by going out and having fun with his friends all the time. I think the "green gloves" and "watch their videos/in their chairs" part is about him being so lonely that he sneaks into his friends' homes when they're "somewhere getting wasted" and pretends that their lives are his | |
| Bob Dylan – Shelter from the Storm Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think part of what makes this song so incredible is its ambiguity. I do believe that he wrote most of this album about his divorce, and this song is no different. But "shelter from the storm" can really refer to anything that can lure us in with pleasant comfort - sex, drugs, love (to an extent), but on which our dependence can be dangerous. I believe for dylan (and for many) it is about how a woman he was in love with provided him with shelter from the storm of stress and (maybe?) depression that riddled his, and any other, life. This, I think is the reason for the biblical and war allusions. The war is his internal turmoil from which she gives him shelter, the christ allusion refers to his feeling of betrayal and suffering when the shelter of his relationship collapses. But what makes this song so terrific is that it applies just as easily to a soldier, his shelter being either morphine (or heroin) or more psychotropic substances that give him shelter from the PTSD. The beauty of dylan's intentional ambiguity is that they apply on a broad scale to anybody who has fallen for shelter, and in so doing, lost his/her independence. | |
| Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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"i helped her out of a jam I guess, but i used a little too much force" = he killed her husband, hence the driving the car as far as they could |
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| Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think "anna's ghost" is a lost loved one - he "would push [his] fingers through [her] mouth" to make her speak again, if he were with her dead body now. I think this song is a love story - beginning with the bliss of togetherness, followed by the sadness of her death, followed by the realization that fatality does not take away from the beauty of life, but rather adds to it. I see the song as a reflection on just how beautiful human mortality is. Acknowledging our triviality in the grand scheme of things allows us to appreciate the beauty and scope of existence, liberated from the meaningless suffering that plagues the self-centered. | |
| The National – All the Wine Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I'm probably wrong, but when i first heard it, I thought of it as sort of a relishing of being a proud father (dollhouse=literal dollhouse or just a family, w/e) who went out for a night of drinking because he felt like he couldn't handle it, then realized how awesome everything he had really was | |
| The National – Mr. November Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| it really is amazing how a song with such simple lyrics, and so few of them, can evoke such intricate and distinct interpretations, but that's just a testament to the lyrical brilliance of Matt Berninger. Intentional fallacy is, I think, an important aspect of this song; it doesn't really matter what Matt specifically meant by these words - and in all likelihood he was aware of the double, triple, and quadruple entendres with which the words are riddled. In my opinion, "Mr. November" refers to "I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders," not a reference to the Presidential election, nor Derek Jeter, nor Reggie Jackson, although the irony is that each of those references would make total sense with the song. I think in part, it is a personal reaction to pressure from the record company, which would explain both the line about the english waiting and "this is nothing like it was in my room, trying to think of you," aka not like back when he was a kid trying to write songs about a girl up in his room. | |
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