| Steely Dan – The Boston Rag Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| I came here to look for info on the song meaning, only to find this... good times | |
| Steely Dan – The Boston Rag Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[caucasian:44868] ???????????? | |
| Eagles – Peaceful Easy Feeling Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I like the way your sparklin' earrings lay.. I have this on a loop for some reason, just like it. OT - Music has been a really great backdrop to my entire life... of course, the reality is, music IS my entire life. |
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| Fiona Apple – Shadowboxer Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Well put... | |
| Todd Rundgren – Hello It's Me Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| These type songs are feel good, life is going smooth type things and they are kind of tawdry or daring. He's got a life that's more flexible and it feels good to him. Even though there's this hint of worry that usually accompanies those kind of days. It is in a way, aspirational for the listeners that kind of know the feeling but maybe only in the distant past. The question is in my mind with stuff like this, as to how it's possible to enjoy it when you have that loose kind of lifestyle, knowing that it probalby isn't all that sustainable or workable (then maybe it is). Do rock stars ever get to some point where they just don't really have any friends like what they did before they were ever rock stars.. and irony of ironies, they just sit there feeling alone and spent.. like they've already done everything they wanted to do and all they can feel is just bored and empty inside? But that's an aside. The answer to the question of my own, is that I think during those times when you know that's what you want (a loose, flexible situation).. and half of you knows it's only temporary then you just let 'er rip for the time being, enjoy it while it lasts.. and pick up the pieces later, on the flip side. If you have an urge for the lifestyle, maybe you also have a good enough head for it.. to steer you along through it and get you through to the other side with just the feeling of having led a life of adventure and not too much of those unwanted side effects that leave you just feeling (mentally) sick, guilty, scared and exhausted. | |
| Peter Bjorn and John – Second Chance Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This song KICKS ASS! I turned it up so loud it has probably damaged my hearing. It just picks up my attitude and makes me want to stop having a hurt leg like the day when I first saw the video. That's what got me it that video, I love. Simple but so likable for some strange reason. Some things just affect you. They look so funny in that video, like 70s type meathead characters. Kind of like a mellow aging hippie. I'm not sure I like all of their other songs, but a couple I do. I like them in rock mode quite a bit more. When I had to get up from being injured and find a way to get over the hump, this was an inspiration. So, to me, when they said 'second chance', I didn't interpret it about a break-up, I thought it's about trying to accomplish something in life and having to realize that there are a lot of set backs, and you have to jump up and down and get aggro or else you'll never get there. The second chance will never come home. I guess I could also see that as being about romance, because I know you have to reach really hard or you get the impression you might have someone slip through your fingers pretty fast. Then you'll never know what might've happened. They might move away and you don't ever see them again. And you might end up a loner, long term. But the glimmer of hope is songs like this that will jolt you to get up off your ass in life, before the door winds up closing on you.. Time is of the essence. Life is very short. Encapsulate this, very simply, in a song - "Second Chance". | |
| Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Sometimes I allow myself to mis-hear or even mis-interpret slightly a song, and that happened with this song one morning when I was driving in to work. I heard a lot more of the creepy sounding, what I thought of as a impersonation of a character Kurt was typifying for us. It really hit me when he says the line "Oh no, I know a dirty word." What I did was to pretend other parts of the song wheren't there, and I kept on thinking of it as the kind of creepy young teen that is insecure, hormonal, and weirdly fascinated by things like sex, violence, dirty words, and other random malfeasance. So the song without the references to Nirvana the band of the 'scene' or anything like that, that you might hear in it. There are maybe a few artists that have done somthing like this, as a reference, and they are people Kurt would have listened to like Peter Gabriel ("The Intruder", "Couning Out Time", "Sledgehammer"), XTC ("Making Plans for Nigel" or "Dear God"). They typified a certain young kid at that time, is what I think. That's what I find so gosh darn beautiful. And I'm not sure it was entirely on purpose - I think they were free associated stuff... ideas, and it comes out to something that someone like me can 'discover' as a extension of the original 'meaning' that is pretty cool if you think about it for a second. So, for me, this is actually a sad cum angst-filled song about how a young boy takes a bite of the 'forbidden fruits' of life, which confused him and makes he excited and makes him feel guilty, all wrapped up in one, and consequently finds out that the new person he has become as a result, is one he doesn't necessarily like or fully understand, but that there is now, he discovers, no real chance of turning back from. Mirror with Kurt's heroin addiction, because I find many of these songs where a character is being played, are always played as being very similar to the artists themselves. An example that pops into my mind is Eminem when he do brilliantly created the character of 'Stan', who, whacked out a fan/person as Eminem may portray him to be, it's also very easy to detect the Eminem personality traits within the character. That's funny because, of course, Eminem actually plays both parts when he's rapping through the story in the song. | |
| Steely Dan – Things I Miss the Most Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| It's interesting to me the sly humor in this song, of framing a song ostensibly about divorce, in terms of (for the most part) objects. The truest, least irony-laced aspect of the song, for me, is the general tone of loss and reminiscence... a running theme with SD and one that they expounded upon nicely with this song (and this album). | |
| Chicago – Saturday In The Park Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This is a song about struggling with life and how to live it in the best way, and then suddenly hitting a break at some point and having a sense a peace just wash over you. Yes, it could be while taking a break to go out into a park for awhile and just seeing the people, the life, as it goes by.. coming back to earth for a bit, realizing that you have a lot of what you need already intact... you'll always be growing but for right now, in the moment, you are in the moment and you like being there... as you remember being many times in the past.. before all this 'struggling. It has a couple of layers to it involving protest and activism and so forth.. but I am just taking where I typically see it, at the high level. Of course it is Chicago, so the music itself is pretty much paradise on earth. The world would really suck if there was no Chicago... | |
| Supertramp – Goodbye Stranger Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| One of the greatest outro guitar solos of all time, at least in my book.. It just puts a bow on one of the best, coolest rock songs ever written. When it starts to fade out, the trick is to turn up.. the guitar solo's twists and turns in that last few seconds should shed a little more light on what the song's about... | |
| Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| On a tangent to this song, it's hard to know that it's good being a musician as unique as someone that would write a song like this.. the secret to having that inner confidence is to have friends who are doing the exact same thing. For many people I feel that Warren Zevon is actually one of those friends, through his songs. They reflect back to such unique people that it's a good thing to keep doing what they do for as long as they want. This is a phychological point. | |
| Eric Clapton – I Shot The Sheriff Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Songs like this are so decadently good that I think they served to kind of create unrealistic expectations on the part of those young people who were religiously listening to them. Specifically, they had the effect of getting inside their head and making them think they were more substantial then what they maybe really were. It's like this one guy said, years ago, when we were sitting around listening to music.. He said that listening to the Beatles as a kid, causes you to grow up too fast. For me, what I was listening to, to expand upon that thought, it was all along the lines of the types of songs you'd hear on the soundtrack to a Scorsese film. Clapton, Stones, Beatles, Cream, Roxy Music.. plus stuff like Steely Dan, the Dead, the Eagles, Bowie, Neil Young, the Allmans, etc.. all this stuff that had a pretty heavy, decadent, many times dark, and almost, at times, a criminal overtone to it. Not exactly the kind of stuff that if you took it seriously would inspire you to live life at the foot of the cross. Anyway, I think there is a funny psychological mechanism there that I noticed over time. It's worth understanding as one goes back to trace their path in order to be better in order to learn more about how the mind can work, espcially during the early, more formative years. And how that can lend one advantages in the present, as well. All things to people like EC! | |
| Steely Dan – Glamour Profession Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I drove the Chrysler... a LeBaron, one would guess. | |
| Ratatat – Wildcat Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Straight to the point, like it. | |
| Tom Petty – You Got Lucky Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I totally agree with the comments, you nailed it.. it's all about who did the choosing and who had the upper hand.. even though there is an obvious nod to the fact that it's really all subjective and more than likely the narrator was not the one in control. This is wonderfully borne out by the tremendously creative video in how it manages to find a creative complement, almost a counter point, to the song. The band members are playing rolls, kind of crusty traveler types, but it's in the future. And we know they are who they are, the rock star guys, too.. there's a little tongue in cheek to it.. but what relates to the song so nicely as the kind of further extension on the theme of the song, is how the seem to be wandering around aimlessly in some kind of semi-purposeful obscelence.. the setting is that of one of, what do you call it? A post-world? I forgot but you probably know what I mean. | |
| Eagles – Hotel California Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| .. Then there's the other majorly famous guitar part which is obviously at the end, the outro. Joe Walsh, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, trading solos with Don Felder, who is also one of the greatest players, though a lot lesser known. The lines are melodic and fairly simple, but what every guitar player knows about these lines, is that what's so kick ass about them is.. two things, the pick attack on the right hand, and the string bending on the left. Those two things, while subtle, are what makes the sound as brilliant as it is.. The playing is tasty, not complicated or technical. That's the beauty of it. Those are the little things are guitar player can pick up on, but a non-player can also get a sense of, just based on the way the guitar lines grab you as you listen. There's something in there for both types of listener. Just the perfect attack (and timing) on the string to give the notes a bite to them, and just the right amount of bending to the string.. they are very precise about it. I don't know any guitar player who can't sing the guitar lines at the end from memory and that has to tell you somethin. | |
| Eagles – Hotel California Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| What's with the drum fills?? I know there can be a lot of interpretations of this song, most of them merited, but for me this is quite simply one of the best rock songs ever written.. We all know that, right? But the question no one ever asks is, what's with the cheesy drum fills? Sorry Don, but I've always wondered about that. To share a memory of this song, a seminal memory of mine regarding learning to play the guitar was back in the late 80s, around the time one of the greatest things I had ever experienced became know to me.. the magazine "Guitar for the Practicing Musician". For anyone who doesn't know, this magazine (along with a couple of others, but this one was my favorite one) featured guitar tabs for about 4 or 5 great rock songs per month. These guitar tabs would show you exactly how to play the song, graphically, not in actual music notes. So it was fairly easy if you had any skill at all. Man, when I found out that they were going to have Hotel California in the next issue I was at the book store in the mall the first day it came out. I couldn't buy the damn thing because I didn't have much money as a kid, but I stood there is the store just looking at it trying to memorize it. Just the beginning part that is the famous opening arpeggios of chords.. that's the signature of the song. Layered guitars so perfect that sounds so good to me. | |
| Steve Miller Band – The Joker Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Lol.. I don't have a 4-track anymore either, so I can go back to refresh my memory on all the things he says.. but the one thing that stood out the most was when he said, very clearly, "nose candy... want some, mutherf**er". I think this was during the chorus. I have no idea how we got such awesome lyrics forward-wise, to say such precise naughty things in reverse. Talented guy he is.. | |
| Steely Dan – Deacon Blues Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| We used to play this album constantly for a few years in the early 90's.. kind of like a soundtrack. It was really good on the ears and the mind at the time.. still is but it is a little bit different now. Anyhow, the funny thing is that I actually tried to learn how to play the sax so I could be like the guy in the song. I'm gonna tell you that is one hell of a hard instrument to play! Especially the soprano. My friend was a great sax player, still is to this day. He was kind of the Kid Charlemagne character in it all. But he has an excellent band over in England now, as should be because he plays that damn hard instrument better than I have ever heard it played before. Jazz, improv. We used to worship Charlie Parker all day long... and Coltrane of course. I never understood that kind of jazz... bebop. Who really does? Regarding Aja, there is a video where they explain the whole thing if you want to check it out.. it's on Netflix. That explains a lot about these songs. They are about what you think they are, pretty much.. although the Dan always leaves a little room for open interpretations. Sort of the bigger picture view, real quick, is that I could really see the divergence beginning to occur between Walter's style and Donald's.. I mean, they would each later grow on their own only to fuse back together again and then split apart again and develop into their peak, which they are at now. I think Donald got off drugs earlier on and Walter went into the 80's. You see that Donald was moving more into a more sparse, swanked up, groove oriented thing. I think he had more of a good beat on how to transition things into the 80's (hard thing to do). But I still think he struggled. When he hit the 90's, though, he really make a leap forward.. then it became more murky again as he fused back with Walter again. Walter, I believe, has a better grasp of the drug tinged intellectual's skewed vision of the world. I like where 'Circus Money' was going.. just like I liked where 'Kamikiriad' was going. I would try to put them both together and open things up a bit more, not locked in to things as much.. but without going too far where it winds up weakening the overall songs you end up with. That would be really cool. | |
| Steely Dan – Black Friday Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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What I find funny is the trajectory if you look at the early Dan songs, like this one, and then trace from there to "Everything Must Go" and then to "The Night Belongs to Mona". So we start out with "Black Friday" which is obviously about this knowledge they most people, including the narrator, are living beyond their means or too decadently.. and that come one day, everyone is gonna have to pay. It's gallows humor. This type of thing was a recurrent theme in the Dan albums. I have a feeling they found this a compelling part of society and one which they thought they could add some ironic insight into. After all, there is a parrallel of some sorts between rock stars and high flying gamblers or business tycons for that matter. The Dan never really condemned businessmen because one of their own interests seems to be gambling. So anyway, that brings us to "Everything Must Go".. given the events around the time, 2003, this was a fitting way for them to revisit the theme. The difference is that this time their is a heightened dosage of humor and fatalistic view of life. And I think we get the Dan commenting more on the guys a little bit younger this time, as opposed to maybe a little bit older. Now, "The Night Belongs to Mona" comes along, and, for me at least, it's aimed at someone from Gen X.... their life started back during "Black Friday" and they were just small. By the time of 2003, they were well into the "work force". Seeing the destruction of Enron and 9/11, but too engulfed to really see it or fully feel it. Maybe a little drunk or drugged the whole time...but now it is sinking in, along with new and bigger problems... so we are just basically a smoking heap leftover trying in vain to move forward. This song tells you the hard truth.. that the only solution seemed to be, to jump off a building. Now, I realize that this is truly not funny... but Fagen made the whole album about coming to terms with death. And he realized that there was nothing to be afraid of, in getting old. After all, look at what the younger generation was left with.. not much. And there's not much he could do to help, other to use his music to reach out and touch someone. His type of music might just have mutated over the years, into just the thing needed to soothe a generation from the horrors that lie ahead. I find that funny. |
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| Steely Dan – Oh Wow It's You Again Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The Dan is so cerebral.. this song and the others that were demos they did and other stuff not released on any of their albums, provide a great example of that inward looking quality and kind of quizzical dark overtone to the songs (not that they are depressing at all.. they are so soulful that it makes for a good interplay of qualities). Although I always thought there was kind of an issue with the Dan regarding how their songs would translate in a live setting, that was the only issue I ever saw. It is more than made up for by the unique power of these cerebral, witty, impressionistic songs with great jazz influenced completely innovative rock compositions behind it. It's two guys that I never get tired of listening to, whether it be the songs or the various interviews they do every so often. It's funny to reflect on the model that they went by, why they did it, and how I, as a life long fan ever since I was a teenage kid, had my life and my understanding of art altered by it. It is similar in many ways to that quantum leap the Beatles took around 66-67, when they started to focus on the album as a wide ranging and experimental concepts.. and thing of ideas, innovative as to how it could transport the listener somewhere and delight inpire their thoughts and ear.... | |
| Funkadelic – Undisco Kidd Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I like how it transitions back into this kind of serious sounding section at the end. It had been taking you though this basic story of a woman and kind of getting loose and goofy and sexy.. then at then end it kind of goes back to this chill out groove as we fade out. It just kind of tells me that they really take sexy women seriously. You have this same kind of structure in some of the better rap songs to. I really like when structure is seen as important and you find this throughout black music. Look at James Brown songs and the way they move from one thing to another. The transitions. That is a big part of what is so fascinating and fun about these artists. | |
| Death in Vegas – Hands Around My Throat Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| No seriously.. I don't pay that much attention to the lyrics because they are basically an instrumental band.. the lyrics are just there as one element along with the others and is just repetitive. Kind of like in Fatboy Slim songs. I get a feeling from it, just like I used to when it originally came out. But now I think about what the appeal is? Funny, I think it diagrams for me, abstractly through it's sounds and conceptual qualities, the internal dilemma of people that are caught between their creative side and their inability to really feel serious about pursuing it, and then, if not that, being left standing in a kind of limbo. Not that it necessarily feels bad. Could it be that authenticity, which was so important to 'indie' music and much of the rock that precursored it since the 60s, could go to the extreme of making one feel playing music itself is somehow inauthentic or poseurish. You ask yourself, what is the purpose of this? And it is thus that you continue to court ambivalence. Somehow work, substance, is the key. Pain, to some extent... the quest to triumph over it. Then having a new understand of 'music' and the pain the artists express via their exuberance. Manic-ness. Final escape of some sort. Freedom if there is such a thing. Maybe the point is to communicate better so that we can all collectively learn more and grow to be better more effective and more lead more substantive lives. The journey to get there is confusing to just figure out overnight.. it takes time and a lot of thinking.. full of twists and turns. Sometimes you are just following instinct as you continue to work hard each day.. and practicing some sort of creativity each day. Then, answers come.. | |
| Greg Kihn Band – Jeopardy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I like the way they funk up the basic relationship on the rocks song... it's got such a driving force to it and sounds so good, like a dance/party song.. that it makes it seem transcendent of what it's about. That's one of those little kernals of basic rock cleverness and I always have to credit someone for coming at a song that way.. it just sits there in the background.. but it gives the song a dual quality that's there.. you feel it. Even though it was a hit, it was a very respectable, clever one. It crossed barriers a bit. I like how back then, people didn't really want to put a song out unless there was a 'reason'. Even a simple type of song had a lot behind it, whether you could totally see it or not. There was a sense of professionalism. Now, I like pared down, punk type music a helluva lot, don't get me wrong. But you even find that professionalism there, as well. When you don't, the music typically sucks. I just like how music challenges our notions of what works and how, it defies those assumptions to come out a winner in the end. I love the creativity of it. I always feel like each good song is in some way defying all the odds.. but I guess that's because I'm a musician myself. Just the same, I think non-musicians can sense it.. the songs parlay over to almost everyone -- they're created that way.. that's how brilliant rock music is. | |
| The Beatles – A Day in the Life Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| John contemplating a world that is quickly devolving and coming apart at the seems.. while at the same time moving into interesting new frontiers.. and his response to all of this is that of a slightly passive, stoned, outside observer... his reflections are filtered through the world of media and art, all of which were in the process of becoming increasingly innovative and pervasive in everyone's lives. The disinterested quality is kind of a product of that and, to my mind, was something that continued on through many years later, into the 90s, with the 'slacker' label we all got (rightfully so, perhaps). I wonder if there is also a subconcious thought he's having here about whether his contributions to this new emerging 'art', and that of his contemporaries, is really helping the situation, or just making it worse. He was always so smart like that, being able to see both sides of the coin when it was most critical to have done so, but also when so few people actually were able to like him. So, at the end of the day, I think this is a song that contemplates a life of confusion, bewilderment, ecstasy, ambilivence, engagement, tempation, violence, brilliance, all converging on eachother simultaneously... that's why you hear the cacophy at the end.. but remember, that's followed by the incredible 4 beatles all hitting the same chord on the grand pianos in unison (then followed by a loop of weirdo beatles chatter if you have the actual LP). Good stuff. Hardly gets any better. | |
| The Rolling Stones – You Can't Always Get What You Want Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| What do you want? What does anybody want? That's a powerful question. But if you understand the basic idea that you can't always get what you want, but that instead you might be something you need.. then you have real advantage in life. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in what we want, and the simple process of not getting it can actually lead to a good amount of personal growth. The other day my 4 year old son heard this song playing on the tv and looked over at his Mommy and stated simply, you always get what you want.. he couldn't understand why in the hell this dumb song was saying anything any different... | |
| The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Put simply this is a brilliant timely song (at just about any time you pick) about the type of person who feels scared of life as it exists and is begging for some kind of shelter. It is simple but means quite a bit. One of the greatest rock songs every written, too. | |
| Donald Fagen – H Gang Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This is part mythical and part reality-based. The myth is of rock music and how some young girl springs from some sort of messed up, pain filled background but blessed with creativty and emerges out into the world in order to give all the hungry music fans (regular people around the world who need this stuff to survive) all around the world what they need. It's magic what she's doing with this mythical group. The reality is there are a lot of really cool people that for whatever reason have a lot of personal problems, many times it's related to how they live their life a little different in seeking out the fun of it all, they might be a little disheveled and disorganized but there is another part of them in which they are extremely organized and that is when they are doing their 'music'. At different levels, these are the Steely Dans of the world. That's them or it could be quite a few others. Maybe Little Richard or the Stones or Miles Davis. The legends. It all really sprung up from the cotton fields of the South. This also has to be about redemption, and I like how it is 'imagined'.. Fagen gets at it in a way where you get the real sense of it, the sense that we are dealing with redemption, but not necessarily the happy movie type where it really happens for all to see.. the sense where it is in the girl's imagination and recollection of past glories. A jaded sense of redemption and triumph. |
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| Billy Joel – Scenes From An Italian Restaurant Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| When my wife and I originally starting dating, she probably realized I was a musician of sorts and a music lover, among a lot of other things. Maybe some she liked, maybe others she was kind of leery about. It wasn't like she didn't have musical tastes of her own, and what was interesting was how those tastes found thereself a common ground of sorts. Enter the Billy Joel boxed set she used to carry around... and this song. This song it was so funny because she would play it and then proceed to act out the whole thing. It was very dramatic. The song is very dramatic. Our lives were often very dramatic. I found the whole thing very endearing. Those were the days. My part in all of this was to flip the CD over to Captain Jack because that's where Billy Joel very interestingly utilizes the word 'materbate'.. and in juvenile fashion I would make the CD repeat that one line over and over again, endlessly.. with the windows down, in traffic. I have ultimate respect for Billy Joel. There really is no one quite that special and talented to the extreme level. That said, my musical taste, especially back then, was a little bit in a different area than a simple Billy Joel collection, per se. Captain Jack was definitely one of those curiousities were I just always had to kind of look at the thing askew. But, then again, most likely because of his enormous talent, and that experience I had back years ago with my wife to be, that that song completely grows on me. After all, if you listen to it, it is a very respectful good song in a really weird way. Same with this song, Scenes From an Italian Restaurant..LOL! | |
| Steely Dan – Dr Wu Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Katy lies... I'm not suprised. | |
| Bob Dylan – Desolation Row Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Must've been some strong weed... | |
| Weezer – Say It Ain't So Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| This is absolutely brilliant! The great thing is how these songs just come along right when they are most profound. That's what happen to me. I remember drinking a lot and feeling nervous quite a bit, just about the future or whatever the latest mishap I had run up on. Somehow instead of being a musician in a band or a filmmaker or something cool like that, you know something that would gel with my real disposition in life and even allow to the kind of partying lifestyle.. I don't know that I ever considering drinking a lot of partying to be a perjorative like everyone else in authority seemed to. I could never understand them or the world in general; it seemed like Greek to me. I did understand it but I didn't 'get' it. I also knew that there were dangers in doing too much of anything. I didn't really ever think of diving in face first into drinking, per se. Going for broke or whatever. There are probably, actually not probably because I know a few of the, people that just kept going on with what I was doing and never really got so quigged out about the whole thing like I did. I'm sure they adapted at least somewhat, and I don't know if what their life is like it what I would consider as being necessarily all that fun. Everyone has a job, obviously or there would be no income. This song is simple but deep..that's the best kind. It's about life. I recall one night I was at a wild party out in the woods at some place that we all went to. It was about to rain and there was a lot of lightening. I was talking to this older dude who seemed pretty cool.. don't know who he was at all. But I kept seeing lightening coming across the sky behind his head this whole time and it was really cool. Anyway, I was talking to him in this neurotic fashion like I just did just now.. and he basically looked at me and said, that's great.. just keep that up... keep thinking... You'll eventually figure everything out. That really stuck with me, after all these years. That's what it's all about. Confusion can be sorted out although it may take quite a few years and a great deal of clever thinking. It's worth it, for sure. Some of us have to understand life really well in order to function properly! | |
| Donald Fagen – Florida Room Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I wish this story happened to me. | |
| Steely Dan – Hey Nineteen Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Skate a little lower now. | |
| Afghan Whigs – What Jail Is Like Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| If heroin inspired this music, then I gotta be crass and suggest that somehow their heroin use was a good thing! This song changed my life, the video as I saw it when it was out back in the early 90's. I'm glad for many songs/videos heroin addicts.. somehow we have to survive the screwed up world and sometimes the best way is through access to 'art'. Yes that makes sense. | |
| Eminem – The Real Slim Shady Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Guess there's a Slim Shady in all of us.. let's all stand up. | |
| Eagles – Take It To The Limit Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| A kind of modern day bandito making his ode to beating back the burn out.. favorite line comes late "when there's nothing to believe in". That line struck me and I said, hmmmm, I wonder if he knows how profound that is in the context of the song and it's progression of examples of how this burned out feeling has affected him.. he obviously had the experience himself and that is what's so cool about bands like this, is no matter how larger than life the bands/songs were, they were always talking about their own life experiences and the things they went through along the way.. good and bad. | |
| Jane's Addiction – Mountain Song Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'm not sure exactly what impact this band had on my teenage years, good or bad.. I'm just looking at the album cover for "Nothing's Shocking" and it reminds me of how, back then, there was this little shop that had like incense and some knick knacks, maybe they had pipes I don't know.. and LP's back then, in addition to CD's and tapes... it was the place to go to find a lot of what had been by then labelled as 'alternative' music... and I distinctly remember they had a huge display of the cover of this album, a promotional thing. It was so cool.. you used to just get a buzz out stuff like this because it was totally unique.. their sound, to this day, is so remarkable in how they put together elements of funk and metal.. all around you have to admit it is a great sound.. the guitars are so decadent.. they did it as a wall of sound.. of crunch sound, but also the high notes with all the sustain in them. It's really a feat of production in so many ways, in addition to all it meant culture-wise, at least to me. I'm a guitarist so what just kills me is Dave Navarro's guitars.. he is one hell of a talented guy and innovative. The sound he puts together, with the layering and all the fills. He must of just been having a field day. These guys, Perry and all of them, seem like they already had the world beat before they even got the first album made. And then it just kind of came in went, in a fit of intensity not unlike the women's flaming naked bodies. Love that! Of course, as I said, their influence spans far and wide (not just in the music world, but in the lives of all teenage kids like me who's world completely changed the first time they hit 'play' on this baby..) | |
| Metallica – Dyers Eve Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| This has to be drug-fueled.. the killer thing is it is obviously the epic Metallica masterpiece.. a theme album that has continuity all the way through, and songs that transition instead of just separate 'singles' for radio play. I can't even explain it, but just the angst and the intelligence with which they capture enough to put the thoughts forward, but not too much, and then just the all out mastery with the jams.. I could go on for awhile about all the different influences and what I like about how the put this all together. It is succint, really and just a gut punch... I think that's what they wanted. And the production itself is a whole thing you can behold unto itself. Immaculate. All the guitars - this is a turn it up loud as hell and kiss your hearing goodbye type of affair. It just strikes me as a little bit of coke fueled mid-career genious sets in, like happened with all the great bands and the whole studio/production laser focus. Maybe you wouldn't so much expect that type of thing with a metal band, per se... then again they were so tight with the guitar playing, so maybe. But preening over something so much, that's what's outside the box about these guys... and they proved they could reinvent some and carry a little bit further, too. This just goes under the category, of yeah music is music and good music is good music, but you normally just listen, nothing really blows you away.. this blows you the hell away and makes it look effortless........ | |
| Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Basically the feeling I get is that it is about Syd, but they subtlely widen it out to capture both themselves and their listeners.. a whole group of similar people.. their fans, etc. Those who live a particular lifestyle that is both cool and also perilous, being an outsider, etc. And then, beyond that, it is actually widening out the subject to the idea of a kind of nostalgia.. wish you were here. Wish the better times could be here again... knowing they can't. Maybe what this is about is a process for reckoning with a unique life with a very unique set of experiences, knowing that there is now a certain level of anxiety and that, to some extent, what one believe was going to continue on down the road, was just a temporary experience... but somehow there is a process of looking back and reckoning with it all, being able to cut it loose at the same time is appreciating it (even the downside of it all). You have to accept a kind of compromise, but you know that the truth of life and those things you sought out and continue to seek out, are special and you are still driven by them. It's just a question of keeping the perspective right, which is what these songs often help us do. In this case it is remembering that there is always casualties, always a downside... but that something very special was experienced and witnessed and something greater was created out of it all..maybe. | |
| Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Yeah it's about all that. What I also remember quite vividly, is when I would hear this song on the radio in the early 90's all the time, and it just seemed to have an insight of some kind into our lives -- me and the others I hung out with. We would have a band and have band practice... most of which time was dedicated to drinking beer and smoking. I remember the beer in crates.. 24 packs. It wasn't hard to drink it between the band practice and later on in the night, at parties. This song fits right into that, even though you can analyze it, the mournful quality mixed with the grand quality of the song itself even though it is pretty simple and straightforward it is really on target and knows what it wants to be, and the bit of psychedelia mixed in.. it's funny.. it is me or do they seem to be trying to get through the concept of how drugs can both be a kind of brave new thing for life.. yet the life itself is very near to perplexity and even madness.. depression that is mixed in with potential insight into a new life. They are realizing that things are pretty fucked up and are both hopeful and scared. They feel like the answer will come but they have no idea how or when.. they like this feeling but they just feel inperiled in some way.. then they pick up the guitars and start writing.. good stuff | |
| Nine Inch Nails – Closer Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| It's the outro section that makes this song so damn good. I remember the time period this came out and it was a trend setter as far as the video imagery and so forth. It was a very interesting time... there was kind of an ongoing development almost a dialogue going on between bands and video directors and I find it very interesting where they took it. It was very synchronized with a lifestyle, and I'm not going to elaborate much on that because I don't have that much time or energy. It had to due with life very specifically, but at a psychological level.. fumbling at coming to grips with what was in one's head as well as in one's life. To me, it kind of exhuasted it's energy, as tends to happen. So life did change simultaneously with that.. it all was moving together, funny. Then it seems like a fracture happened so everything kind of dispersed for awhile. In short, it took time and is still taking time, to resolve itself into what it's going to mutate into down the road. That's already in progress. It's sort of complex, sort of just plain viscearal and grass roots too. But there is a bunch of music that has sprung up during the in between times, that reminds me of the hair band in between time. I'm not going to name names because you might be unpleasantly suprised. Although I can take some of it and I do understand it, and I think whoever they were working with for production, etc. probably helps them shape things.. so you wind up with something decent or workable, even to the old stalwarts like me. "You get me closer to god." | |
| Steely Dan – The Caves of Altamira Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I saw the Dan live in 2003, the opener in Southern California, and they opened with this. I was really taken aback and got choked up, I'll never forget that. That was the first time I ever saw them lived, after being a fan for my entire life. The one thing I began to consider at some point, was the issue of album versus performance. For instance, I think this is one of the best rock songs ever written, and I can think of how it might be good live, as a cover tune, but somehow the problem I see with the Dan is that while they really developed and in some senses mastered the whole concept of album oriented, conceptual, songs.. it sometimes doesn't come over that same way live. It's two different animals. Anyway, that one night when they played it I was blown away - I was so in awe of the whole thing. There was an electricity going with them, and me. That night I wasn't thinking about the idea of album versus performance (some stuff in the 70s and much of what it influenced in the 80s and 90s, could be almost completely built for consumption via CD, radio, home stereo. and thought about as a 'concept'.. not just the songs but the bands, the characters.) | |
| Donovan – Atlantis Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| This plays in the bg during Goodfellas while they are beating the shit out of Billy Batts. Why, I have no idea.. but it works... It really works. Actually, if you think about the way the two elements juxtapose, in the context of all the other songs he uses during the film... it does start to make sense. In one way it softens what would otherwise be an out and out brutality scene. Somehow when we think of rock 'n roll and how it operates in our life, as he plays during the stages of Henry Hill's life, we get what the movie is about. We don't get caught up in the violence that the characters are involved in on ocassion, and we understand that it has to do more with the love/hate relationship our culture has with the things we do to get by and the things we often wind up doing because we are tempted to do it or someone else was doing it or we saw someone doing it in a movie. | |
| Gary Puckett & The Union Gap – Young Girl Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I always liked this song in a sort of ironic way. I imagine the guy singing with a high ball in his hand in a lounge somewhere.. with a leisure suit on and all that. Plus I'd like to be in that situation just once.. he's saying 'you're much too young girl'.. but really, what he's thinking is, hell yes.. give me some more of that! | |
| Aimee Mann – King of the Jailhouse Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The sense I get of this is, again it's based on my own personal experiences combined with what the song says to me, is of a point in time where you, here you being the female, have nothing to lose any more and are kind of just living on vitamin c and cocaine, as the Dead once sang. Speaking of the Dead, it kind of relates to the whole thing of those people who followed them around. I could never doing anything like that, but I always looked at those people from afar in a sort of admiring way. I guess it just seems like I would get insecure about sort of unmooring myself like that with no real income and just partying and letting it roll. My style was to sit there and party myself silly, but still have a steady day job. I am neurotic and possibly insane, but I have learned how to funnell it. So this song, though, is in the perspective of a couple that kind of jointly is running away, escaping whatever crime they or he has committed, knowing they are in some ways irrevocably chaning their lives. And it is just opening the window into that moment where you are kind of in a limbo before you go down the tubes completely.. it's a freeing moment. It's a time when you finally feel like you can accept yourself at a very premlinary level. All the crap gets stripped away. Later, if you make it, you might do this yet again, but getting more towards an end game in terms of your ascension, as I will call it. But that's just talk.. I see this song in a very cinematic way, meaning that I don't exactly connect it to hard and fast reality per se, it has more of an imagery, and atmosphere, and conceptional/emotional impact. Aimee is a friend of PT Anderson - remember that she had that great song in "Magnolia", which isn't my favorite PT Anderson film. I'm partial to "Boogie Nights", which is imperfect, but it's totally totally original, I totally totally get it.. kind of like a Scorsese "Casino"... not necessarily a tried and true masterpiece, in the conventional sense, film... but the originality and the innovation, and the rock 'n roll-ness of it and the statement it makes, and the conversation it has with you.. what it means, is what stays with so much more than just a typical good film... | |
| 10,000 Maniacs – Eat For Two Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| This dramatizes very cleverly and simply, several related things... the issue that was big at the time, teen pregnancy (which in and of itself is always a really big issue for society and for those who experience it), the idea of having trouble finding your place in life (which is hard at various times in life, a big one being when one is a teenager), the idea of being hit with a very tough situation all of the sudden which results from simply wanting to having fun and induldge in experience and being somewhat burned by it, and the concept of going from being responsible for yourself (which can be hard enough) to having a child who will be dependant upon you. I think it is instictual to want to take care of something, it is built in. The experience is one of shock, followed by either a fight or flight. If you fight, I think you will win in the end because it will be the way you find your true character and true self.. when you 'eat for two'. If you've been there, then you know....... | |
| Stevie Ray Vaughan – Texas Flood Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| When Stevie played this live at the Montreux Jazz Fest, in like the early early days.. the jazz fans just booed. Can you believe that shit? I think you can get that live version. You want the live version here he absolutely just kills it ... he KILLS it. He is God.. but still some don't get it. They thought this guy was wanking around... I mean not later on but to some extent for many years he wasn't taken all that seriously. But that's common to not be fully understood, when you are so so far ahead of your time.. people don't completely get it until later. Oh, and years later I actually saw the video footage and he's playing it behind his back. FUCKIN BEHIND HIS BACK and listen to it. Because obviously he was totally obsessed with Jimi. Jimi and Stevie are jamming in heaven right now! | |
| Elton John – Daniel Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Part of the pinnacle of rock music craft... they did this over and over again which is pure geniuos... when you listen to it's like a continual communion with perfection.. if you have that you are always going to be suprised by it.. but it is kind of a two way street. This song reminds me of my uncle for some reason.. and when I was 5 or 6... I remember all hit songs. In fact, my Dad would pick me up for visitations and it was ackward and we went on a road trip to see family in the country.. and to pass the time he would play a game with me where I would name all the tunes and the artists... this was on the oldies station. I never missed one that I can recall. But this was just the early stages of a life long obsession. My uncle I associate with a certain atmosphere and certain vulnerability and he was just alway a happy, free spirit. This is how I remember those years and it has a lot to do with the music and overal culture of the times. This is how I came up.. welcome to "my country". Now he is ill and I realize what's coming and when I feel bad I just listen to more Elton John tunes. He loves Elton. Who doesn't? To me it's inspeperable from life. Nostaligia. How we deal with the ups and downs. How we connect with nature. It's all one 'thing'. Frienship... The old days..when we were just "Goodfellas" | |
| Steely Dan – The Caves of Altamira Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I hide inside a hall of rock and sand. | |
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