| The Beatles – I'm Down Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Well done EyeMTheWalrus for mentioning Shea Stadium - that footage is priceless. it really shows how insecure Lennon was and how much he relied on the guitar while on stage to divert attention away from himself. On the subject of this song, it's fantastic. Quite possibly the best thing Macca ever wrote. He has that gravel in his voice that you can hear on 'Oh Darling' in the lines "When you told me, you didn't need me anymore" etc, the big difference being that this is a good ole rock n roller as opposed to a piano ballad. Think about the fact that this song and 'Rain' were both used as Beatles' b-sides! It's absurd. This song is the one that Little Richard tried to write for about 15 years but couldn't quite do it. Macca did it in 5 minutes! |
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| The Beatles – Can You Take Me Back Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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If you believe the Paul is Dead rumours, this is supposedly Paul's replacement, realising he has taken on far too much by joining the Beatles and living this enormous lie, he just wants to find a way to get back home. If you don't believe in the PiD rumour then it's probably just an incomplete song - John and Paul had hundreds of these. George has often said that, by the time of the White Album, ego dictated everything, which is why John thought it was right to include 'Revolution 9' and Paul thought it right to include endless fade-out, fade back in sections on 'Helter Skelter' (which sound great, by the way). This may explain why Paul decided to use a bit of a song he had lying around. By the way, it's definitely "Brother, can you take me back", not Robert. And yes, Dr Robert was a drug dealer, one known to the rich and famous throughout the UK in the mid-60's. |
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| The Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Further to above comment, it's really interesting to hear the version that might have been from 'Anthology 2' - it's essentially a Byrds rip-off, all jangly and nothing like the driving riff they eventually came up with. | |
| The Beatles – And Your Bird Can Sing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Totally agree with tinord. Money can buy you all of these things, but not me. One day you will realise this and cast your possessions aside in the pursuit of true happiness. When you do that, I'll be there. That's basically the message here. This is the best Beatles tune - bar none - and I don't make a statement like that lightly. 'Revolver' showed an incredible leap in maturity in terms of song composition and recording techniques (we have to rememeber that George Martin was still learning too) from any of their previous albums. Backward guitar, manually created tape loops - you name it, it's pretty much on 'Revolver'. |
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| George Harrison – When We Was Fab Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"Caresses fleeced you in the morning light, casualties at dawn" is clearly a reference to the crash that killed McCartney and Rita in November '66. Paul stopped to pick someone up (lovely Rita) she noticed who he was when he started driving, lost control and started grabbing him and hugging him, Paul lost control of the car and hit a lamp post. If you don't believe any of this then listen to 'Revolution 9' - it's all in there. 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' is all about George struggling to cope without Paul and, thereafter, on each album (Beatles and solo) he included some reference to Paul being dead. Of course, he's not dead, but the Beatles definitely built up the myth quite deliberately. McCartney keeps it going to this day - his last solo album was full of messages about his own death. |
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| Inspiral Carpets – This Is How It Feels Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The whole song is about depression and loneliness. The first verse is definitely about the depression of the mother, and her husband thinking he's to blame, but they can't tell the kids hence it is put down to "another bad day". The "black car" definitely refers to a hearse. Of course, these are not the original lyrics. The original second verse was: "There's a funeral in the town some guy from the top estate it seems they found him under a train and yet he had it all on a plate". When you see this it becomes clear that a man who was seemingly doing well in life threw himself under a train as a result of his depression. Sadly, they had to change the train reference following the tragic murder of James Bulger. |
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| The Libertines – Can't Stand Me Now Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Musically, this is no more advanced than anything else the band has produced (although that's not to say that it's not bloody brilliant, and the harmonica at the end is a touch of genius) but the call and response vocal performances from Pete and Carl on this one took the band to a new level. "Have we enough to keep it together, or do we just keep on pretending, and hope our luck is never-ending?" I think we all knew the answer to that one. It was never going to last. Through the vocals you can almost feel the genuine love that existed between these two, but coming through equally clearly is the inevitability that things couldn't continue for much longer. By this point, we had already been on the rollercoaster with the boys for what seemed like a lifetime and we all knew it had to crash and burn. This writer is just thankful that the band produced such unbelievable demonstrations of their collective abilities (which have subsequently been shown to have been much more than the sum of their parts) on brilliant records such as this before it all went down | |
| Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think this is the song that reminded everyone that Dave Grohl, talented singer/songwriter that he is, really belongs on the stool behind them skins. 'No One Knows' would be a good song with a standard drum arrangement, but with Grohl's playing, it becomes an excellent one. As well as the drumming, this song also includes one of my favourite tricks, namely taking everything but one instrument out of the equation unexpectedly at the beginning of a verse, then throwing it back in halfway through. The bass sounds fantastic during this section. Add a fantastic video into the mix and you have the complete package here. | |
| Dire Straits – Tunnel Of Love Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The best track Mark Knopfler ever created - bar none. This is a magical story about meeting a girl, liking her, and not wanting to spoil things by getting too deep. The song begins with Knopfler telling us that he likes the dangerous side of life, using fairground metaphors "Getting crazy on the walzers, but it's the life that I choose". Amongst the riff-raff he finds a like-minded female "In a screaming ring of faces I seen her standing in the light. She had a ticket for the races, yeah, just like me she was a victim of the night" and the girl decides they should enjoy the moment but remain anonymous in order to retain feeling of mystery and danger "It's just the danger when you're riding at your own risk. She said you are the perfect stranger, she said baby let's keep it like this". Then, in a bid to retain the feeling that the nameless relationship is perfect in its current state, she walks away and Mark knows its best not to go after it, but to remember this good time for what it was "And in the roar of dust and diesel I stood and watched her walk away. I could have caught up with her easy enough but something must have made me stay". However, he has a late change of heart, and sets off to find her "now i'm searching through these carousels and the carnival arcades". Many speculate that the song is merely about having a good time at a fun park, but I think there is a deeper meaning here. For example, "the big wheel keep on turning" in my mind is a clear reference to the fact the world keeps turning regardless of how he plays this out, and he claims that he is "high on this world" thanks to the excitement of the day, then he requests that the girl "take a low ride with me...on the Tunnel of Love". This seems to suggest to me that he knows falling in love would remove the "high" and the danger, but he still wants to get to that stage anyway. Musically, this has a curious opening (namely 'The Carousel Waltz') but, once it kicks into life, you know it's Dire Straits. Knopfler's playing on this track is more influenced by the blues than you may think. He sings a line, plays a bit, sings a line, plays a bit - a blues trait if ever there was one. Speaking of the guitar work, on this track the man really excelled himself. His solos are often similar to David Gilmour's in that he doesn't just play the whole way through the instrumental sections, he leaves plenty of gaps - an often underrated idea - and every time he stops for breath it just leaves the listener begging for more. Great playing, great lyrics - one of the best songs of the 80's without any shadow of a doubt. | |
| The Jam – Town Called Malice Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The bass line is ripped off from 'You Can't Hurry Love' by the Supremes. That aside, this is the stuff of genius. Weller had a gift for seeing what was happening around him differently to almost everyone else, this is why he was able to pen lyrics like this, 'Strange Town' and 'That's Entertainment' with such ease. He pretty much took over where Ray Davies, who had a similar gift, left off. I guess the fact that the Jam's cover of 'David Watts' would've been like Weller taking the baton from Davies to run his leg of the relay. | |
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