| Hozier – Someone New Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[teaspill:7984] That's what I thought on my first listens. But I was focusing on the second verse and had not yet seen the video. Then I saw this. "Hozier’s song is a brilliant, pathetic portrait of a significant part of today’s generation (and I’m including all ages, not just millennials). One YouTube commenter accurately called it Tinder’s theme song—isolated people looking for connection but finding only momentary thrills that leave them empty and, more often than not, leave those who foolishly fall for their manipulations broken and hurt, confused about what happened between the flood of passionate communications—the poetry, the songs, the gentle words of knowing—and the cold, distracted silence after the moment has passed....What I appreciate most about “Someone New”—and I do think it is a superbly written commentary on our social condition—is that it doesn’t necessarily glorify this life of despair (at least I hope not). One revealing point is when Hozier confesses to waking “at the first cringe of morning, and my heart’s already sinned.” Then he adds, “How pure, how sweet a love, Aretha, that you would pray for him.” The reference is to Aretha Franklin’s famous song “Say a Little Prayer,” which was released in 1968. The contrast between the two songs is striking...." Whole thing here: http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/04/someone-new-by-hozier-is-the-sad-anthem-of-our-age/ It's up on one of his fan sites and where fans are asking him to comment. |
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| Shawn Colvin – I Want It Back Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| The song is about Bill Clinton. Some feminists were appalled when allegations of rape started popping up in his early days as President. Most feminists covered for him. I believe it was Steinem who said something like he was a bastard but he was our bastard. Others like Colvin and later Maureen Dowd (who won a Pulitzer for her work on this topic) regretted their initial support for him. This song is about that regret. | |
| Brandon Flowers – Only The Young Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[Glorp:5632], sorry for delay in reply. I've wanted to get to this for weeks. Thank you for this comment, the others, and the reddit thread I've not had a chance to check out yet. This weekend. This kind of stuff is one of my favorite topics. This post is old on the references, but still holds. http://americanhousewifeinlondon.blogspot.com/2011/07/christianity-in-pop-culture-pop-music.html I didn't write up many of those songs, but I will talk about this pretty much anytime. My contact info can be found at the link. |
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| The Killers – Miss Atomic Bomb Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Since you are the first comment or review I've seen get this song meaning right, what's your take on the bit about I'm standing here/Sweat on my skin. Did she come back to seek him, or is that what he says to her in his dreams? And isn't it "And am I too late?" I think the "shockwave whisper" line suggests that she came back later and he walks away, but it is the section of the song I'm least sure of. | |
| Brandon Flowers – Playing With Fire Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| It is an evangelists song. Flowers is talking about the need to go out and engage the culture rather than staying in the safe haven of a Christian community. It is very religious. It isn't about doing his own thing but about doing what Christians are required to do, go out into the world and spread the Good News. | |
| Train – All I Ever Wanted Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The key line is don't you know that this is where the strong will go on. My post is too long for this site, so here: http://americanhousewifeinlondon.blogspot.com/2011/04/while-we-are-talking-about-weddings-and.html | |
| Brandon Flowers – Only The Young Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Only the Young is easily the most powerful song on Flamingo. I know BF says you can’t be cool and be Mormon, well, he’s doing a pretty good job. This album is far more religious than most suspect. Sorry to stomp on his coolness now, but Only the Young is a song about the Christian walk. It’s a witness song. Christians witness to non-Christians when they tell their story about their coming to God or some struggle in their walk with God. This is both. One source on the web says that this song is a hymn, too. I haven’t found the authority for that, but it is. A hymn is a typically a song to God, while a gospel song is about us or worldly things. On the Floor, the prayer song, is a gospel song. Only the Young is an ongoing conversation between Brandon and God. To help you understand the song, I’m going to add what BF left out. I don’t know if he would the structure up exactly as I have, but this should help it make sense. I’ll treat the chorus last. The first verse is about the first time one questions all that is wrong in the world. We’ve all done it. Why is there bad in the world? Imagine BF praying before he really accepted God. This is how the conversation goes: God: Look back in silence; the cradle of your whole life. There in the distance, loosing its greatest pride. 
BF: Nothing is easy, nothing is sacred. Why? Where did the bough break? 
God: It happened before your time. God says to look back and long ago you will see the Fall. Why is everything hard? Man disobeyed. God told them not to eat the fruit, but once they disobeyed, then they knew shame. Think of a dog that sneaks the food off the table. They always seem to know they have done wrong. So it was with Man. They had innocence and God provided everything for them, but when they disobeyed, they ran and hid because they knew they had done wrong. From that time life has been difficult for Man. In the video the dancers fall and the light from above fades out. The bough could be a reference to the old lullaby Rock a Bye, Baby about how the cradle falls when the wind blows and breaks the branch or about the branch from the tree of life, the apple tree in the Garden of Eden. 
 BF: There were people there, lovely as you've ever care. 
God: Tonight. Baby you can start again./Laughing in the open air; have yourself another dream./Tonight. 
BF: Maybe we can start again? This is about BF acceptance and baptism. For Mormons and many other Protestant faiths, baptism is done when you become a believer, not when you are born. I don’t know exactly how it runs for Mormons, but I suspect similar to Baptists. At the end of every service there is the invitation period when the preacher asks for anyone who wants to accept the Lord to come forward. At the front there are people waiting for you, people to pray with you. You repent for your sins and ask for the redemption provided by Christ’s death on the cross when he stood in for us. The baptism is arranged for the near future. After a little Mormon research, it sounds like other members of the church lay hands on you after you are baptized. So there are people all around you when you come to the Lord, helping you start your walk. And once the spirit of the Lord is in you, then you start over. New Christians feel joyous, happy. Newly bathed in the light of the Lord, it’s all happiness and puppies. You have hope. Check out BF’s poses in the video during the verse. His arms aren’t completely outstretched but the first “Tonight” could be the minister’s open arms calling you to faith. In the next sequence BF has his arms wide and his legs crossed at the ankles with a black stage. Definitely a death on the cross image. A few shots later the lights are brilliant white above, suggesting the Resurrection, and perhaps Pentacost. (Look it up if you’re curious. This post is long already.)

BF: Mother its cold here. Father, thy will be done./Thunder and lightening are crashing down. They’ve got me on the run. Direct me to the sun. Redemption keeps my covers clean. 
God: Tonight, Baby, we can start again. But life is still hard. Soon the glow seems to fade. Even as a believer, you keep having to ask for God’s help. Frankly, you don’t know how strong temptation is until you try to resist it. It is easy to lose your focus, especially when the going gets hard, like when your mom dies. I think this verse is about his struggles with his mother’s death. “Mother it’s cold here” refers to the empty space in him that she occupied. He’s sad. “Father, thy will be done.” This is the single most significant lyric. In the Christian walk the hardest thing to accept is that we don’t get what we want, that we don’t know what is best for us, that it is God’s will, not ours, that matters. Logically this makes sense. God is all knowing while we are not, so He has more perspective to see what is right, which path to take and so on; He sees us together at the end so temporary separations are just that, temporary. This is easy to accept when our life is going well or when a problem is someone else’s. But when hurt comes knocking on your door, ‘Father, thy will be done‘ is damn difficult to say and to mean. ‘I don’t want her to die. I want her here with me. Why did you let this happen? I miss her. I’m lonely.‘ In questioning and doubt, and often anger, we lose sight of God. Then comes the storm, the mistakes. In the video people are flailing in the air. The stage is dark. The rain pours down. In some shots he seems to be throwing thinks away, almost absentmindedly. Like, ‘there go the years,’ toss, gone. This must have been a very difficult time for him. Everything seemed in chaos. When these times come, we have to seek God again and ask forgiveness. In the video he is almost always looking up, except when he hunches over asking for redemption. God forgives you, and then you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. 

God: And the sun will shine again./And the sun will shine again./Are you looking for a sign?/Or are you caught up in the lie? [I’ve seen lie and light for this. I think lie. Either works though.] Once you turn back to the Lord, once you look for Him, the light shines upon you. Notice in the video that BF is looking skyward, reaching skyward, and the globe light goes on. He doesn’t turn it on. Because he reaches for it, it shines on him. 

BF’s lament to God: Only the young can break away, break away and they are Lost when the wind blows; God: on your own, ohh... BF does a great job writing lyrics and singing lyrics that people are able to take completely differently. I found this chorus the most difficult to translate. It might refer to a Mormon belief that I am not aware of. I think that I’ve got it, though. Most people hear the break away to mean something good, some sort freedom. Today most people think that freedom to do whatever pleases you is best. Be true to yourself, and all that. Do your own thing. Break away. For BF ‘breaking away‘ isn’t a good thing.* In fact, throughout this album references to breaking away, flying high, out on a wire, in the wind are all bad. (I wouldn’t be shocked to find similar phrases in the Book of Mormon.) The phrases are all about loneliness and being at the mercy of the whims of the world. This chorus is no different. This man is a man who in the past 5 years has become a husband and a father and who has lost his mother. Only the young can break away, means that only people with life stretched out before them, with little responsibility to worry about, they are most vulnerable to breaking away from God. Then when life gets hard, they are lost. They are helpless. In the video people are spinning all over the place during the chorus. For a man with many responsibilities and who sat by his mother’s deathbed, breaking away from God isn’t an option. He’s determined to stay the course. *While breaking away isn’t a good, the ability to break away is essential. Saying that people should come to God, is black from white different from saying that people must come to God. It is nonsense, first of all. People can be forced to go through the motions but not to think a certain way. Chesterton says it better, “The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” This is why God gave us free will, so we could choose to love him. It would mean nothing if he created creatures that had to love Him. CS Lewis covers this topic well. |
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| Brandon Flowers – Magdalena Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is about a yearly pilgrimage made to Magdalena, a town in Sonora, one of the Mexican states, every year. In the historic church is a famous statue of San Francis Xavier, though it is meant to be Saint Francis of Assai--it is kinda complicated. Look it up, and any of the other names or terms I mention below, for more background. The best background piece on the pilgrimage I found was here http://borderzine.com/2010/04/mandas-a-magdalena/ (I hope this site accepts links.) This song rests tons of religious history and theory. Seriously, you could write, and many have, books on the topics touched on in this song. More than a few wars have been fought over the ideas expressed too. I can give you a quick taste, though. It is easiest to break down by verse. Please don't tell me I can't make it
It ain't gonna do me any good
And please don't offer me your modern methods
I'm fixin' to carve this out of wood Historically the journey to Magdalena was often very hard. Poorer people would beg on their way even. This narrator isn’t giving up. He’s going to do the walk. “Please don’t offer me your modern methods” might be a reference to getting there in easier transportation these days, but I think it is a reference to the redemption the narrator seeks. Asking a saint for a blessing is an old-school, Catholic way of seeking redemption. The Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther’s 95 Theses turn mainly on stuff like this. Martin Luther was upset that some of the Catholic clergy had sold “indulgences” to the local people for forgiveness, that they thought they had to buy forgiveness, which had already been offered by Christ. They merely had ask for it and then to earn it by repentance, not cash. The best modern illustration is something like carbon offsets for environmentalists. They believe in lowering carbon emissions but think that by paying for their own continued emissions that they don’t actually have to work at reducing their own emissions. That is, they can buy the privilege to keep sinning yet tell themselves that they are doing well, all the while the only practical result is a bunch of authority types get richer. The Catholic Church of the time had many similar issues. ML wrote up a list of such grievances and posted it for discussion. That began the Protestant Reformation. Protestants believe that you gain forgiveness by personally asking for it and repenting--trying to stop sinning. So the narrator is refusing the new way of asking forgiveness and going to do it the old way, do some task and then ask for a saint’s blessing. “Carve this out of wood” might be a reference to the St. Francis statue’s feet being wood, or just to old skilled craftsmanship. This verse shows how BF can write lyrics that can be taken multiple ways by listeners. If you are Catholic, for example you can listen and think he is celebrating this pilgrimage--I’m seeking redemption in the tradition of my ancestors. Many commenters on this thread get that vibe from the song. If you are Protestant, and I am, then you can pick up a sigh of frustration feel from this song; the frustration of trying to explain that you don’t have to go through this for redemption. 

From Nogales to Magdalena
There are 60 miles of sacred road
And the promise is made to those who venture
San Francisco will lift your load This is just background on the journey. Go there, ask St. Francis for forgiveness and it will be granted. 

 In the land of old Sonora
A shallow river valley cries
The summer left her without forgiveness
It's mirrored in her children's eyes Sonora is the state in Mexico where Magdalena is. It is a desert. For Protestants, baptism is a baptism of belief--it is done on confession of belief in God, not when you are born or join the church. This is such a big deal to some denominations that it is why Baptists are called Baptists. Furthermore, for many denominations, Baptists and Mormons included, baptism is essential and requires a full dunking so the valley “left without forgiveness” is a land without water. “Mirrored in her children’s eyes” I think refers to the holes and emptiness in the lives of people without God in their lives. This is a land that misunderstands the path to salvation, therefore, for all the formality and festivity the people are still empty. Note well, I don’t mean to start a Catholic and Protestant war on the web. If you have ever wondered why Catholics and Protestants fought so often in history, this is the crux of it. Does man need an intercessor, an authority, before God? Protestants give, and have given, a resounding ‘No!‘ This is a big deal, something that has driven hundreds of years of Western history, and BF has written a pop song about it. The man has some serious cojones.

 Prodigal sons and wayward daughters
Carry Mandas that they might
be delivered from the depths of darkness
And born again by candlelight
And born again by candlelight Sinners, prodigal sons and wayward daughters are Biblical references, come with Mandas, desire for a miracle or forgiveness. They whisper them in the statue’s ear, kiss his head and receive his blessing. 
 Blisters on my feet
Wooden rosary
I felt them in my pocket as I ran Physical realities of the journey, burdens that you carry. 

 A bullet in the night
A federales's life
San Francisco do you understand? Historically Sonora has seen much violence. This is a reference the drug traffickers and the resulting violence in the Sonora desert today. Because of its remoteness, drug cartels can easily hide there. There is so much violence now that the main company that does tours for the old Missions including Magdalena, is thinking about stopping. Many of the real baddies in Mexico come seeking forgiveness. This, I think, is the Mandas of some drug cartel baddie asking forgiveness for shooting a cop. 

 Tell him that I made the journey
And tell him that my heart is true
I'd like his blessing of forgiveness
Before the angels send it through Tell Saint Francis that I did it and I’m sincere; bless me. Once again, if you are Protestant this verse is sad because someone is asking forgiveness of from a middleman. 

And I will know that I am clean now
And I will dance and the band will play
In the old Artu Cantina
Cups will runneth over the ancient clay

And if I should fall to temptation
When I return to evil throws
From Nogales to Magdalena
As a two time beggar I will go
Where I know I can be forgiven the broken heart of Mexico
The broken heart of Mexico
The broken heart of Mexico I’ll treat these two verses together. Whereas the previous verse is sad because people don’t need a middleman for forgiveness, this one hits at one of the two major obstacles* to redemption, not trying. One will not be redeemed by merely asking for forgiveness. One must try to reform. What are blisters on your feet, a cross in your pocket, and a sincere heart to the difficulty of actually changing your ways? After the whispering in the ear of the saint, there is a big party in the town. The verse suggests of an attitude like, ‘God forgives. Why should I worry about being good. I can go ask for forgiveness again. As a two time beggar I will go. Let's go party!’ And things never change. That’s why this is the “broken heart of Mexico.” *In case you are wondering, the other major obstacle to redemption is pride. It is one thing to be proud of an accomplishment, of a job well done. It is entirely another to think that means you are all that. To quote CS Lewis, “The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, ‘I have pleased him: all is well,” to thinking, ‘What a fine person I must be to have done it.’ If you are that kind of proud, then you are too busy with keeping up appearances, so to speak, that you can’t see God. It is like focusing on your SATs and college admissions rather than what kind of person you will be when you are 35. Like I said, this isn't your typical pop song. Not by a long shot. |
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| Brandon Flowers – Hard Enough (feat. Jenny Lewis) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Hard enough is the marriage is hard song. Everyone hears that marriage is hard. But you don’t really understand the difficulty until you are married. It is essential to understanding this song, however, so I’ll give it a go. When people get married they mostly think romance. My true love is going to love me forever. Maybe they even wrote their own vows to be really romantic. But what newlyweds quickly confront is that the old vows, for better for worse, richer for poorer, sickness and in health actually sum up marriage pretty well. Compare shacking up vs getting married. Most young people tend to think that the only difference is a party and a piece of paper. Hardly. When you live with somebody and something goes wrong--and it will, nothing kills the heady romantic feelings like laundry and peeing in front of each other--you immediately start to question if this the right person for you. Are you meant to be together? If nothing else, after a while you might bail because you are tired of asking the damn question. When a married couple comes across their first real problem, they don't get rehash their decision. They have a revelation of, “Crap, I'm stuck with this person for the rest of my life.” At this point the struggling spouse--these questions don’t always happen to spouses at the same time--can either say this marriage stuff is bunk and walk out, launch a score keeping war, engage in sex manipulation, or other assorted games that won’t end well. Or, the spouse can decide that marriage really is forever and work toward a practical solution. Trust me when I say that the decision is often a scary leap of faith. It does little good to complain that the decision should have been made earlier. The reality of your choice and its consequences don’t hit you until after you are married. (I am happy to say, that if you take the leap and choose to worry more about what kind of wife you want to be than what kind of husband he is, it gets much easier. If he has the same outlook, then you can weather anything.) For most marriages, this leap of faith spot comes from relatively mundane things, budgeting, dividing household chores, holiday plans with families. You’d be surprised how quickly score keeping--I cooked last night so you cook tonight or we always go to your brothers so for Thanksgiving we should go to my mom’s--can cause real problems. Rissaa is right. Flowers’s marriage started out with bigger issues. Between the rock star environment, young children, travel, etc. the potential for scorekeeping in this marriage is astronomical. The resolve required to avoid it, probably exhausting in the beginning. With that in mind, to the actual song. The first verse is straightforward. They met and it was a quick, hot start. By the “on a whim” Flowers is setting the scene for she didn’t realize how hard marriage to him might be. I’m going to guess that Flowers didn’t have many previous serious girlfriends. “I was just a little boy” is probably more a reference to experience and maturity rather than age. He did some unspecified screwups which caused her lots of hurt. But he’s learned from them. More over, the “older now” lines are all different. The “All I know” is a bit of a defeat as he can’t go back and change what he did. He feels guilty about those mistakes and that guilt has aged him, in a lost innocence kind of way. Second verse is alludes to how he must have had to persuade her to marry him. By modern standards they are too young to get married, so should they just shack up for a while. No, the people who don’t get married are have lives with “holes and emptiness,” either because shacking up isn’t better in the long run or because they just avoid commitment in general and live hook up to hook up. She must have also been worried about whatever happened in the past and how he would handle his future rockstar life. Hence, “Girl, I promise that I’m older now.” He’s learned. He can do this. Third verse, I wasn’t looking when we built these walls/Let me spread my dreams at your feet. Guessing again, but I think he means that he didn’t truly realize the realities of marriage and fatherhood. He went in thinking of stars and romance. He didn’t notice the import of what he was doing. To his credit, few do. He’s having to spread his dreams at her feet because marriage and family life don’t dovetail nicely with the rock star life. He realized that he was at her mercy in a way. He can’t do what he does without her blessing and sanctuary--he explores that more in Crossfire. Let’s not let time’s bitter flood rise--that’s all the score keeping, grudge holding. “Before my thoughts begin to run” I think refers to the mental pruning that one must do in a marriage, especially if caught in “time’s bitter flood.” Despite popular theory, you shouldn’t say everything that comes into your head; you shouldn’t allow a “what if” thread to sneak into your thoughts. Resentment and paranoia are not a fun combination. He’s realized this. He “thinks [he is] getting older now,” not from guilt, not as an argument, but because he is truly maturing. Finally, I think there is a little of the paranoia in the next line after the chorus: “can’t stand the thought of another”. He’s worried. Marriage and fatherhood are hard. He’s asking a lot from her. She fell for him on a whim, he begged her to marry him, and he still has a calling for his music. (Yes, a calling. That will come up again in other songs.) What if she left for someone who was around more? Where would he be without her? Again see Crossfire for how important she is to him. The chorus is about each of them acknowledging that this is hard on the other. I think he means they are trying not to keep score, trying to keep the other’s difficulties in their thoughts. By trying to “roll with the changes”, they are trying to adapt the demands of husband/father and wife/mother. Its just a lot harder than they though. |
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| Brandon Flowers – Crossfire Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I should have re-read these lyrics before i did that last post. Other corrections: Like chaos in the rain, yeah, they're handing it out. his fiery arrows drew their bead in vain |
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| Brandon Flowers – Crossfire Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Apparently we can't edit our comments. Grrr. So, I listened again today and I'm all but positive that "Watching you dress as you turn down the light" is "Watching YOUR dress..." It is a more sexual verse, she's now let him in, he's watching her silhouette as she dims the lights then of course he forgets all about the world outside. It is consistent with the sexually suggestive repeat of "Lay your body down" and the final "Next to mine." He's seeking not just the calming retreat of her home, but of her bed as well. |
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| Brandon Flowers – Crossfire Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I've just spent the past week with this album (do we call them albums anymore?) on repeat. Flowers is an excellent lyricist. A couple of y'all are on the right track, eww2008, greatgadsby, midnightfiesta. I have a marriage similar to Flowers (my husband travels often), I have 4 children 6 and under, I am a devout Christian, grew up Baptist, in fact, so Mormonism isn't a foreign language, so to speak. I know exactly what this song is about. This song is my new anthem. BF sees the world as an imperfect place, a fallen place. Furthermore as a devout man in an career known for sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, he no doubt has a difficult time managing temptation. And not just the sex and drugs stuff, but also issues of pride and selfishness and other things we Christians worry about. This song is about the sanctuary that his wife creates in their lives. A very old fashioned setup, I realize, but he's an old fashioned guy married to an old fashioned girl. He's out doing the worldly bits and she creates the safe haven for their, growing, family. The still in the street outside the window where she keeps secrets--prayers--on her pillow is a reference to the calm around a Christian household. Because they are focused on the Permanent Things the storms that rage over others pass them by. The promise to do no harm is about please let me in. I suspect that some of his homecomings might be difficult, not in some bad way, but in a marriage is difficult way. I can't think of a good way to say this tonight, and I suspect that many of you are young and unmarried. It is hard to explain what I mean to someone not married. He probably brings a lot of the world in with him, which brings some of the drama of the storm too. The promising to do no harm is basically that he's weary, and he's pleading to come in from the outside world. The chorus refers to the crossfire that is our life on Earth, the constant struggle between good and evil, the battle for our souls. Watching you dress...forgetting about the storm outside describes how when he's with her the rest of the world doesn't matter. Everything outside can go to Hell in a hand basket, but he's safe with her. (Yes, this is an incredibly romantic song.) Tell the devil his arrows drew their bead in vain tells that the devil will not find his mark, will not gain his soul. Because she creates this sanctuary in his home, he has the strength to resist temptation. The "hardest part" is life on earth. So after death, our dreams will break the boundaries of our fears--I'm not certain if this is the Mormon position, but I think he is referring to the idea that we cannot see God and Heaven because we are fearful. Our fears hold us back from seeing reality as God intended. So when we've died we can finally see Heaven. And we will be together, though that "Next to mine" last line might be a sexual invitation. Hard to say as I think BF switches voices often in his songs with one line talking about the future, the next the present, or switching if he is talking or listening--I talk about that on the other songs. Regardless, the idea of an eternal family is very Mormon. Maybe he meant lay down with me now and later. (By the way, for any Twilight fans, the eternal family of the Cullens is probably the most Mormon-ish bit of the stories, not the no sex before marriage bit that reviews and interviews always harp on.) Watch the Crossfire video with this sanctuary theme in mind. I think it supports my interpretation. Certainly, whenever I have a hard day doing the sanctuary bit for my family, I now have visions of Charlie going all Buffy on some ninjas dancing in my head. |
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