| The Joy Formidable – Austere Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Also briefly note that "Reverse of the Medal" is also the title of some intriguing early 1900's literary porn attributed in part to Oscar Wilde. In which a gentleman attending a musical recital becomes entranced by telepathic messages -- yes, lol -- from a concert pianist. And thus is enticed, I'm guessing now, to "reverse his medallion," i.e. switch his sexual affiliation. But this doesn't fit the other imagery and I don't sense from their body of songwriting that Ritzy or Rhys think this way. |
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| The Joy Formidable – Austere Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Wow. re:edible14. You were close. Just goes to show me, never discount someone else's song interpretation. Sex with a sailor? --"wtf " I thought, when I first read that comment. And also (noticed at the time) no one voted it up, either. But the more I thought about it . . . whang! it hit me. The comment was actually perceptive. But more important than that, I am AMAZED by the unsung literary prowess of Ritzy and Rhys. Okay, either I stumbled onto the meaning of this song or I found some amazing co-incidences on the level of "Dark Side of the Rainbow." You decide, while you keep in mind that Ritzy and Rhys are from Wales and as a result probably well influenced by seafaring, shipbuilding, and naval imagery. 4 points: 1. Medal. Reverse. ? . . . "Reverse of the Medal" -> "an opposite and usually less favorable aspect of an affair." ALSO is the title of a novel about a Royal Navy ship's captain (I'll name him later) at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. From the highly regarded historical fiction series by Patrick O'Brien. In this novel, the Captain is set-up (framed) as a scapegoat for many gentlemen who lost money in the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814. (wiki this yourself). As a result, he is pilloried and removed from the Royal Navy. However, his wealthy sidekick (Stephen Maturin) actually BUYS the Captain's former ship, obtains letters of marque, and later RE-INSTATES the Captain to command, though now as a privateer. THIS is the referred-to "reverse of the medal" in which now there is "mischief to turn" and again his "ship to send off." 2. Barbed Wits and Gowns Ransacking the Town. The "gentlemen" in trial of the Captain as regards the historical fraud event above. Any student of post-Elizabethan history knows the meaning of barbed wits and legal gowns in the oratory alongside Parliament or any public trial of a gentleman. Later, the Captain is protected at the pillory by his loyal seamen, hence the song's voice assures him he will once again dance and "drown in velvet" with his ladies, a familiar habit for the Captain. 3. Unfinished. Up to this point I was persuaded but not convinced. Until I realized that the LAST book in the series was only three chapters long, known as the "The Final Unfinished Voyage" of the Captain. It was published in 2004 (just in time for Ritzy or Rhys to read it), and UNFINISHED. Being the "last words," so to speak, of the author, who passed away before the story was done. Leaving the Captain, sadly to many fans, "just an unfinished story now." 4. Still, I puzzled over the word "Austere." Sure, okay, yes this CAN be the stereotypical adjective applied to many fictional ship's captains, it sort of goes with the job: "given to exacting standards of discipline and self-restraint," "harsh and threatening in manner or appearance." But why is this used in the song also seemingly as a NAME, a moniker? The Captain's name in the series is Jack. Jack Aubrey. AUstere. AUbrey. Ritzy and Rhys had been coy with everything else so I figure this their clever device of alliteration. So as to not just spoon over the name, in a too-obvious way. Interesting. Let me know what you think, if you have read the series or at least taken the time to look these things up. |
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| Echo and the Bunnymen – Nocturnal Me Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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hey >cracked pleasures< excellent catch on the bunnymen history, and your thoughts are interesting . . . "however, sex" . . .hmm . . . so Ian claims here is nothing but the stray thoughts of a man up too late? I don't doubt this is accurate. but personally, I wouldn't take him so literally. in addition to his well-known arrogance, i remember also a sly nature -- "take me internally, forever yours nocturnally" yes I can see him assuring nothing sexual no intent. Of course it's also well-known that the fellow persuaded to drop his savings on a Corvette or say, a Lamborghini, also had nothing overly sexual in mind, his internal conversation being all about performance and aerodynamics . . . |
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| The Church – Hotel Womb Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This is SUCH an incredibly beautiful and adventurous song. I don't usually bother to comment, but I can't leave with the only interpretation here (just prior to mine) suggesting . . . cannibalism. I won't denigrate someone else's comment -- everyone's view on art is valid in some relative space, but I'll offer something for balance that may be a tad more relative to most people's heads. This song is a beautiful fugue, a daze, a psychedelic Indiana Jones dream overlaid with Goddess myth. All the references to a woman in the song are dreamlike, suggestive of that feminine spirit ideal, eros, that we all desire to guide us at one time or another. I picture Steve K. checking in, maybe he just did a show in Brazil, where he fed off the energy of his fans for a great show even though he was already wiped out from the long flight. Now returns to his hotel completely exhausted -- most everyone who travels can relate to this -- where he falls straightaway on the bed and drifts off. Dreaming, he's immersed in a Native American shamanic ceremony, which is most often a psychedelic trip of male confirmation. But somehow this feminine spirit, imagine it as eros or anima, transforms it into a betrothal, a marriage ceremony. Now "married," he won't be able to shake off ("couldn't take it off if I tried") this feminine eros spirit, goddess persona, dragging him toward adventure. In dream-word, he drifts. Probably outside the dream he fell asleep undressed, and hence he drifts back toward consciousness in this hotel womb, waking up a bit (how else do you remember any of your dreams?). It is the dangers in the dream (and the subconscious need to get undressed for bed proper) which direct him back to someplace secure, to "home." And when you're on the road, that is always . . . the hotel room. Safety. But the fugue is too great, the anima carries him onward to the next adventure. Within the dream, he recalls the safety of the hotel . . . no, wait, he thinks, THAT must be the dream . . . Dream life, as anyone dreaming vividly knows, it is all too real. So his anima pulls him to adventure (always more real), while his insecurity looks backward to safety. Hence in dream-time he dreams of the safety of his hotel womb. They are both dualistic sides of his goddess myth, she encompasses both. He is transported by her further into the dream role, becoming her "Indiana Jones" . . . yet all the way typically reluctant, just as Indiana was. In the song, our hero seems to drag his heels when he finds himself floating down the Amazon river, or else waking up amidst buildings "swaying like trees." Yet she incites him onward to the next frame. He yearns for the softness of the hotel, which is also the softness of her womb; while instead she brings him to immediacy of the moment. The Mother of the Storm is searching for her son. Alternately, he yearns back towards wakefulness, womb, and safety. He asks her, why can't the danger represented by the masks be reconciled? As his eros and anima, in response she does extend her womb, but later also presses him on. The Lost City is "just another mile" ahead. |
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| Echo and the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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tuvia, I agree with you, both that this song is about death (fearing it, I should think) and also about BOC and "Don't F. the R." -- yah, both are mystical songs, BOC's a bit more steeped in the occult, though. But as to Mac singing about "predestination" -- I would be curious as to where you pick that up, I don't see it at all. Using the word "Fate" doesn't necessarily imply predestination: hence people talk of shaping their fate, changing their fate, etc., and even those who religiously believe in free will don't believe they can change that physical outcome. In the last stanza of the song he is merely switching perspective regarding himself from first person to third person, i.e., from talking ABOUT himself "Under blue moon I saw you" to talking TO himself, as an observer would "Fate up against your will . . . He will wait until / You give yourself to him." Here, 'HIM' is Death, and even though the singer can exercise his free will and change the time when Death gets him, "he [Death] will wait until" the singer's final moment inevitably arrives, and the singer will have no recourse then but to give himself, his arc of free will ends there, that's what I believe he is lamenting, and fearing -- Death equals his loss of free will. Just my opinion, others may disagree. What does unfortunately seem predestined, though, is that someone has to spread bad karma by disrespecting someone else's cherished image of a song, and then insult the person because their interpretation is different, as happened to taloralexander above . . . c'mon, you can do better, rise above, 'nuff said. respect! |
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| Echo and the Bunnymen – The Killing Moon Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I laughed so hard when I read that one, thinking of that scenario, I just HAD to vote it up | |
| Echo and the Bunnymen – Nocturnal Me Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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A few years prior to the Ocean Rain LP, the Bunnymen took a trip to Greenland, I think, if memory serves, or else someplace similarly frigid; some of which you can see in the Porcupine album photos. Mac had said in some interview I remember that the epic nature of the scenery informed his pen in the lyrics of both Porcupine and Ocean Rain. It is a tribute to Ian and Will that the music and the lyrics evoke the epic feeling of such a place - listening to Ocean Rain, you know that you are in someplace bright, epic, and alternately both barren and inviting; another way of saying this is that most listeners certainly don't feel that they have escaped to a damp forest or a deep, encircling wood. Can't you feel it? An ice-capped fire of burning wood, the "bigger themes" . . . ? And staring into that fire roiling upward, what did Mac remember thinking, penning the lyrics, about back when he was in such a beautiful frozen place; what would you THINK was on all their minds, on the minds of all red-blooded men in the same setting, from the Vikings before them and onward, completing the frozen arc to Mac and the Boonymen? Yeah. Sex/Love/Passion, of course. I say the same as the prior comments, except less cynically, because I know they were singing to the Goddess of Passion as much as he/they were singing to any specific woman. This transcendent feeling is what inspired the Vikings to superhuman feats -- their next day -- of raping and pillaging, in a more barbaric time; and inspired Mac onward to rockstar super feats in a more civilized time. But all to fulfill their needs for their love goddess; yes, they want her to take them, wholly, internally, ignite them INTO the godhead of eros -- with the raw, passionate, physical kind of loving . . . Notice also that, viscerally, this song is the flip side, the yang-to-the-yin of "Silver," which evokes the brightly lit glittering expanses experienced in daylight, with shining horizon. -philipK |
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