| Emeli Sandé – Heaven Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Drug addiction. flashing lights/lying on back -- ambulance/OD? lying on back -- prostitution? something's gone inside me -- addiction leaves you an empty shell so to speak she's trying to get through the day without using, with "good intentions", but the day seems so long and eventually she caves in, and she's "gone". She doesn't think Heaven will 'have' her whilst she's using drugs. stealing from the poor -- drugs drive you to steal from anyone nothing like before -- addiction changes your personality, appearance, values, etc lose another friend -- drugs cause people to lose their old friends because they don't understand or you put your addiction before them, and also lose new friends through drug ODs etc will you learn to leave me -- like she's saying are you ever gonna learn I'm not going to change? Why do you keep giving me all these chances? "you say that you're awake, I try but always break" I think should be "you say that you will wait, I try but always break" -- she tried every day to beat her addiction but she always gives in in the end...then she's "gone" |
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| Florence + the Machine – Only If for a Night Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I agree but I don't think the cartwheels take place during the 'dream', I think it was a real event in her childhood....it sounds like she danced on tiptoes,did cartwheels and handstands ceremonially in her honour, in the graveyard of the church where the funeral was held... | |
| Florence + the Machine – Landscape Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I had another thought...when Florence was about 13 (I think) her Grandmother committed suicide...I wonder if this is about her Grandmother. And about how her difficulties were passed down through her family and as a result of the environment, and now have been passed to Florence, too (she suffers from depression)... | |
| Florence + the Machine – Landscape Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I agree about the Woolf reference. I think it's about being a product of your genes and your environment. And being sort of doomed because of that. like we just find ourselves here with so much history behind us that isn't really our fault, evolution and traits, learned behaviours, through the "family tree". Then an environment that we can't always control and for this girl has been harsh (rain and snow). I too think "What the water gave me" refers to Woolf...and the following song on the album which I think is about suicide by drowning. |
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| Florence + the Machine – Never Let Me Go Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Yes I too thought it interesting that it follows "What the Water Gave Me", which references a painting by Frida Kahlo who some say died via suicide, and the suicide method used by Virginia Woolf (drowning, "pockets full of stones"). For me the song is about suicide. "Though the pressure's hard to take, It's the only way I can escape, It seems a heavy choice to make" (note "heavy"...pockets full of stones?) "And it's over, And I'm goin' under, But I'm not givin' up! I'm just givin' in." I find it sad that she obviously sees herself as a bad person/'sinner'...and the 'crashes' are a 'release'...I suppose when life is so bad then to a 'sinner', hell would be heaven. Makes me cry. |
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| Natalie Merchant – Thick As Thieves Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I should have mentioned the song title - "Thick as thieves" - it has a sort of double meaning. It means people who are closely allied/very close friends. It makes me think of a sort of clique mentality in religious groups. But "thick" can also mean stupid or dense and "thieves" are obviously people who steal from others. | |
| Natalie Merchant – Thick As Thieves Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"The heretic is beautified, he'll teach the harlot's child to smile" The harlot's child...a prostitute's child...I guess you could assume the harlot's child is confused about who "The Father" is/ the "Father" is absent from their life...the harlot's child = non-believer/someone who has not been looked after by God? "Wracked again by indecision Should we make that small incision Testify to the bleeding heart inside? We cut, we scratched We rent, we slashed And when he opened up at last Found a cul-de-sac Deep and black Of smoke and ash" Could she again be speaking about God...the indecision being doubt about whether to believe in him or his good intentions/compassion? Then on further close investigation (cut/scratch/rent/slash) we find he has no heart...only a deep black cul-de-sac of smoke and ash (heartless destructiveness)? The idea of a destructive heartless God seems to follow with the next verse: "The wicked king of parody Is kissing all his enemies On the seventh day Of the seventh week The tyrant's voice is softer now But just for one forgiving hour Before the rise of his Iron fist again " God is the "wicked king of parody" and a "tyrant" who, in the final moments of the apocalypse kisses all his enemies and speaks softly to them but only briefly (for one forgiving hour) before he raises his "iron fist" and mercilessly destroys them. referring to the raft as "crooked" could mean it is immoral. The drunken souls (deluded, "drunk" on the holy spirit - as in pentecostal beliefs - drunk on a belief system?) are ferried...this gives me the impression of people being moved like cattle...not really 'steering' their own way. This is reinforced by speaking of pilgrims following in a trance/catatonic dance (can't use their own minds). But in their delusion/blindness they are safe and warm, it is easier and safer for them not to think outside the box... I love the words "catatonic dance"...catatonia is basically a stupor, someone who is catatonic cannot dance of their own accord...so it gives the impression of a limp, brain-dead body being remotely controlled/hypnotised by an outside force. I love this song and can really relate to it. God - the God of the Old Testament especially - to me seems a very cruel, vengeful, heartless and violent God (see evilbible.com for examples!). For me, Christianity is a fairy-tale, and if God is real in the way the bible says he is, I reject him because I do not agree with the things he has supposed to have done/has ordered to be done to men, women, children and animals. That said, there is some good stuff in the New Testament...but there is still too much blood, war, killing, rape, animal sacrifice, child abuse etc for me to agree with the religion. This is from an ex-christian btw who has studied the bible in detail. Natalie Merchant is awesome... |
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| Alanis Morissette – That I Would Be Good Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I should add...the other key unsaid part is..."but I'm NOT" I am NOT loved when I am fuming, or when I numb myself... to others/myself I am not good when I gain ten pounds, when I am sick, when I lose my sanity. And that, to me is what is so sad about the song...that she feels unloved and not good enough and not accepted or appreciated. |
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| Alanis Morissette – That I Would Be Good Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"That I would be good" is an incomplete sentence. To me, the key missing words here are "I wish"... I *wish* that I would be good. To me the song is not optimistic at all, it is about having painfully low self-esteem. If only I could be good, if only I could be loved and accepted despite these flaws I cannot overcome. I wish "that I would be loved, even when"...... It seems to me that the first verse is aimed at her parents/mother, addressing their/her high expectations of her. The second verse seems addressed to the public, from the point of view of being famous. The third and fourth perhaps to a combination of people: family, friends, public, her lover, and also to herself. I feel she has probably suffered abuse in her life, and an eating disorder, but I don't know that...just speculation, from listening to her songs. This song really resonates with me, it touches a nerve. This is the only song I know that makes me break down in tears every time that I hear it. |
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