Billy Joel – My Life Lyrics | 7 years ago |
This is a song about strength. The strength to examine yourself, and the strength to live life the way you want. The strength to leave behind toxic people, you know them, the overbearing and intrusive who want to pull your puppet strings. Your way is wrong, their way is right, they'll give you a second chance to see the light - THEIR light. THEIR way which is clearly the best way. Remember this song was written in the middle 1970s, a time when the social expectation was still very much about conforming. Work that job, even if you despise it. Pay off that mortgage. Pay your dues, for years and years if necessary. Stay with a woman even if she drives you nuts and doesn't listen to you. Do as your told. California though (where the character in the first stanza moves), was an exception, a land where people were living life in a more wide open way. Billy was moving in on age 30 at the time the song was recorded. Late 20s is a time when many people figure it out (if they are ever going to), that they truly escape from the cliques and herd mentality of high school and college. |
Elton John – Rocket Man Lyrics | 11 years ago |
It was writting in the early 70s. Ergo, is was drug inspired. Elton and Bernie were deep in the scene. |
Elton John – Rocket Man Lyrics | 11 years ago |
This songs seems to be about a space man, just as the famous lucy in the sky with diamonds is supposedly about a childhood picture. As in, not really. She packed my bags, zero hour, nine AM. A guy is getting kicked out of his house. By his wife. Because he's a drug addict. I'm not the man they think I am at home. Everyone thinks he's a drug addict, but he's in denial and thinks he is better than that. I'm lonely out in space, burning out his fuse out here all alone, in fact it's cold as hell ... all the lyrics are about being a drug addict, smoking whatever, alone because the drugs have pushed all his friends away, it is not fun. All the science I don't understand ... he's an addict, he doesn't understand addiction, but he is an addict. I think it's gonna be a long long time ... he doesn't see escaping being an addict. |
Eagles – New Kid In Town Lyrics | 12 years ago |
It means people who you've known for awhile suddenly treat you like an unknown quantity, suddenly not as enthusiastic about you. Now that some other band is the new greatest thing, there are those who don't want to hang with the Eagles, they no longer give the fawning star treatment, the way they used to. |
Eagles – New Kid In Town Lyrics | 12 years ago |
The new kid in town is about the musical competition to the Eagles. The Eagles were king of the pop music mountain in the early/mid 70s, but other musical acts were starting to emerge and get attention. Could be specifically Springsteen, but I don't think so, I believe its simply about the competition in general, from the perspective of the old guard Eagles. "There's talk on the street, it sounds so familar", is the Eagles hearing about other new breakthrough bands/performers, and the verbiage harkens them back to thinking about how they were described and perceived a few years earlier when they were first acquiring fame and attention. "You look in her eyes, the music begins to play," refers to creating/writing a new pop song. "Hopeless romantics here we go again ... But after a while you're looking the other way ... It's those restless hearts that never mend," satirizes the fact that so many pop songs describe exciting but ultimately hopeless or failed love, and promiscuity. Several if not most of the Eagles early hits were nothing but songs about exactly this. The Eagles are to some degree mocking themselves, and making a statement that they weren't going to create more of those syrupy songs. A risky move, considering this represented breaking from proven formula. "Johnny come lately, the new kid in town ... Will she still love you when you're not around?" poses a rhetorical question to the newcomers ... will those women who are throwing themselves at you, proclaiming to you how great you are, be loyal to you when your out of town? The Eagles are saying, we've been there, done that, it doesn't end well. "There's so many things you should have told her ... but night after night you're willing to hold her, just hold her ... tears on your shoulder," is a general statement about how pop stars of the time lied and used woman. Tears on your shoulder is the latent guilt that it seems some of the Eagles started to feel. "There's talk on the street, it's there to remind you ... That it doesn't really matter which side you're on ...You're walking away and they're talking behind you ... They will never forget you till someone new comes along," is editorial about the ongoing buzz and hype of the musical business. How one day you're the greatest, media are chasing you asking you questions, the next day your back seat to the next big thing. It doesn't really matter which side your on, because it won't last anyway, and ultimately its just the opinions of a bunch of critics. "Everybody loves him, don't they? And he's holding her and you're still around, oh my my," describes another performer being the new top of the pop chart idol, the new artist who can fill stadiums, getting all the attention. And the Eagles, the former hottest thing, are expected to react, to feel bad about being supplanted. "There's a new kid in town ... I don't want to hear it," is the ending to the song, with the Eagles basically saying, they don't want to read or hear about how their time in the spotlight might be over. |
Eagles – Hotel California Lyrics | 12 years ago |
The song The Hotel California has it roots in the reputation of California, in the 1960s and 1970s, as an ideal (I saw a shimmering light), almost dream perfect place to live (They livin it up at the Hotel California). Life in the golden state was seen to be the 20th century's answer to the feasts-and-orgies-Babylon of ancient times. Heck, the place even smells good (the warm smell of colitas). Many migrated to CA seeking the dream, including all the founding members of the Eagles, not a single one of whom is a CA native. But when you get there, it's over whelming, you don't fall into it without reservations. The more conservative mores of where you grew up are still with you (I heard the mission bell). You find the pretty (such a lovely face), easy to eff, elegant woman you dreamed about meeting (lots of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends .... mirrors on the ceiling, and pink champagne on ice). But when the fantasy of easy, meaningless sex presents itself in reality, you wonder if it will really be as great as you dreamed (I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell). And you can't help but judge a woman who openly has many sexual partners, you question it and her (her mind is Tiffany twisted) and the fact she is wealthy and not trying to use you for money doesn't alter that (she got the Mercedes Benz). I personally wonder if this is a reference to Stevie Nicks, who had an off/on relationship with the Eagles' Glenn Frey, which is rumored to have ended with Frey feeling offended and/or second best. An aside, some think of Stevie Nicks as a Yoko Ono of sorts, that Frey may have had an obsession with Stevie that interfered with the Eagles' performing schedule, upsetting the ambitious Don Henley. Getting back to the song. You want to do something as simple as have a glass of wine at a party, but that isn't what people in California were doing at parties in the late 1960s and mid 70s (we haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine). Dancing is a metaphor for the commonplace drug use that was going on (how they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat). The dark side of this is that people who use drugs excessively for a sustained period are in fact generally trying to rekindle great times, or deal with bad ones, not truly living in the present (some dance to remember, and some dance to forget). Especially for stars like the Eagles had become, there were plenty of drugs around, plenty of promiscuous women, plenty of invitations and expectations (wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say ... welcome to the Hotel California). As well, plenty of people being less than faithful to long term relationships (bring your alibis). At the time this song was written, the Eagles were already starting to routinely have disagreements. Amongst themselves, with record companies, with handlers, and so on. Being rock stars wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Even though at least a couple of them wanted to party less, cut down on the drugs, quit having the groupies around, it was easier said than done (they stab it with their steely knives, and they just can't kill the beast). Some of the band members did want to quit (I had to find the passage back to the place I was before), to escape what their lives had become. In fact, founding member Bernie Leadon quit the band before the Hotel California album was created, and founding member Randy Meisner quit the Eagles and moved back to Nebraska almost immediately after the Hotel California album was completed. But the Eagles couldn't as an entity die, as they were contractually obligated to create more output for their record company (we are programmed to receive, you can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave). They were trapped by the contract they had signed, requiring them to create more output, despite the fact they had grown to hate the life they were living, as well as each other (And she said, we are all just prisoners here, of our own device — [note this might be Stevie Nicks talking to Henley, referring to the contracts that both the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac were in the middle of at the time]). |
Don Henley – The Boys of Summer Lyrics | 12 years ago |
Most of you missed it. This song is not a melancholy, wistful ode to lost youth. The man is a year or more removed from thinking there is nothing to better than partying on the beach. He doesn't miss anything about that phase of his life, except the woman he was involved with at the time. Problem is, she's still in the 'life is a beach' phase. He's wishing for her desire to hang with the boys of summer to end. "Boys," clearly references the immature, in-spring-break mode males that populate many beach party scenes, the kind of (probably stoner who uses the word 'dude' a lot) guy the writer was before he did some maturing. He's tempted to go back to the scene, in order to get the girl, a la Rob Lowe going back to hang with prep school types in the movie St Elmo's Fire. But the Dead Head Sticker, looking lame as hell on a Cadillac, informs him as to how stupid that would be and look. He can do nothing but hope for the object of his affections to want more than the scene populated with the boys of summer. |
Don Henley – Sunset Grill Lyrics | 12 years ago |
As others have posted, this is obviously about a bar, and regular hangout of a man/woman couple. They live in a city, and this bar is located in a lousy part of the city, perhaps close to a rented apartment in which they live. I say rented apartment because the theme of detachment omnipresent in the song would not generally be felt by people who own real estate where they live. The song is essentially a soliloquy of the man's thoughts. The old man is the bartender. Saying he's from the old world suggests he's an older immigrant, possibly European, content with his lot in life in big city America. The pourer of drinks is worldly wise, or at least he appears to be at first glance. He's seen enough to know the whole world has problems, a few mumbling homeless people don't stand out to him as being worthy of excess sympathy. C'est la vie. Knowing his customer's names helps him retain a customer base and earn tips. In all other ways, his customers are little different than the mumbling homeless. Indeed it is all the same to him. In the next stanza, the protagonist reveals he is different, more sensitive and more aware, than the old man bartender. He doesn’t have a way of insulating himself, of explaining it all away. The coldness, anonymity, and insignificance of individuals - the big city does bother him, in contrast to life in a small town. A man makes you something — this is quite literal - as in the food you eat, the drinks you drink, the clothes you wear - were all produced by people. But not people just down the road as might have been the case in a more simple, earlier decade or century. There is no hiding place simply means the people are unseen because they are far away. This adds to the protagonist's strong sense of disconnection. Respectable little murders pay. Interesting little sentence, metaphorical as opposed to literal. Describes how city people are often less than honest and forthright, stabbing each other in the back if it is to their benefit, they have little if any empathy for others. It’s accepted, even respected, if it serves your purposes and ambitions. All’s fair in the dog eat dog culture of the city. But our protagonist, he’s not that kind of guy. The woman he’s with doesn’t have to worry that he’s going to leave her high and dry. The city bothers him, he’s beginning to envision leaving, and he wants her to come with him. He has not reached the point of being able to pull the trigger on his need to leave. It’s not, however, that far away. For now, he has a life in the city that includes jerks/friends who hang out with him and his girl at a ratty little place called the Sunset Grill. For now, he’s content to kill time, drink beers, until a catalyst emerges. |
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