| First Aid Kit – My Silver Lining Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
Can you be sad and happy at the same time? Worried but full of hope? It is this strange state of mind that is depicted by First Aid Kit in their song "My Silver Lining". First Aid Kit tie up to ideas about faith (or better: disbelief), eternity and what life is all about, expressed in earlier songs like "Hard Believer" or "Heavy Storm" ("I wish I could believe in something bigger..."). They try to push away these big questions by distracting themselves with conviviality, music and laughter. Who would not associate the third line with the famous slogan: "Live fast, die young" (from Faron Young's 1955 song, Paul Henreid's 1958 film, or the James Dean biography)? If you live too fast, life might be over before you really come to know it. If you live too slow, life may become boring. You may live longer, but what's the use then, if your life in empty? "Bittersweet" has always been First Aid Kit's hallmark, but this song creates a special tension by the use of contrasts, antitheses or contradictions in almost every line: "dying - living", "too fast - too slow", "right - wrong", ... "shackles - to be free". "Can't worry 'bout what's behind you or what's coming for you further up the road" boils down to the resolution to live for today. "Road" is a metaphor for the path of life, while "silver lining" obviously means the expectation that things will become better in the future. The repeated appeals to "keep on keeping on" and the fast, continuously rolling beats create the imagination of driving down an endless highway through vast plains. Kind of a road movie cast into a song... --- Health warning: First Aid Kit music is addictive. From the moment I had bought the CD "The Lion's Roar", I had it on repeat. I could not bear hearing any other music for about one year. I'm afraid the same will happen when "Stay Gold" appears. |
|
| First Aid Kit – Ghost Town Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
A ghost story? In a way, yes. Though there is no "real" ghost (whatever that might be) involved. A ghost is something immaterial, but appears to be real, that haunts you and you can't get rid of it - just like the "visions of the past". The lyrics and the sparse guitar chords create the imagination of a lone lady walking along a railroad through a desert, from one ghost town to another. Can't you almost see all those empty saloons and stores and office buildings, with those hollow windows and with the open doors flapping in the wind? "Ghost Town" is merely a metaphor for a relationship that was broken up at some time in the past. It was alive back then, just like the town in the ages of the gold rush. But now there are only dead ruins left - and "visions of the past" that haunt her like ghosts. Her partner had already let her participate in his plans for the future: living in Paris or New York. A kind of vision as well, that now no longer can come true, because he is already married to another woman and apparently lucky hith her. Our lady is "lost somewhere" in his mind, once again immaterial like a ghost. She is somewhat undecided. She knows that the ghosts would disappear if she just left this railroad track to walk in some other direction, not touching any ghost town again. But as long as she adheres to the illusion that she "will come back to him some day", she cannot leave the railroad track and cannot get rid of those ghosts - the visions of the past. An awesome song. And sad at the same time. Bittersweet like most of the songs by "First Aid Kit". |
|
| First Aid Kit – To a Poet Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
Why is this song named "To a Poet"? Who is this poet? And who is Frank? The omniscient Oracle of Delphi of our time, Google, has all the answers. "You can't plan on the heart" is a quote from the poem "My Heart" by Francis Russell "FRANK" O'Hara, an American POET (1926-1966). Here comes a simple story that would match all the lyrics: While on tour in the United states, "she" (Klara or Johanna or a fictious character) falls in love with a person living there. She knows from the beginning she cannot stay there. When the tour is over she'll have to fly back to Europe. If she could have planned where, when and with whom to fall in love, of course she would have planned it differently, but "you can't plan on the heart". Back home (probably to Stockholm because it's so dark there in winter) she wallows in self-pity because her lover is so far away. As a matter of fact, when the Söderberg sisters recorded this album together with the "Bright Eyes" musicians in the studio in Omaha, their younger brother Isaac fell in love with Mike Mogis daughter Stella. Klara and Johanna stated this in a radio interview. A highly emotional song. Makes me melt away each time I listen to it :) |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.