| Laura Marling – I Was An Eagle Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I think that "I Was An Eagle" is a very complex song that clearly sets the whole theme and ambiance of Laura Marling's 4th album, whose title makes a very direct link with this song ("Once I Was An Eagle"). The idea behind the album is that Laura, or the narrator, no longer is how she (or he) used to be, that is, naive and believing in romance, but has grown into a more mature character, who is able to face the truth and difficulties of love and life itself. This idea is very clearly shown in the lyrics, with the speaker stating that "every little boy is so naive" and that "every little girl is so naive / falling in love with the first man she sees." Readers should stop here to note that it is only the *little* girls and boys who fall in love without thinking - more mature persons do not, as Laura Marling goes on and sings that she "will not be a victim of romance / [she] will not be a victim of circumstance / ... or any man who could get his dirty little hands on [her]." Love, at this stage, is not so much a social necessity, but something that has to be earned and that is to happen only when it is the right time for it. Further evidence about this can be found in the lyrics. I am not 100% sure about it, but I'd say that at the beginning of the song the narrator is in a relationship with someone she does not feel very strongly for. The song starts with a kind of nice and charming image of a couple that reflects about their family, finding links between them and the latter: the grandmother reminds the lover of the narrator, and the narrator finds herself in the image of the grandfather. However, both statements are contrasted by the sentences defining younger people as "so naive," thus meaning that there is something wrong behind all this. Moreover, the narrator says that she "will feel something other than regret," that she will make the right decision and maybe move on, since she has arrived to the point where she "[has] damn near got no dignity left." The central image of the song, the dove and the eagle, is also very interesting and noteworthy. It is a common image in love poetry, the dove usually representing the woman with all its (and her) docility and sweetness, while the rough and powerful eagle stands for the man. Examples of this use can be found throughout literature, but there is one that I think is particularly interesting to analyse Marling's "I Was An Eagle." Metaphysical English poet John Donne, living and writing in the 15th-16th centuries, has written a poem entitled "The Canonization" where he rejects usual and excessive romance whilst praising the love that he and his lover have. The poem includes the following stanza: "Call us what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly, We are tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find the eagle and the dove, The phoenix riddle hath more wit By us; we two being one, are it." John Donne presents a love that is complete in itself. Regarding the imagery noted beforehand, the narrator and his lover are "the eagle and the dove": they cannot be separated, which shows a very strong and intense relationship. These considerations, when applied to the lyrics of this song, allow us to make two comments on the song's narrator: first of all, she inverses gendered roles, with her being the eagle and her lover the mere dove, and, most importantly, this song denotes a completely different relationship, where both parts are severed, with the speaker being an eagle who "[rises] above [her lover] and prey[s him]." This love therefore is completely unusual, and can scarcely be described as such, as the lyrics make very clear ("when we were in love / *if* we were"). I love this song, and I think it definitely is one of my favourites by Laura Marling. The song encompasses a number of emotions that are so hard to define: on the one hand, you clearly want to find love, but on the other one, life has taught you that you should not be so naive about it and think before acting. This consequently turns you into a peculiar character, who will prey everyone that wants to seduce you, and will eventually turn you into a "Master Hunter." |
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| Beyoncé – XO Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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What Beyoncé delivers here is a theme that can be found in another works related to poetry: it is a praise to enjoy life and love while it's here. It can be clearly seen in the following stanza, which pretty much sums it up: "We don't have forever Baby, daylight's wasting You better kiss me Before our time is run out" Actually, the song reminded of a Latin poet, Catullus, who lived in the first century before Christ and writes some very famous poem to his lover, named Lesbia. He has a very complicated relationship with her, and one sometimes find poems that are a pure delight in their loveliness, but also poems that are very violent, due to Lesbia's disrespectful behaviour. The poem I'm mentioning here is poem number 5, which basically states the same as XO: Catullus urges Lesbia to kiss him because they do not have that much time to enjoy their lives and what goes with it. The poem uses a lot of the same images as XO. The poem starts with the line "Let us live and love, Lesbia," and soon moves to the central image of the poem: "Suns may set and yet rise again, but Us, with our brief light, can set but once. One never-ending night must be slept." I clearly think that this idea is visible in Beyoncé's song. Moreover, Catullus, in the extract above, also plays with the idea of night/day, darkness/light, exactly as Beyoncé does ("the darknest night", "turn my lights out", "glowing", "daylight", etc. etc.). I'm obviously not saying that Beyoncé copied Catullus, nor even knows Catullus (although she may know him, of course!), but I'd just like to highlight the true power of poetry here: after all, we are all human beings, feeling the same things and sometimes having the same reactions to the same situations. Art is a way of expressing it and no matter when you lived nor where, you may find some similarities about it everywhere - and I truly think this is fascinating! :) |
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| St. Vincent – Digital Witness Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I'm not 100% sure of what I'm stating here, but I'd say that "Digital Witness" is all about the hyper-socialized society in which we live, especially regarding internet social networks. We have this constant need of glorifying ourselves by saying that we do such and such, and waiting for the approval of our peers (i.e. "our friends" on these social networks), which leaves us with virtually no proper personality. I think the video for the song is pretty enlightening regarding this reading of the song, since people are shown doing useless things all in the same way: there are people walking on empty streets with a very military-based rhythm, people rolling what seems to be a piece of chalk on a notebook in the exact same way, etc etc. Moreover the places in the video are pretty "sterile," with their pale colours and very few variations, giving this idea of a waste land, in a way. Going through the lyrics, I think the first stanza defines the kind of superior power that the digital era embodies: it tells us to "get back to [our] seats," leaving us powerless if we agree with it, because it wants "all of [our] minds," symbolizing very clearly the brainwash that it produces in us. The part that sounds like a chorus is also very important for my interpretation of the song, given that it states this necessity of being watched and approved. "What's the point of even sleeping?" the narrator asks, since if s/he "can't show it, you [we?] can't see it." It goes to a sort of climax, describing how people go far beyond their limits in order to be noticed by society, with this image of someone "jump[ing] right off the London Bridge," which is way too dangerous but seems like a very casual thing as stated here. Finally, the very last line is very important, with the narrator shouting out "Won't somebody sell me back to me?" Now that we've sold ourselves to society and become something generic, who is going to help us get our former, truer self? |
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| St. Vincent – Digital Witness Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I'm not 100% sure of what I'm stating here, but I'd say that "Digital Witness" is all about the hyper-socialized society in which we live, especially regarding internet social networks. We have this constant need of glorifying ourselves by saying that we do such and such, and waiting for the approval of our peers (i.e. "our friends" on these social networks), which leaves us with virtually no proper personality. I think the video for the song is pretty enlightening regarding this reading of the song, since people are shown doing useless things all in the same way: there are people walking on empty streets with a very military-based rhythm, people rolling what seems to be a piece of chalk on a notebook in the exact same way, etc etc. Moreover the places in the video are pretty "sterile," with their pale colours and very few variations, giving this idea of a waste land, in a way. Going through the lyrics, I think the first stanza defines the kind of superior power that the digital era embodies: it tells us to "get back to [our] seats," leaving us powerless if we agree with it, because it wants "all of [our] minds," symbolizing very clearly the brainwash that it produces in us. The part that sounds like a chorus is also very important for my interpretation of the song, given that it states this necessity of being watched and approved. "What's the point of even sleeping?" the narrator asks, since if s/he "can't show it, you [we?] can't see it." It goes to a sort of climax, describing how people go far beyond their limits in order to be noticed by society, with this image of someone "jump[ing] right off the London Bridge," which is way too dangerous but seems like a very casual thing as stated here. Finally, the very last line is very important, with the narrator shouting out "Won't somebody sell me back to me?" Now that we've sold ourselves to society and become something generic, who is going to help us get our former, truer self? |
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| Noah and the Whale – L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N. Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I've also thought about it but... "she went down on almost anyone"? That doesn't sound like Laura at all, I'd say. Or at least it doesn't match the idea I have of her! | |
| Laura Marling – Saved These Words Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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What a splendid way to end the masterpiece that is, in my opinion, Once I Was An Eagle. This song is brilliant - so beautiful and at times so calm but also so overwhelming. One of the main themes of the album, as it has been pointed out in Pitchfork's review of the LP, is Marling's treatment of love, and how she has evolved regarding this matter since her first album. If you remember well, although "Ghosts" sounded very mature in the way it depicted love and acknowledged the fact that it very seldom lasts forever ("Lover, please do not fall to your knees / It's not like I believe in ever-lasting love"), Laura was also the kind of girl who could easily get too excited about a relationship and realize what she felt was not strong enough (see the beginning of "New Romantic," for example: "I know I said I love you but I'm thinking I was wrong, / I'm the first to admit that I'm still pretty young, / And I never meant to hurt you when I wrote you ten love songs."). Once I Was An Eagle seems to have gone beyond this idea and be way more thoughtful about love and what it means to be with someone and to "love" him or her. I think that "Saved These Words" is the song that embodies the best this idea: whereas the album started as a kind of post-breakup situation ("You should be gone beast, be gone from my mind at least" and "when we *were" in love, I was an eagle and you were a dove"), the narrator evolved and went through a lot of emotions and situations (such as the strong and fierce "Master Hunter" or the delicate and very sensitive "Little Love Caster," who, unsurprisingly, follows the former and shows how unstable the narrator feels at the moment) and finally found harmony: if this love story did not last it is mainly because it was not meant to be, and that there will be other lovers worth of hearing "these words," which are the most-famous "I love you," as I reckon. I really like the way the song starts, with the guitar slowly introducing the song and Marling's voice uttering what seems to be the end of the narrator's quest. By the way, it is hard to know who is the narrator: is it someone we have already heard of in the album, such as Undine or Rosie, is it Laura Marling herself - although she has stated that her lyrics rarely are confessional -, or is it a kind of deity or something else that leads to a state of grace? However, the way love is described in this song is really interesting and states the human inability to dominate and control it. It is "not always easy" nor "fun," and, most of all, after all that internal struggle between what the narrator feels and shows and which has been shown throughout the album, s/he has come to realize that "love is better dumb:" there is no good way to explain or to phrase it, since that, in this case, "words are sleazy." Once this has been accepted, the song moves to a more emphatic feature, with the guittar strumming becoming more effective and leading to the kind of chorus that can be found in the song. The narrator wonders if s/he and/or his/her lover "should choose to love anyone anytime soon," which, I think, is a rhetorical question, the answer being yes, and that love being maybe right around the corner, for both of them, and not only for one of them. I also like the way in which Marling's narrator addresses his/her naivety, because, basically, "New Romantic" is about naivety, but lately, naivety seems to have been "failing" him/her (remember, the narrator is a "Master Hunter," who "cured [his/her] skin" so that "nothing gets in"), which is now seen as a good thing, since it allows the narrator to know s/he truly wants and deserves, without getting lost in lost feelings and memories. Furthermore, that kind of address is typical in Marling's work, but it was usually aimed to a Greek goddess, in order to help the narrator, such as Hera ("What He Wrote") or "Sophia", goddess of wisdom, whilst here she is addressing herself. It it thus a movement from the outside to the inside, showing how the narrator has come to terms and seen that what s/he needs to be better is understand how s/he works. Well, basically, that's it. I'm sorry for the long post, but I really love this song and have been listening to it a lot lately, since I'm trying to recover from a breakup that left me much more devastated than what I thought it would. Laura's helping me to understand that this love story was not a "curse," not at all, but that it showed me something new that I will for sure experience again in my life ('cause I'm also "the first to admit that I'm still pretty young"). So, thanks Laura! |
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| Laura Marling – What He Wrote Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| Well, she was Zeus's husband, so yes, she got cheated a lot of time, since Zeus liked women very much... but she is not any woman, she is a goddess! This kind of turns Laura's song into a prayer and makes it even stronger. | |
| Lorde – Ribs Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I was thinking about it too! But in the Broken Social Scene song, there's a lot of arguing about whether this "lover's spit" is sex-related or not... do you guys think it could also have that connotation here? It could make sense in a way, but I don't really see Lorde talking about this that way... |
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| Daughter – Smother Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Oh dear, let me correct that: I CAN* relate to this song. I should definitely check my text before sending it. |
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| Daughter – Smother Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I can't relate to this song SO much. Although I agree with blue_bathtub that it can be read in an end-of-a-relationship context, I also think that the song is really more general. Sometimes, you think you are worth nothing. That you cannot be loved, that you don't really deserve life. You want "all that is not [yours]," that is, a standard and a happy life, with a good job and a family and someone who truly and tenderly loves you. You don't think you are good enough to have it - and when it comes to love, when you sincerely fall in love with someone, you are quite sure that he does not want you, that "[you're] not right." In a way, you perceive yourself as a "suffocator," mainly for the ones surrounding you. But the one you are really smothering actually is you. That second verse really makes me think of suicide: it's like she does not want to live anymore, because she thinks she useless. Therefore, by committing suicide, she thinks she will not only help the ones she knows (she won't be a burden for them anymore). In a more down-to-earth interpretation, it's also like her body, by disintegrating itself, will help vegetation to grow (and so turn her into a useful "thing"). Following the same idea, but more poetically, it reminds me of a description of death found in Philip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials," where it is said that dead bodies liberate, in a way, their molecules, which will expand into nature and form rivers and trees and the sky... The last verse eventually describes more accurately that feeling that she does not do anything except wasting her friends and acquaintances' time. The emphasis laid on the fact she would rather stay "inside her mother" is overwhelming, in my sense. I love Daughter and the way they embody all sorts of feelings in their songs. They are indeed all linked to sadness and even sometimes despair, but they are so true... |
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