submissions
| Robyn Hitchcock – Queen Elvis Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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At first Queen Elvis seems to simply be an artist, something Hitchcock himself identifies with, but as the song progresses he seems to break from the subject, stand apart from it, and he appears to be singing about celebrity. The title fuses two iconic figures into one, after all. |
submissions
| David Bowie – Sons of the Silent Age Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The song is about fascism--please, accept no other explanation. It was on Bowie's mind; he'd been notoriously fascinated with the Nazis, not to mention European history, and was living in Berlin when he wrote and recorded this song. The sons described in the verses are incapable of reflection. They make war from time to time, Bowie tells us, and "they never die/Just go to sleep one day." A sleeping beast.
Their being from the "silent age" would be reference to the silent-film era, which preceded the era of fascism in Germany (which isn't the same thing as causing it, needles to say). In the chorus, Bowie reaches for a world of sound--his symbolic alternative to fascism. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Through With Buzz Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The Dan seem to hold this song in low regard. When asked about it, Becker responded, "The less said, the better." The song seems to be rather transparently about drugs, although I won't dismiss the possibility that Buzz is a tiresome roommate (remember, Becker and Fagen were in college together--not to mention at the end of their rope with their touring band--so they'd had their fill of close quarters). And the strings! Only other Dan song I can think of that has strings is "FM." |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Black Friday Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Just David Palmer (not David Palmer Jones, as I said above, and who is actually the CEO of a waste management company in the UK). |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Bodhisattva Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The repetitive nature of the lyric, especially the repetition of the title over and over at the end, has a chanting quality, the way a prayer is repeated over and over.
And yes, the song is simply about a shallow guy following the Eastern-religion craze, unable to divorce even the names of Japan and China from their consumer connotations. Absolutely smoking song--the Charlie Parker influence really shows through in the long solo section. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Dr Wu Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Everybody is missing the Vietnam-War dimension here. The main character is obviously a Vietnam vet, strung out now on smack and relying on a girlfriend (Katy) to score for him. When his only other friend, Dr. Wu, betrays him with Katy, it echoes the betrayal of the vets by their own country. Katy, to put it crudely, is America, and as the album title coldly tells us, Katy lied. |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Black Friday Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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'Katy Lied' was the first Steely Dan album on which Becker and Fagen fully broke from their old band, and some its songs address this. "Your Gold Teeth II" is a reference to this break (the first person ousted from the band was "Dirty Work" singer David Palmer Jones, who, just before being fired, had spent part of his new money on fixing his teeth--his firing was commemorated in the *first* "Gold Teeth"). "Bad Sneakers" is another obvious example: "Five names I can hardly stand to hear..."
"Black Friday," in which only the singer makes his escape from the panic of the Great Crash, also seems partly inspired the band's split. The seclusion Fagen describes ("Gonna dig myself a hole....Gonna let the world pass by me") is the no-touring, no-bandmates, studio existence that was the Dan's new life. (The choice of Muswellbrook as a destination probably has mostly to do with its hugging the tune so nicely--just as Guadalajara did in "My Old School.")
Of course, the song is also about an actual financia/societal crash, and I agree with those who have said the song's end-of-the-party mood prefigures the title track of 'Everything Must Go.' |
submissions
| Steely Dan – Rose Darling Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Like nearly everything on the first half of 'Katy Lied,' this is a drug song. Yes, the snake is phallic, but it's not a chick he's sneaking out with--he's getting high. This is a song about one appetite pushing another aside, in this case drugs naroticizing the libido. Thus, Rose = his bong, and Snake Mary = his prick. To put it bluntly.
Think of it as a tale of two pipes. |
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