| Muse – Starlight Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[bohemianbanshee:7696] This interpretation brought me to tears. Over a year ago, I met the love of my life to whom I will soon be engaged, and I cannot even imagine the loss. The grief you felt in 2011 must have been devastating. Thank you for taking the time years ago to share it. Something I haven't seen mentioned on this thread, which may be of relevance--from the astrophysical perspective, a star, if massive enough, eventually collapses into a black hole after its lifespan ends. The same type of black hole believed to be at the center of our lovely Milky Way galaxy. The same hole Stephen Hawking lost a bet about with regard to information being lost within it, and in Sep 2015 came up with a theory of how information is instead stored in the event horizon, the outer edges of the black hole... We don't know what happens after death. Or what happens to a conscious being after entering a black hole. But if information is preserved within even a black hole system, perhaps at the event horizon, maybe, just maybe, the information can be transmitted across time and space... Sounds like you received a communication from the unknown. Muse, as any artist would, has an appreciation of the unknown. Your sharing has also allowed me to appreciate another dimension of this song--the black hole following the death of hopes and expectations, results in revelations... and the holding, within particles, mass-energy, whatever mysterious substance that consciousness is made of... has been, and always will be. |
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| Sam Smith – La La La Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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This song and video exemplifies a coping strategy to emotional abuse. Particularly child emotional abuse, where the caregiver who is actually supposed to be responsible for the child's development and growth, will instead "spit venom" "hiss and preach" and is also a hypocrite ("when your words mean nothing"), the child needs to find a healthy way to get away. This is seen in the music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O1_3zBUKM8 "I'm gonna drown you out before I lose my mind" Children who grow into adults while holding on to the abuse as true (e.g. thinking they deserve the venom and hissing, and the caregiver's hypocrisy is somehow correct), will indeed become crazy. "If my heart can't stop it, I find a way to block it" If the child can't stop the pain coming from this abuse, they will drown it out with a simple ritual. What's so sad about this song is how inane and childish the "la la la" sounds--when I first heard this song, I only heard those words, and thought it was so silly and clanging. It was only after I saw the music video and researched the lyrics that the pain and beauty of this composition reached me. Indeed, the blocking and fighting back towards this abuse with the child's singing, is what stops the cycle of abuse. Below adapted from the Wikipedia article on the music video (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_La_(Naughty_Boy_song): According to Jewell (the director of the video), the video is about a Bolivian oral legend... a boy he discovers he has a talent for perceiving the problems of people whom he can heal by giving powerful screams like an earthquake or a tornado... he found a disfigured man who was abused and discriminated against by society. This man reveals that he is a prophet cursed by a demon, El Tio, because he stopped adoring him and left the community because it was inhabited by this demon. El Tio is considered the lord of the underworld, to whom mortals give offerings for protection or to soothe his anger. The prophet said that anyone who listens to the devil would fall under his control and that he lives in the desert, where once there was a city that adored him and received a curse, which caused everyone to commit suicide. Together the boy and the old man head towards the residence of the demon, until they reach a mine. There, only the child must deal with the devil, because anyone with intact hearing could be cursed. With his cries he could stop the spirit from cursing other people. The story in the video is unresolved, since the child is left facing the demon, while his companions have gone away. |
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| Sam Smith – Money on My Mind Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Agree with the interpretation by Seeing above. Sam Smith's mournful tone speaks to a certain social commentary about the state of music production today, indeed any kind of creative production, the self-expression of a person's deepest joy and craft, which has become digitized and commoditized. He says he "I don't have money on my mind," but there are no negatives in the brain. If you tell a person, "I'm not thinking of a pink elephant," you know they can't help but be thinking of a pink elephant, because they had to have it in their brain to even speak those words. So, I think this song elegantly addresses the struggle artists face.. of course they need to think about money. Money is survival, is compensation for their time and hard work, and they need to think about it, but it is a struggle to keep their joy in the craft authentic when faced with survival concerns. "Don't want to see the numbers I want to see heaven" Such a beautiful lyric. Sam Smith is a bird with a beautiful voice who recognizes he is in a gilded cage now, as so many of us human beings are, because of the commodification of human beings. But he still sings softly of heaven and brings heaven to me. Thank you for your love of your art. |
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| Sam Smith – Nirvana Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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When I hear this song, the melancholy, aching strain, contrasted with the lyrics reflecting on the emptiness of a desperate physical connection... I think of it as social commentary on today's "hookup culture" where people seek love, get hurt somehow and also jaded by society's expectation ("give her my name"), despair of finding true love, and instead experience the "nirvana" of the present moment. From Wikipedia, "nirvana" means "blown out" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana): "In the Buddhist context nirvana refers to the imperturbable stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion, and delusion have been finally extinguished. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with Brahman, the divine ground of existence, and the experience of blissful egolessness" There is the heartbreaking detachment when having sex without committed desire, that has its own bittersweet beauty. |
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| Chris Thile – Here and Heaven Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I agree with your interpretation and appreciate its line-by-line nature. Especially the symbolism of bow/arrow and seeds. Curious what you think of "Beyond the boys and the girls trying to keep us calm"--that line had actually made me think the couple is considering marriage, and their friends who see the disastrous nature of a marriage without intimacy are trying to dissuade them, but they proceed, stonefaced. |
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| Punch Brothers – Clara Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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This is a complex, beautiful song. Based on the yearning, minor chords, and Chris Thile's keening vocals, I think the song is about a small, young family of husband, wife, and infant daughter, told from the perspective of the husband. The daughter appears infant or very young because of the line, "Someday if she's hungry I'll bring her to you" -- she must be carried and fed by the wife; usually infants are breastfed. Some lines are ominous, and my opinion is they refer to death and suicide: "Someday don't wake up" "It's gonna be a long night" "And the sun may never shine" My hypothesis is that this song is about a young husband who is tormented by the belief that his wife doesn't love him ("Clara once upon a time your mother didn't love your father the best" and "Clara once upon a time your father knew he'd scare your mother away"). However, as he looks into her eyes "one-way mirror to my soul" he also realizes the truth, that he doesn't love himself, and scares himself. "Singing lovers live in a dream that keeps coming true" - this line suggests to me that the husband of the song attempts to kill his wife and himself, likely with sleeping pills. Or maybe he just tries to kill himself. He says, "Go back to sleep" to both his daughter and wife, so perhaps he was alone in bed, had taken the pills, and wanted to be found. In any case, the man writes the song for his daughter Clara, and makes references to how she will understand it when she is older "she's still a song to play/Someday but you're ready to hear it's for you". |
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