| Pink Floyd – Welcome to the Machine Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| Sometimes the people who claim to be "leading you out of the matrix" are just little demi-god wannabes who use hate and paranoia to scare you into trapping yourself in their own matrix, where they can dominate your mind and sell you supplements. Infowars.com is right wingnut conspiracy madness, clickbait clicker beware! | |
| Jethro Tull – Beltane Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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Here are more complete lyrics: "Beltane" Have you ever stood in the April wood and called the new year in? While the phantoms of three thousand years fly as the dead leaves spin? There's a snap in the grass behind your feet and a tap upon your shoulder. And the thin wind crawls along your neck it's just the old gods getting older. And the kestral drops like a fall of shot and the red cloud hanging high come a Beltane. Have you ever loved a lover of the old elastic truth? And doted on the daughter in the ministry of youth? Thrust your head between the breasts of the fertile innocent. And taken up the cause of love, for the sake of argument. Or while the kisses drop like a fall of shot from soft lips in the rain come a Beltane. Happy old new year to you and yours. The sun's up for one more day, to be sure. Play it out gladly, for your card's marked again. Have you walked around your parks and towns so knife-edged orderly? While the fires are burned on the hills upturned in far-off wild country. And felt the chill on your window-sill as the green man comes around. With his walking cane of sweet hazel brings it crashing down. Sends your knuckles white as the thin stick bites. Well, it's just your groaning pains. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane. |
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| Kate Bush – Under Ice Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| If you'd like to read a sensitive, thoughtful and in-depth analysis of this song and the others in Kate's masterful "The 9th Wave" suite, check this out: http://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.jp/2014/08/the-ninth-wave-by-kate-bush.html | |
| Kate Bush – And Dream of Sheep Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| If you'd like to read a sensitive, thoughtful and in-depth analysis of this song and the others in Kate's masterful "The 9th Wave" suite, check this out: http://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.jp/2014/08/the-ninth-wave-by-kate-bush.html | |
| Heart – Little Queen Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[streaker:17604] I like our post! I am a dad who shares music with his daughter. I nicknamed her "Queenie" when she was a baby, still call her that at times now that she is 16. We've been to a lot of concerts and music festivals together, and it means a lot to mean that music is an important part of her her life, because it is so important to me. I hope you are still sharing music with your father! Oh, and I have hundreds of cassettes. I'm sure I"m much older than you, probably closer to your father's age. Dinosaurs live! | |
| XTC – The Smartest Monkeys Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Great, profound song. To me, this hits on frequent XTC themes of despairing about human cruelty and stupidity We are animals. We think we are so sophisticated, and perhaps we are, but we are also base and beastly, ready to kill, oppress and selfishly use each other as routine and even culturally accepted patterns. This doesn't have the extra dimension of other XTC songs, like Jason and the Argonauts, that have a bit of a silver lining. | |
| XTC – Jason And The Argonauts Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Great, profound song. To me, this hits on frequent Andy Partridge themes of despairing about human cruelty and stupidity, mixed with the ecstatic (XTC!), or perhaps manic attempt to embrace and accept humanity and the world we've made as is. We are animals, but we are rich, and you can look at the ugly side or the beautiful aspects of our nature as you choose. "Human riches I'll release" is the line I see as the attempt to integrate the beautiful with the crude ugliness that dominates these lyrics. We think we are so sophisticated, and perhaps we are, but we are also base and beastly, ready to kill, oppress and selfishly use each other as routine and even culturally accepted patterns. See "The Smartest Monkeys" - it's quite similar in tone, although written by Colin Moulding. | |
| Jethro Tull – For Michael Collins, Jeffrey, And Me Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Always loved this song, mostly for the tone of the music, and the lyrics always seemed to convey similar emotions: a sense of wonder mixed with deep concern for the human condition, as a lot of Ian's lyrics do. I really don't know what he's exactly on about here, but I agree that these words are pretty trippy. My guess is that it's his poetic reaction to the "intrusion" of humans landing on the moon. LEM might refer to "Lunar Excursion Module", an early name of the Apollo Lunar Module. "The mother ship is just a blip..." | |
| Michael Jackson – Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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From: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1545 Jackson wrote this song, which can be interpreted as an angry attack on the tabloid press and others who hounded him. A struggle with fame and being misunderstood were common themes for Jackson, and in this song he lashes out at those who take advantage of him: "They eat off of you, you're a vegetable." At the end of this song, the chorus is "Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sas." The line is borrowed from Cameroon native Manu Dibango's 1972 song "Funky Soul Makossa." Jackson did not have permission to appropriate the song, and reached an out-of-court settlement with Dibango over the use. |
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| XTC – Greenman Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| I believe this song is an ecstatic embrace of nature, alluding to images of humans merging with nature in the artistic depictions of The Green Man in European churches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man It's a great song, both whimsical and heavily drenched in spiritual meaning. | |
| XTC – The Last Balloon Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| These lyrics (along with the accompanying music and vocal performance) are a fine example of the potent bittersweet brew of idealism and cynicism that makes so many XTC songs deep, moving and important. When this band is no longer vastly underrated, we'll probably be living in the days that the idealist in Andy so longs for in this song. We're weighed down by our evil past, but maybe our children, or our children's children, will finally catch on. | |
| Genesis – Undertow Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[xatou:8887] I was moved by your message. I hope you are doing well! |
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| The Wailin' Jennys – Swing Low Sail High Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| This is a profoundly beautiful song. For me, it helps me deal with the guilt I feel not being more there for people, closing my own heart at times, and ways I've fooled myself into thinking one person will fulfill me, and the mystery of life and death, and a deep, abiding sense of meaning and sweetness , the sense that The Whole of LIfe is so beautiful and valuable that it makes all the tough stuff worth enduring. We just have to find a way to bravely "look the whole thing in the eye", so we can sail high one more time after each episode of swinging low. | |
| Billy Joel – 52nd Street Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@le fer et le feu Well written - personal, evocative, cool. This album holds many memories for me as well. Love Ray and Billy Holiday too. Never put it together that Billy Joel helped me understand them, but reading this, I'm sure he did. |
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| Def Leppard – Animal Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Ignore those who aren't impressed by your good taste. I think it's great that you've gotten into good music from the past, and shows your ability to think for yourself and expand beyond the common boundaries. There are others like you, but you are still rare. Keep digging into the roots of today's music. I'm 52 and didn't start appreciating the blues, Americana, jazz, gospel, etc until I was way beyond my teenage years. Listen to Led Zeppelin - it will get you into the blues - eventually. | |
| Van Morrison – Tir Na Nog Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[raylward:5258] Beautifully expressed - thanks! See you in Tir na nOg! | |
| Steely Dan – Any Major Dude Will Tell You Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Very post-San-Francisco hipster-buddhist: Everything changes, things fall apart and come together, on and on, don't take your blues so seriously and call your temporary crisis "you superfine mind" coming undone. It's not that bad - get some perspective. I find the most intriguing line to be "You can try to run but you can't hide from what's inside of you". I agree that this could imply an optimistic "All the answers are within" but along with that I think there is an implication that at some point you have to face the fact that your demons are inside of you. The demon might not be at your door come morning, but night will come back as well, and until you see that the demons are actually inside of you, they'll keep coming back to your door from time to time. We all share a shadow element and this must be faced and integrated to attain lasting wholeness and peace of mind. I love the crescendo of guitar keys at the end of the song. Musically and vibrationally this song is almost a tribute to the Beatles, but of course Walter and Donald make it their own. This song is one that stays with you - I was just singing it to my 14 year old daughter to try to help her through some adolescent blues, as it helps me through some of my own, and has since my own teenage years. |
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| R.E.M. – 1,000,000 Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[font9b:1318] : Thanks for this link and info. I agree with you - seems very likely they were writing about the Guidestones. How did you know? | |
| Ben Folds Five – Sports And Wine Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I think this song is more nuanced than just being a criticism of meat-headed alpha males, I really appreciate your insights. It's kind of tragic that people can't understand each other, don't you think? Although I think Ben is criticizing the kind of guy who deals with this by being fliexible, the deeper tragedy is that we just can't seem to simply tolerate each other. Who cares if you're a macho alpha into sports (and beer), or a sensitive guy who likes poetry and can relate to the more emotionally complex realm more easily inhabited by women? We should all just live and let live. In a way, I think Ben might be putting on a bit of the snarkiness in this song - in other words, he is subtly making fun of himself for the contradiction inherent in criticizing someone into both sports and wine when in reality he is actually a very tolerant guy who can only not tolerate the intolerant. I appreciate such complexity in his attitude and lyrics. He's a genius. | |
| Ben Folds Five – Sports And Wine Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[davidecoyote:947] : "We own the music" ! Great line davidcoyote. Although I think this song is more nuanced than just being a criticism of meat-headed alpha males, I really appreciate your insights. It's kind of tragic that people can't understand each other, don't you think? Although I think Ben is criticizing the kind of guy who deals with this by being fliexible, the deeper tragedy is that we just can't seem to simply tolerate each other. Who cares if you're a macho alpha into sports (and beer), or a sensitive guy who likes poetry and can relate to the more emotionally complex realm more easily inhabited by women? We should all just live and let live. In a way, I think although Ben putting on a bit of the snarkiness in this song - in other words, he is subtly making fun of himself for the contradiction inherent in criticizing someone into both sports and wine when in reality he is actually a very tolerant guy who can only not tolerate the intolerant. | |
| Yes – Siberian Khatru Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[FayeKane:134] : Thanks for sharing such a personal interpretation, FayeKane. You sound like a really open, scintillating and smart person. Can I have your phone number? I'm just kidding, I'm married, but you do sound hot and smart, my favorite combination of qualities. I love how you link sex, death and a sense of mystical participation in eternity. I will see Yes in concert in a couple of days, and they are playing the entire Close to the Edge album on this tour, so I know I will hear this song. I will think of your interpretation as I do so, it's very moving and creative. I also like your humility in stating that this is just your interpretation rather than the definitive meaning of this song. Songs like this are filled with so many possible meanings silmultaneously. Those who say they have no meaning are really missing the chance to make some meaning of their own. That's the meaning of life, to me: a golden opportunity to make the Mystery mean something, if only to us. That's one reason why I love the mysterious evocative lyrics of Yes and bands like them. Like Life itself, they invite us to create meaning for ourselves. | |
| Taylor Swift – Clean Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I think she's comparing her attachment to this romantic relationship to an addiction to alcohol or another drug. "Clean" is a term used by addicts to mean no longer using the substance they are addicted to. Is Taylor finally having a "First Step" moment and admitting she's addicted to romance? | |
| Elton John – Empty Sky Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| What I get from this great song is the feelings of longing, loneliness, bitterness and despair that haunt the heart of someone imprisoned. They look through the bars of their jail cell at swallows playing in the sky and long to fly free like them. Of course we are all in some sort of jail cell, metaphorically speaking. Unless we're not. | |
| The Raspberries – Go All The Way Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I believe this song is obviously about what it feels like to let a personal savior "all the way" into your heart. Either that, or sex. Perhaps both? | |
| Styx – Castle Walls Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| This is a song about a journey into realms that are beyond are ordinary day-to-day experience, known by many different names: the Dreamtime, the Astral Plane, the Chi Realms, the Collective Unconscious, the Afterlife, the Underworld, Hades, etc. It's about a journey into soul, beyond the ego. "Once in a dream..." Castle walls are a metaphor for the restrictions and defensiveness associated with ordinary ego-oriented consciousness. Music is identified as a means to enter these realms beyond the ego, and a guide once you have entered: "I stood alone while the minstrel sang his song", "his song kept calling me... leading me on..." The keyboard and guitar solos can take you on your own journey if you let them. It takes courage to overcome the fears associated with leaving your ego behind (even though we all do so every night when we sleep) - fear of losing the soul (but the ego is not the soul), fear of facing the raging battles, fear of hell itself. Hell is a metaphor for the intimidatingly deep levels of the unconscious mind. The synth music referencing the Exorcist music is there for more reasons than just a joke about Tommy Shaw's girlfriend at the time. But this realm is only appears evil if you don't get over your fears, and your delusions that the soul and the ego are equivalent. When you take this journey, you leave your ego behind (temporarily), but your soul IS the realm you are traveling into. Tiresias is a prophet or seer from Greek mythology who helped Odysseus when he visited Hades, talked to spirits of the dead, and gained valuable insight into his life's journey. Tiresias had already died and was there awaiting Odysseus, who was just visiting. Tiresias was one of the few spirits in this realm that remained lucid, sentient, and intact - most of the the others had little ability to remember or make sense of matters related to earthly, linear existence. To understand your destiny before you meet it requires both the courage to enter this haunting, fearful realm, and the lucidity to remember and understand what is revealed to you there, and apply it to your everyday life once you get back to the castle. "Every man must meet his destiny" - but what is your destiny, our collective destiny as a species? This music is so melancholic because there is great grief in contemplating all the harm we do to each other in our ignorance of our destiny. For me, the answer is alluded to in the following song on the album "The Grand Finale": we all are destined to realize, sooner or later, that "Deep inside we're all the same... We are the same... Yeeeeeeah - O!" But if you have the courage to take your own journey, you will find your own answer. Listen to the song, close your eyes, let the music take and guide you, and you might get a hint. The bass notes are the sublime footsteps leading you beyond your castle walls. Follow the minstrel's song. Don't be afraid you'll lose your soul - you are going to meet it, to experience a part of it at least. Stay lucid and remember what you're shown. Ask Tiresias to help you too. | |
| Ambrosia – Time Waits for No One Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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"The best times are timeless, you'll see" is the best line, a great ending, subtly suggesting the mystical state in which it becomes apparent that now lasts forever (it's always now). Another great line is "Why must we continually disturb the universe with decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse". This is directly quoting T.S. Eliot from his "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." This is a great poem - if you like progressive rock lyrics, check out T.S. Eliot: http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html And why do we dare disturb the universe with our decisions and revisions? I guess because we are daring! There is nothing wrong with human activity and creativity in itself - what the poet decries here is that it is not given the appreciation and savoring it (and everything else) deserves. Basically I think Ambrosia's lyrics are putting a spin on the adage to live in the moment and seize the day. We are living too hectically, and in our manic activity and race to accomplish we are missing both the simple beauties and the deeper meanings of being alive. That is not a new thought. The spin, I believe, is in that zen-like last line, which alludes to the possibility that we will all eventually wake up to the inevitable reality that each moment of our lives has been and will be beautiful and meaningful beyond measure or words. Someday we will all live in the Now. I hope it's soon ;-) |
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| Jethro Tull – Nothing To Say Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Funny I was just thinking the same thing when I saw your post Krendall. Ozzy's "I Don't Know" is a great song, eh? Really influenced my philosophy when I was a young-un. |
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| Jethro Tull – Nothing To Say Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I understand what you wrote rainwalk, and found your post insightful and inspiring. I think the meaning you found in the song is indeed in there, but I also find truth in your interpretation, offhand, about worshiping fans. Interestingly, I think these lyrics kind of loop back and comment on themselves: What do they really mean? Well Ian has nothing to say about that - your existential freedom means you have to climb the tower yourself and come up with your own answers I can apply this to him talking about the meaning of all his songs, and also to larger questions like the meaning of life, how to live in an enlightened way, should I love or should I fight, etc. The most mysterious part of this song to me are the lines ", broken by the lies That your misfortune brought upon us and I won't disguise them." Perhaps they mean that the unfortunate phenomenon of people refusing to take responsibility for finding their own answers creates great trouble in society, and this should be stated clearly, not disguised. We need to face how much trouble is caused by people believing in dogma and following leaders blindly, What do you all think about that? |
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| Peter Gabriel – Blood Of Eden Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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"I saw the darkness in my heart" "And the darkness still has work to do "The knotted cords untying" In this song and many others by peter gabriel, the themes of the intertwining and interpenetration of opposites can be found: the polarities of woman and man, light and darkness, insight and insanity, kindness and cruelty, agony and ecstasy, divinity and humanity, silence and sound, signal and noise. I'm sure this song has many personal meanings to him, probably related to a specific relationship and the difficulty and growth it afforded him, but he writes in a mysterious enough way that each of us can draw our own associations and meanings from the songs. In centering this song around images of Man, Woman, Eden, Darkness, Uncertainty, Unheard Souls, Distant Thunder, Tenderness, Stillness, Bliss, and Union, there is fertile ground indeed to spawn so many meanings, one for each listener. For me, the lines I quoted initially, about darkness having to the work of untying knots is particularly interesting and meaningful. The myth of Eden is commonly called The Fall, and this connects with darkness and death (blood) and curses, but I believe peter is implying that there is something useful going on here, that these tragic separations can bring higher and more refined unions down the line. Here is my own speculation about the meaning of Woman and Man in Eden: Maybe in the standard fall of man garden of eden myth, what was really going on was this: God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but this was just a kind of test to see if they had the spunk, courage, autonomy and initiative to become equal Gods with him someday. They passed, and in fact "The Fall" was really graduation from Divine Elementary School. History has been like Secondary School, in which humanity attains the awareness, social, ethical and technological sophistication and power to link together in a higher level of synergistic harmony, in which each autonomous human individual is also holonically linked and synergistically co-creating with all the others. So once we pass this test, in other words, once we figure out the social systems and psycho-spiritual development patterns to create this higher synergistic network of powerfully creative, equal, loving, harmonious, autonomous and freely interconnecting individuals then we graduate to full Godhood, and together create our universe and our own creatures. And only as we awaken to our collective Divinity will we realize that the Fall was in fact a graduation and our misperception of it as a fall was a kind of childish longing for the protection, safety and lack of responsibility of innocence. We have to get over our species-level Mother Complex, our desire to have some beneficent parental authority figure take care of us and make the tough decisions for us so we can play in innocence. Once we do, we'll realize that God as a Father has a truth to it, but now that we are mature we are equal to Him, and don't have to cower in fear from his wrath or enjoy the protection of his "omnipotent" but patronizing care. We take our place as adults in new relationship to our Creator, just as we as humans eventually take our place as relative equals with our parents once we completely grow up. |
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| Genesis – Undertow Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I believe this song is inspiring and beautiful enough to be considered magical, or used in a magical way. I'd like to memorize the chorus and use it frequently as a spell to give me and others extra energy and love and optimism and fortitude when fate blows those cold chilly nights into our lives. Or/and, it feels like these lyrics are being whispered from my soul to my heart to give me Life Life Life and all the incredible courage it implies, for just to stay alive at all implies great courage. So here's what it made me think/feel as I listened: Here's what I'd be hope to be contemplating if it were indeed the last (or current) day of life; So have I stood up to the blows and challenges that my semi-self-chosen fate has dealt me? Have I made the most of the gifts I've been gifted with? Can't I open my heart wider to this sacred wondrous and terrifyingly surprising and mysterious universe, and let the immensity of it bring me to my tearful knees? Shall I live on, and on again, as the waves of shadow and light wash through my life, the summer fall winter spring of it all, picking me up one more time than it drops me, rebirthing me one more time than it kills me, waking me up one more time than it puts me to sleep? Can I feel the arms of love around me, even if right now there are only memories and hopes and intuitions of unpresent arms? Can I feel love and loved anyway and finally give my heart trustingly to the Universe, and once and for all fall into foolish love with Life not because I'm sure that it won't break my heart, but rather because I'm sure that it will, again, over and over, and mend it one more time than it breaks it, helping me grow grow grow ever onward toward forever, or at least as long as i care to? While deeply appreciative of the warm sweet breezes, in this ever-changing dancing universe, can I, as i think I must, withstand the icy blast again? Can I admit safety is nicer, bit not let my desire for it stifle my willingness to try new things and risk it all sometimes, can I risk it all now, knowing life becomes a crazy caged animal if I lose my sense of adventure. Can I refine my sense of adventure, crafting ingenious risks that pay off nicely if they go well, and teach meaningful lessons on how to do it better next time if things don't go well? |
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