| Gary Numan – Praying To The Aliens Lyrics | 22 days ago |
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To better understand this song, which was originally released in 1979, realize that most of the UK had only decriminalized sex between members of the same gender in 1967, 12 years earlier. Scotland would do it later in 1980, and Northern Ireland wouldn't until 1982. My interpretation, and it's of course only an interpretation, is that he's describing a future dystopia where homosexual behavior has become an even greater criminal offense. In this future, the situation for gay people hasn't continued improve, it's become far worse. The person described in the first verse is recalling a lover, who was taken away by mysterious agents in grey overcoats. "There is no one to replace [him]." In the next verse we get more details of what happened when he was taken away. A grey overcoated agent stopped him for a random pol[ice] check and questioned him. "Do you ever think of women?" As a means of finding out whether he's one of the "boys who love only boys" who they don't want to spoil "the perfect picture of a boy/girl age." As they question him, they break him down emotionally, to the point where he's a "torn old queen, living somewhere between dead and dying." After his lover is taken away, the narrator is convinced that "there are no more." That is, no more homosexuals. He thinks he's the last one left and that he could be revealed by the fact that he looks out of the corner of his eye, rightly suspicious and frightened. He ponders how times have changed from when people like him were better tolerated, but he still can't even imagine living any other way. As a result of all of this horror, the narrator gives up on humans and begins praying to alien beings. He's like Bertolt Brecht's Pirate Jenny, fantasizing about an avenging outside force that will appear and wipe out the society that has treated him so badly. |
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| The Au Pairs – Come Again Lyrics | 4 months ago |
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It's a critique/questioning of attitudes toward sex among left-leaning people of the day. In 1981 when the album was released, 3rd wave feminism was a good decade away. The slightest whiff of dominance/submission, even penetration itself was considered to be a reflection of oppressive patriarchy and therefore forbidden. It must be egalitarian and never selfish. Even if we take turns being dominant and submissive, it's WRONG. Men were the perverts, good heavens, never women. Lesley's narrator is questioning whether the person she's in bed with is actually enjoying it. Specifically if they have replaced one set of rules with another set of rules and drained the passion and spontaneity from the act. Since the recording features Paul, the other guitarist, as her vocal foil, people might assume that it's about hetero sex, but Lesley was a lesbian feminist when she wrote it, so I view it in that light. Her narrator's partner could be a guy or a gal who wants to be seen as sensitive and progressive, but it's probably a gal, given the lyricist's perspective. Her narrator is in bed with someone who seems to think they must follow an ideological script when making love. She says "You brought in new rules, which you obey." "You mustn't do this, it may offend her. You must give more than you take away." "But is it real, are you feeling it? To behave a model for others to follow, are you feeling it?" She wants sex to be passionate and to be driven by what she and her partner are feeling, not what their ideology is telling them is "okay." She's saying that if you replace one set of restrictive rules with another set of restrictive rules, then "It's another way to fake." Sleeping with a supposedly progressive and/or enlightened person who is following a strict set of rules isn't that different from sleeping with a selfish person and pretending you like it. Her lover is so afraid to seem aggressive that she doesn't even "know if they want to" (keep going). The narrator's partner has been manually stimulating her for so long that they're getting tired, and she still hasn't gotten off. They're following a script from contemporary (1970's) feminist approved sex manuals which strongly implied that the only "right" way for a woman to get off was via clitoral stimulation, that if she needed or just liked vaginal (god forbid any other orifice) stimulation she was brainwashed by the patriarchy. This was a real thing. Lesley and I are around the same age, Generation Jones, and I remember it from the time. I'm a (mostly) het guy, but I read a lot of the popular female-written books about sex in the 70's. I'm a geek, and I wanted to be good at sex if I ever got to have any. What better way to learn than reading books written by women? The "correct" way to stimulate a woman was via her clitoris, not her vagina. The vagina was for male pleasure, the clitoris was for female pleasure. Maybe Lesley's narrator would have preferred some of both. Or something else entirely. Whatever she and her lover do, it seems she'd prefer it to be driven by desire rather than ideology. As a person of my generation who remembers the sexual politics of that era, and as someone who wants everyone to be as happy as possible in bed, this song has a fond place in my heart. Not incidentally, it rocks like hell. The bass, the drums and Lesley and Paul's scratchy post-punk guitars are amazing. Lesley's comically stern vocal delivery is both funny and a little bit scary. |
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| The Au Pairs – Come Again Lyrics | 4 months ago |
| How can I delete something I accidentally wrote in the Questions and Answers section instead of the Meaning section. | |
| The Au Pairs – Come Again Lyrics | 4 months ago |
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It's a critique/questioning of attitudes toward sex among left-leaning people of the day. In 1981 when the album was released, 3rd wave feminism was a good decade away. The slightest whiff of dominance/submission, even penetration itself was considered to be a reflection of oppressive patriarchy and therefore forbidden. It must be egalitarian and never selfish. Even if we take turns being dominant and submissive, it's WRONG. Men were the perverts, good heavens, never women. Lesley's narrator is questioning whether the person she's in bed with is actually enjoying it. Specifically if they have replaced one set of rules with another set of rules and drained the passion and spontaneity from the act. Since the recording features Paul, the other guitarist, as her vocal foil, people might assume that it's about hetero sex, but Lesley was a lesbian feminist when she wrote it, so I view it in that light. Her narrator's partner could be a guy or a gal who wants to be seen as sensitive and progressive, but it's probably a gal, given the lyricist's perspective. Her narrator is in bed with someone who seems to think they must follow an ideological script when making love. She says "You brought in new rules, which you obey." "You mustn't do this, it may offend her. You must give more than you take away." "But is it real, are you feeling it? To behave a model for others to follow, are you feeling it?" She wants sex to be passionate and to be driven by what she and her partner are feeling, not what their ideology is telling them is "okay." She's saying that if you replace one set of restrictive rules with another set of restrictive rules, then "It's another way to fake." Sleeping with a supposedly progressive and/or enlightened person who is following a strict set of rules isn't that different from sleeping with a selfish person and pretending you like it. Her lover is so afraid to seem aggressive that she doesn't even "know if they want to" (keep going). The narrator's partner has been fingering her to the point that they're getting tired, and she still hasn't gotten off. They're following a script from contemporary feminist approved sex manuals which strongly implied that the only "right" way for a woman to get off is via clitoral stimulation, that if she needed or just liked vaginal (god forbid any other orifice) stimulation she was brainwashed by the patriarchy. This was a real thing. Lesley and I are around the same age, Generation Jones, and I remember it from the time. I'm a (mostly) het guy, but I read a lot of the popular female-written books about sex in the 70's. I'm a geek, and I wanted to be good at sex if I ever got to have any. What better way to learn than reading books written by women? The "correct" way to stimulate a woman was via her clitoris, not her vagina. The vagina was for male pleasure, the clitoris was for female pleasure. Maybe Lesley's narrator would have preferred some of both. Or something else entirely. Whatever she and her lover do, it seems she'd prefer it to be driven by desire rather than ideology. As a person of my generation who remembers the sexual politics of that era, and as someone who wants everyone to be as happy as possible in bed, this song has a fond place in my heart. Not incidentally, it rocks like hell. The bass, the drums and Lesley and Paul's scratchy post-punk guitars are amazing. Lesley's comically stern vocal delivery is both funny and a little bit scary. |
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| Siouxsie and the Banshees – Cities In Dust Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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@[NomadMonad:47768] What I think is that you're drawing a bullseye around an arrow. Pompeii was inundated with volcanic ash. Siouxsie wrote a song about seeing the aftermath from the perspective of centuries later. If you want to posit that Pompeii was the Judeo-Christian God taking revenge on the people of this one Roman city to "get even" for what a Roman army did in a far-off place, that is your right. I don't think describing God as an entity who would bury an entire city of adults, children and animals alive because He's angry about the actions of other people from the same country glorifies Him, rather the opposite. That's an entity I want nothing to do with. |
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| Genesis – Keep It Dark Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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Yes, I acknowledge that it's a pretty straightforward account of an alien abduction and the abductee's need to cover it up lest people think he's nuts. However, it can be taken in a more general sense of someone who has had a spiritual vision, possibly enhanced by psychedelics. This song came out not long after my first psychedelic experience and meant a lot to me. I felt that I had seen that "world full of people, their hearts full of joy," but there was no way I could communicate it to people who hadn't already had a similar experience (few and far between). I felt that I had been shown another world, but any attempt to describe it to people just resulted in funny looks and "drugs will do that to you." |
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| The Guess Who – Albert Flasher Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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@[raywood:37240] This is an incredibly comprehensive interpretation. The Guess Who were a fixture of my top 40 AM childhood and we loved the "nonsense" lyrics. Reading this makes me realize they weren't nonsense at all. Given your interpretation that it's about the onset of Glam (like "The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys" and "All The Young Dudes," I would suggest that the "Michael" of the song might refer to producer Mickie Most, birth name Michael Peter Hayes. He was hot right around the turn of the decade, known for working with Donovan and taking him more in a psychedelic direction. Also regarding the titular Mr. Flasher, "flash" was a slang term for someone who flaunted their wealth and status, and if what you say is the case, he may have considered Bowie to be flash-er, i.e more "flash" than he. |
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| Freur – Doot Doot Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Egad, I forgot to mention in my interpretation post that the very first line "What's in a name?" must directly relate to the fact that Freur originally had no name, or at least a very strange one. A full 10 years before Prince would become the Artist Formerly Known As, Karl and Rick named their first band with a single symbol. It was only upon demands from the record company that they came up with a (sort of) pronounceable name. And the first line of their lone hit: "what's in a name?" |
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| Freur – Doot Doot Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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I agree with the earlier commenter (waywardtom) that the verses are meant to evoke the fleetingness of the fame and attention that performers get. It questions whether there is a lasting impression on their audience. This is a song (like Underworld's later "Born Slippy NUXX") where the heartbreaking quality of the music is a key to understanding the song's message. The two songs coincidentally have in common themes of futility and something the singer longs for being fleeting and out of his reach. The enigmatic verse "and we go 'doot. Doot doot." is the singer comparing himself to screen idols and performers of the past and saying that at the end of it they're just this group of pop musicians whose possibly grandiose statements amount to nothing more than going "doot doot," like someone would hum a little tune to themselves to pass the time. Fame and attention and the idea that we're making an important statement are illusory and fleeting, in the end, we're just going "doot doot." |
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| Thom Yorke – Black Swan Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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For me, some of the ideas in title track are companions to ones in this one. "The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear." "We are black swans." "This is your blind spot." These two songs resonate with a relationship that was based on a strong attraction but has a history of negatively affecting the parties involved. The narrator realizes in this song that whatever wonderful things an imagined future may seem to hold, he needs to stay grounded in the here and now and in that place "things are fucked up, fucked up." Things don't seem to hold any hope for improvement because as the relationship grows, it just stays dysfunctional or gets worse. "what will grow crooked you can't make straight" To the point where he asks the person to give up and leave it alone "you cannot kickstart a dead horse, you just cross yourself and walk away" "do yourself a favor and pack your bags." That is, turn away from efforts to save this mess and start engaging in acts of self-care. When they get together, their coping strategies don't seem to work, they get blindsided "we are black swans." Which could be a good thing, but apparently never is with these people. The person they are talking to may be a "people pleaser" and/or manipulator "you have tried your best to please everyone." For whatever reason this failed and made things worse. The narrator is cynical about their actions. "But it just isn't happening." At this point the narrator feels as if he is emotionally destroyed as a result of trying to deal with this relationship "I'm for spare parts, broken up." As in, he is only good to be recycled, not even reassembled. As a unit, they are also beyond reassembly "and for spare parts we are broken up." When taken together with the title track, it paints a picture of a couple with a difficult history. The narrator is trying to come to some peace with either being together or apart from this person. In the first song he warns them that there is no way they can truly be apart, then in the later one that there is no way that they can be together without ruining each other. This is a personal interpretation for me, as I have relationships like this in my past. For all I know, Yorke could have said in an interview that it's about the IMF or something. A great thing about great art is that it can often hold different meanings for different observers. |
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| The Moody Blues – New Horizons Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[SAJK:32270] Thanks for the added real life context. That's why I qualified what I wrote by saying "can also apply." The lyrics refer wistfully to good things coming to an end and looking forward to new good things. It just so happened that the band would go on hiatus a few years later, not release a new album for 6 years and never tour with Mike again. I can't help but connect the song with that when I listen to it. | |
| Lush – Leaves Me Cold Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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The narrator's describing a relationship where the sex is physically satisfying but she's not feeling an emotional connection. Either it's slipping away or she never felt it in the first place. She continues having sex with the man because it satisfies her physically and perhaps in some other way she's not aware of, but it causes her to split into two people, one of whom she feels disconnected from. This is a separate person inside her that is enjoying the sex and who she refers to in the third person as "she." (She breathes deep when he's inside.) The narrator closes her eyes when she orgasms because she doesn't even want to look at the guy and when she finishes she doesn't feel a glow, she feels cold. (I'm coming but my eyes are closed, I'm coming but it leaves me cold) The girl inside her who still wants the sex regardless of how disappointing it is emotionally is driving her actions. By the last verse, it doesn't even feel like the orgasm is hers. (She's coming but my eyes are closed, She's coming but I wake up and it leaves me cold) |
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| Leonard Cohen – Suzanne Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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It's a great lyric, and as such, the listener/reader may take away more than one interpretation. When you do, be mindful of certain things Cohen tells the listener in the first verse. They are not ambiguous. "You know that she's half-crazy, but that's why you want to be there" He's chiding the 2nd person subject that he knows that the subject (probably a version of himself) knows that this woman has emotional problems, but that very fact is what makes her so fascinating to him in the first place: he also has emotional problems that draw him to women like that. "just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover" The subject was about to tell her that he couldn't be in a relationship with her, possibly due to his own emotional damage ("you have no love to give her") or due to the fact that "she's half-crazy," but before he can get the words out, she convinces him that they're soulmates. By this point, the subject is willing to travel with her, blindly, believing that she will trust them and that they have communicated telepathically. Although this may sound "romantic," it's common for people with certain emotional issues to bond quickly and deeply based on fantasy constructs. Cohen may be warning about this or merely shaking his head at himself for having done it in the past. The next verse seems to be a statement about Jesus that has little to do with the intimate scene between the man and the woman depicted in the first verse. However, I think it has much to do with it. Suzanne has already been described as having a place by a river with boat traffic, and she is later referred to as "our lady of the harbour." Jesus is described in this verse as having been a sailor and also having watched for a long time from a wooden tower (presumably the crucifix). Finally getting how the game works. Then, having been upon the water and upon the land (where he was crucified), Jesus waits until only men who are drowning (therefore desperate) can see him and proclaims that all men will be sailors until they will be freed by the sea. Not freed by the land, where he was crucified, nor by the river where the harbor is (and where Suzanne lives), but by the sea. However, the message that he tries to deliver is lost to the subject, who believes only in their own wisdom. Still, in the following chorus, the listener wants to travel with him and trust him just as they wanted to do the same with Suzanne. To the subject, they are both saviors. I'm not sure about the sea/land/river symbolism in that verse and why his Jesus says that the sea is men's salvation. I do think it's significant that Jesus waits until only the most desperate can see him before delivering his pitch, as that is often how emotionally damaged people (as described in the first verse) operate in matters of the heart. They seek out the weak and wounded. The last verse is where Cohen brings the first two together. "Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river." As if to baptize. Not much more to say about that. "Our lady of the harbor." She seems to have achieved sainthood here. Cohen sings this line slightly ironically. The last line took a while for me to get, but when it did, it floored me. "They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever. While Suzanne holds the mirror." Whew. I will point out here to other interpreters that Suzanne is NOT the mirror. She HOLDS the mirror. The heroes and the children are leaning out toward images of people who also want love, but they are only the mirror images of themselves, and Suzanne herself remains hidden behind the mirror. And they will lean that way forever, held in thrall, because they are looking at perfect images. Suzanne will have a small army of "heroes" forever leaning in her direction offering love and attention, but never seeing her real self, and never being freed to seek relationships where they can find what they are looking for from another person. In the last verse, we see that he may have understood this after he saw that there were other men who felt the same way about her as he did. The "heroes in the seaweed" and "children in the morning." (I know I'm being hard on Suzanne here and I know there was a real life one and there are many ways to interpret this song, but I've met a "Suzanne" or two and mine come in this flavor. Says more about me, but the song is written in 2nd person after all) |
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| Leonard Cohen – Suzanne Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[Pulsey69:31799] We have a winner. Been there. You know that she's half crazy, but that's why you want to be there. And just when you want to tell her that you can't do it any more, she tunes you in on her wavelength and you connect in that place where there's no space or time. Realize that not all that is meant to be must be, my friend. While she holds a mirror, we see our own longing for love, and her true self is hidden behind the mirror. | |
| Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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@sokomy The targets of the song are not the hippies of legend (to the extent that they ever existed), they're privileged 80's college kids, as he says at the beginning of the song. Jello and I are the same age. We inherited this leftover hippie ideology and it was something that many kids of that time sort of adopted while they were in college like you would adopt pot smoking or whatever, as a lifestyle accessory because that was what college kids did at the time. "Hey, look, I'm cool, I feel the pain of ghetto blacks and I think we should smash the state and embrace Communism, man." All the while driving daddy's car, entirely enjoying the fruits of a Capitalist economy and preparing to participate in it. It's a call to be mindful about what you're advocating, if you're going to be political, examine where that ideology really ends up. If it's capitalism, why are so many Americans people of African descent who live in inadequately heated housing? If it's communism, why does it produce the horrors described in the song, actually worse for workers than capitalism? |
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| Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[ConCass:30758] It's true, and it's about ideological blindness in general. The targets of the song are lining up to willingly participate in Capitalism while blindly advocating a Communism that had led to the sort of horrors described in the song. It's a wake up or shut up call. | |
| Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[Tamaranis:30757] Jello is not saying that he and his clued-in listeners would survive and that the targets of the song would not and should therefore actually be sent there as punishment. The song uses large doses of irony. He is saying that nobody (including himself) raised as a privileged softie American could possibly last 5 minutes in Cambodia, and if they went there on "holiday," they would learn this very quickly. The song makes the statement that his (and my) generation, sometimes called Generation Jones, the cultural generation that came between The Woodstock Generation and Generation X, needs to drop the mindless worship of mass murderers like Chairman Mao and find a political path that actually has a workable endgame. Because Communism, especially as practiced in Asia, had so far led to nightmarish horrors. He's saying wake up, get off your privileged honky ass, and study up on the reality of what it is these stupid hippies have been advocating. A virtual, not actual, holiday in Cambodia, if you will. | |
| Meilyr Jones – How to Recognise a Work of Art Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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I transcribed these lyrics just so I could write out my interpretation. This song is interesting in that Meilyr himself in interviews says that the inspiration came from watching art appraisers competing with each other to determine that a certain artwork was a fake, yet the title isn't how to spot a fake, but how to recognise a work of art. I think that may be significant. The first verse is about how his first impression was that of the subject of the song being a "cunning star," a glamorous person skilled at manipulation. He really loved them, no matter which way that went. All of the person's schtick, whatever it may have been, went through him, but he's still happy that they met. He perhaps has doubts about the person's sincerity or his remaining feelings, so he decides to subject the relationship to closer scrutiny. He looks for the usual signs that the person was sincere in their feelings toward him and doesn't find them. However, the picture itself could be considered a "work of art" that is missing the sign of authenticity. He may be saying that his impression is what lacks authenticity. Upon failing to see the sign(s) of authenticity he repeatedly exclaims with glee "it's a fake!" As if it is a comfort to him to learn that the other person was insincere. His feelings can now be less complicated, he can despise her or him. As further proof of inauthenticity, he offers a video of the person supposedly with Kurt Cobain, who may have died before Meilyr was even born. Timeline problems aside, the person looks unnatural, isolated, not the person he recognises. When hanging with the celebrity their eyes look completely different. Then he repeats his gloating about having uncovered the "fake," but unexpectedly slips into a sweet reverie about how really, they were special, the tears and the joy, with them he felt the true highs and lows that are a part of romantic relationships, and, tellingly, repeats the word "highs." He ends the song asking himself "how does it feel holding you?" His memory of how it feels to hold them is fading. The backing chorus reminds him "because it's over." Was the relationship a work of art (for someone half as smart, per Elliott Smith)? Or a fake? |
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| Kraftwerk – The Telephone Call Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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This song takes me back to 30 years ago when it first came out. It's heartbreaking. The most emotionally direct song Kraftwerk has ever issued. To me, it tells a story, a sad one. I hear it as someone who at the beginning of the song is reaching out to another person who is close in one way, by the ability of technology (the telephone) to reach them, but not in another, more important way, emotionally. He gives them his affection and time, and perhaps he feels they do not give as much of theirs in return. Throughout the song, we hear the "voice of reality" which keeps telling him "we're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected." A part of him knows that no matter how hard he tries, the other person has withdrawn. By the last verse, he's given up, and no longer calls them up "all night and day" and is no longer trying to "get a connection," but is rather calling them up "from time to time" merely to hear their voice. Finally, at the end of the song, the listener hears "we're sorry, the number you have reached has been disconnected" standing alone. The narrator has finally accepted the reality that the other person is beyond his grasp. At that time of my life I was very unsatisfied in my love life, pursuing unavailable partners, and this song resonated. |
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| Air – Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I don't have interpretations for everything in the song, but much of it brings to mind Greek mythology, specifically the journey of a soul in the afterlife. Other lyrics point to lucid dreaming and a transition between life and afterlife. It could be about a very vivid dream that narrator had that had some elements from Greek mythology that made him wonder, in the dream, if he had died. The lyrics about there being no sight without blindness may refer to the practice of meditation, which is almost always done with the eyes closed. And in spiritual and psychological contemplation in general, it is a truism that it is often when we cease trying to look directly at a problem or something we see as a "failure," that is when we can actually find out how to move beyond it. As in: "You'd see further if you'd only close your eyes, Unblock the failure." As for "Down at the water's edge Somebody waits for me" The beginning of the soul's journey in the afterlife is often depicted as a boat trip on a river, in Greek mythology and in later fiction. If we go with the lucid dream, water is usually a symbol of the subconscious, so the dreamer is taking a trip via his subconscious mind. "Is it too late for me? It's never too late, he says" The narrator is asking if he is done for and can't ever rejoin the world of the living, and the boatman gives him a cryptic answer. It could mean that it's never too late for him to effect change in himself. "Viewed from the wrong end of a telescope I see myself, so far below Still and silent, rest in peace The thread unravels Merciful release" Obviously this could refer to a soul leaving a physical body, what with the "rest in peace," and "merciful release," but it could also be in keeping with the meditation theme I mentioned above. "Now I can almost see Figures upon the shore He's gathering in the oars Where are you taking me" More afterlife, the boatman is pulling his oars out of the water to let the boat stop and deliver the recently deceased narrator to the place where other recently deceased souls are gathered, or, if a dreamer, he could be returning to the waking world, or merely where we are all headed, the future. Taken together, spiritual growth, that is, finding the self-destructive patterns and defenses one has been acting out in order to cope with life, and then attempting to leave them behind, can feel like dying, or risking death. The song describes a dream about death, and we are left to interpret both the song, and the dream within the song. It's a beautiful song, and sad and mournful in tone, but also a hopeful one, because dreams about death are really about spiritual growth, and the death of the old, blind self that will now gain sight. The dreamer closes his eyes, lets go, and prepares to wake up with greater insight. |
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| Air – Once Upon A Time Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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It's sweet reading the innocent interpretations from 10 years ago when the album first came out. But if you check out the album as a whole and the songs are all about heartbreak, disappointment, and things coming to an end. This song sets the tone. "I'm a little boy, you're a little girl" refers to the feeling a very intimate relationship can have that the people have known each other their whole lives going back to childhood. "Once upon a time" refers to how it was in the past, or is passing, and how it was so magic it seems like a fairy tale to him. "Time's getting on, time's over now" refers to the relationship ending. The "time" from "once upon a time" is over now. Taken together, he's saying that somewhere back there, they are still the little boy and little girl, but that was once upon a time, and in the present, their time is ending, has ended. The admonishments "no time after it's too late" and "don't try to run after time" refer to not trying to resurrect the relationship after it's become clear that it's over. It is a terribly heartbreaking lyric. |
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| X – The Hungry Wolf Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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This is one of my favorite love songs. To me it represents the life of an outsider couple trying to make it as artists in Los Angeles, the belly of the beast of Reagan Era America. "The hungry wolf stares from the hill at the villagers around the fire" always sounded to me like the bohemian looking from afar at the members of conventional society glued to cable television (which it seemed everyone was doing in the zombified '80's). |
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| Brian Eno – By This River Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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To me, this is one of Eno's more straightforward lyrics, although the story is told using symbolism. It's about a relationship (maybe friendship, but more likely romantic) that has taken a turn for the worse, gotten stagnant. "Here we are Stuck by this river" The river is the river of time, and he and his partner are just sitting there stuck, going nowhere. "You and I Underneath a sky that's ever falling down, down, down Ever falling down" This could be rain, an often used symbol for sadness, or it could be just one bad thing after another falling on the relationship. Nice how he emphasizes "down" by repetition. Over and over the sky is falling on them. "Through the day As if on an ocean. Waiting here" They go through their days adrift, helpless to stop the ups and downs of the waves. Waiting for something but it never comes, and.... "Always failing to remember why we came, I wonder why we came" They have lost sight of the wonderful things that drew them together in the first place. "You talk to me As if from a distance" The partner has withdrawn emotionally, and their communication is distant. "And I reply With impressions chosen from another time, time, time From another time" The relationship has become so stagnant that he can only talk about its past. Again, the very repetition is itself symbolic of the narrator going over the same ground again and again. A brilliant picture of a relationship that has timed out. I was in one several years ago and this song became very apropos. |
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| Brian Eno – Here He Comes Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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This lyric is wonderfully open to individual interpretation. For a long time, I only saw it as a metaphor for dying, the boy with the sad blue eyes is no longer here, meaning he passed away. I still want it to be played at my funeral, but recent experiences in my life opened me to the interpretation of iot being about personal transformation. The boy hasn't died, he's changing and leaving behind his old persona. The catalyst for my own current growth is a reunion with a long ago love of mine, and as we catch up on all that we have lived and learned in the 35 years since we last saw each other, "checking out each others' supplies" reminds me of how we're sharing the lessons we've learned while we were apart, as well as our potential for future growth. "Looking at the eyes of all the others standing in the line" is vague and fascinating, but it reminds me of how the two of us are examining the loves we've had since we were together, how we saw them and how they saw us. This boy who used to want to "vanish to the future or past" is learning to be in the present. He's rising above mere reason and learning to trust his heart. Sometimes it feels so good that he's in the clouds, he feels "seven feet high." Even when the night grips him like a glove, he's still "floating like a dove." (The dove, a symbol of making peace) I'm not there yet myself, but for the first time in a long time, I see it as a possibility. |
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| John Cale – Paris 1919 Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| @[akronzipfan:9301] I think you've got it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11215835-rogers-isms-the-cowboy-philosopher-on-the-peace-conference | |
| Lush – De-Luxe Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Maybe the sexiest alt-rock song ever. I think it IS about having sex outside in a playground. Or at least in a park, near the playground, where she's waited for her boy to make his move. 25 years ago for a woman to be this bold about her sexuality, singing about "suggest I open wide," "when I'm up you're coming down" (lifting her hips as he's thrusting), "inside of me," and finally "my aching legs" (after having very active sex). Also, if they were on X, the drug retards orgasm, so it might have gone on for quite a long time. Heady stuff. Even living in San Francisco and playing in the underground music scene, I wasn't used to women being that matter-of-fact. And then when I went to see them, Emma was this tiny English librarian-looking girl! And they rocked so hard. I came away from that show swearing that I was going to start my own shoegaze/dream pop band, and I did. One of the most creatively fulfilling times of my life. |
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| Shriekback – All Lined Up Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I'm not sure about the song in general, but the 2nd verse contains the sentences: "Back at the all night party, we're getting clearer all the time." and "One line leads to another" I've been to an all night party or two where we felt like we were "getting clearer all the time," and one line (of powdered stimulants) sure did lead to another.... |
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| The Moody Blues – Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon) Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[Shep420:4816] You're probably hearing Mike Pinder's Mellotron. A wonderful instrument. | |
| The Moody Blues – New Horizons Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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Part of the genius of good lyric writing is that it can be about more than one thing. Seventh Sojourn was the last album before the band's hiatus, and this song can also apply to his feelings about moving on from The Moody Blues. "I got my new horizons out to sea But I'm never gonna lose your precious gift It will always be that way" I read that as a goodbye letter to the band. He'll be doing new things, but the creativity and camaraderie they shared will continue to nurture him. "Where is this place that we have found? Nobody knows where we are bound I long to hear, I need to see 'cause I've shed tears too many for me" He's asking how did it come to breaking up the band he once loved, and although the future will be more uncertain without it, he embraces it, partially because he wants to hear and explore different sounds and because the tensions in the band and pressures of running a record label have driven him to tears. "On the wind soaring free Spread your wings, I'm beginning to see Out of mind far from view Beyond the reach of a nightmare come true" He's already getting distance from the internal tensions of the band and label, which have reached nightmarish proportions. I love the song, but listening to it makes my heart hurt, because it makes me think of the breakups of my own bands. |
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| Steely Dan – Your Gold Teeth II Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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One of Steely Dan's more positive and uplifting songs, uncharacteristically devoid of cynicism and irony. An expression of the joys of musical discovery, both as fans and as creators. The first verse seems like a description of discovering a new scene and being excited and a little scared by it. Think of an older dude going to a jazz club and having some young musicians just melt his face off with what they're playing. "Who are these children?" That they "speak with their wings" is probably more jazz slang; players who are really hot are said to "fly" as in "if you can't fly you'll have to move in with the rhythm section." Of course they were huge fans of Charlie "Bird" Parker. The chorus is just taking what you have, "your gold teeth" and tossing them out to see what happens. "Unreal" was a common hipster superlative in the '60's. Something or other is great, it's freaking unreal. Take your chances, put your stuff out there and you'll find that life is just UNREAL! Another possible reference is to Buddhism, and the illusion of existence. Life is unreal. The second verse is a straightforward (by Steely Dan standards) reference to their enthusiasm about starting to use the session musician talent pool. The "strangers who pass through the door" are the cats who come in to record their parts. The door is the door to the studio, Steely Dan's native habitat. That they "cover your action and go you one more" means that they not only play the part as written, but bring something of their own to the song. They had jettisoned the original band on the previous album, and discovered the talents of players like Jeff Porcaro and Michael McDonald. "If you're feeling lucky you best not refuse" suggests that if you have a good feeling about what a musician might bring to the song, give them a shot at it. Don't ignore how their contribution may improve the song, even if it is not what the composer originally envisioned. Supposedly, during the recording of the guitar solo by band founder Denny Dias, (paradoxically the farthest from a "stranger" they could get), he was "flying" so high that they extended it. It's an amazing piece of bebop improvisation on electric guitar. The "rules" and the "game" were Fagen and Becker's, to "win or lose." In the final cut, they and Katz would decide what takes to include and how to use them, and if the record sold or failed to sell, it was all on them. |
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