submissions
Indigo Girls – Pushing the Needle Too Far Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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It's kind of hard to articulate, but I guess "pushing the needle too far" is in reference to the pressure we put on ourselves and others - such as pressure on the queen to appeal to everyone or pressure on the man to maintain some idyllic lifestyle - and how there's just to much of it, visualised as pushing the needle of a pressure gauge too high up. However, some amount of pressure is vital or non-negotiable, and the most important thing to help each other is by "not giving in". |
submissions
Bright Eyes – Waste of Paint Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[tpeverett1:38693] My interpretation is that he *doesn't* follow any religion. He wishes he could; he sees all the people in the choir, believing, being happy, creating something beautiful, but he just can't accept the idea that (a) god exists in the world. |
submissions
Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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@[DavidWolf:35333] I'd argue that the meaning of the song is less about what the artist intended and more how we interpret it. Sure, some people outright speculate and others just report on what the artist has said about it, but the important part of this site is people talking about what music means to them. I suppose that if that isn't what you're looking for, the site name seems misleading, but show me a site, company, or organisation whose name fully and unambiguously communicates its purpose. |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – Degree Zero of Liberty Lyrics
| 3 years ago
|
At first it seemed weird to me that these songs at the end seem to be about the same thing, but I wonder if it's actually the idea that one incident can cause another; this one is about a murder, then in Octane Twisted a family finds the body in a river. This leads them to attempt to contact the spirit of the victim (the Seance) but as a result of that some crazy supernatural stuff happens to them (Circle of Manias). Each of these alone are already pretty horrific, but it happens that one leads into the next. |
submissions
Peter Gabriel – Fourteen Black Paintings Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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It probably refers to a set of fourteen paintings by the artist Francisco Goya (referred to as the Black Paintings). They're pretty dark. I don't actually know much about them, but searching "fourteen black paintings" comes up with a Wikipedia article for these... |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – Black Dahlia Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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There's nothing here for you under the sun
There's nothing new to do, it's all been done
It just feels like a reference to this being the penultimate track on the last PT album |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – Strip The Soul Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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I figured it sounded like the parents of the killer in this song wanting to see him ... not knowing all the terrible things he has done. You can tell that the person on the other end is being defensive and doesn't want to let them see what he's become
Combined with the low strings is possibly the best part of the song |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – Prodigal Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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I agree that this song is about depression, but it seems deeply rooted in the sentiment that "If everyone else is crazy, you're the insane one". The character doesn't feel a part of any aspect of the human story, and doesn't feel like he has a place in the world (pretty much the first stanza)
He tries to distract himself with what seems to work for everyone else - religion, drugs, TV - but it just doesn't have the same effect for him. He feels disillusioned with the world at large in a way that makes him feel both superior and inferior to everyone else, like a prodigy (note: turns out "prodigal" doesn't have much to do with "prodigy" like I assumed, but I think the idea of being a prodigy fits better)
I think a lot of us sometimes feel the existential dilemma that there isn't much of a point to living and that all is just distraction from eventual oblivion. This song just says to "Close your eyes and let it pass", which can be difficult in the moment. |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – .3 Lyrics
| 3 years ago
|
I never associated this with Strip the Soul - in fact, because of how Prodigal ends abruptly and .3 opens just with the baseline, I put them together instead. That resulted in my interpretation:
The character from Prodigal ends up getting drafted into a war and is forced to fight for a cause he doesn't believe in (and in my interpretation of Prodigal, he doesn't really believe in *any* cause) |
submissions
Phish – Rift Lyrics
| 3 years ago
|
This song is about the "call of the void", those moments when you think about how you _could_ just jump off a cliff and end your life (but don't).
In this song, the narrator is driving by a rift when he experiences the call of the void. However, he actually listens, getting out of the car and walking up to the edge (this sudden decision is also "betraying reason").
At this point he "struggles with destiny" - fighting with the idea that he has his whole life ahead of him, worth living. After winning against this thought, he does then proceed to jump.
After his leap, the narrator's life flashes before his eyes - the instrumental section of the song. He relives points in his life up until the fateful jump. At this point the lyrics repeat, showing him again struggling with and defeating "destiny" just before his jump.
But this time, he envisions a destiny as a person falling down into the rift ... and the sudden silence brings him back to his senses. Shocked that he got so close to ending his life, the narrator gets up and leaves, feeling wholly changed by the experience ("The passion that sparked me one terrible night...")
Unfortunately, he doesn't get very far, because he _really did jump_. The narrator dies upon reaching the bottom of the rift (similar to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge). This is also because of how destiny, "...when defeated ... slipped off the edge" as his new destiny is to likewise jump into the rift.
PS anyone else picture the embodiment of destiny as Destiny from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman? |
submissions
Steven Wilson – Regret #9 Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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The best thing about SW is that he doesn't overdo it on the words. His lyrics are excellent, but partially because he only has to give a verse and a chorus and let the music tell the rest. You don't need words to understand this song: it's all right there in the music. |
submissions
Steven Wilson – Song of Unborn Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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It's a message, or maybe even an apology, to future generations (those who are unborn). It speculates on what may be lost in the future (cities lost, country lanes) but also worries that the concept of choice and creativity may be breaking down - find nothing's changed, it's all the same, your dreams are public domain. Yet chiefly, the song seems to be telling the children of the future to make the most of their lives, and do better than we did. |
submissions
Porcupine Tree – The Sky Moves Sideways (Phase One) Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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I just thought it was about dreams. Surreal music & lyrics, the most important being "Sometimes it's only afterwards
I find that I'm not there"
referencing how you can't tell that a dream isn't reality until you wake up. |
submissions
Steven Wilson – Ancestral Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Anyone know what's up with the numbers at 5:40? They're also at the beginning of Regret #9 but I don't know the significance |
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