| Prick – Communiqué Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| Let's go. Yes, let's go. (They do not move) | |
| Peter Gabriel – Come Talk To Me Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Don't feed the trolls :-0 | |
| Peter Gabriel – Come Talk To Me Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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All these years later I’m still surprised that this song is about his daughter, the terms which he uses, “desire”, “nippled skin” and “sucks shadowed milk” for an artist that seems so deliberate about the words he chooses in his songs are so sensual that to me they draw attention to themselves. It leads to me to believe that he is stating that a part of the block in communication was when she reached her sexual maturity. Personally I think it is very brave of any father to see his daughter for what she has become, when she becomes a woman. But this is not what the song is for me or rather what the song has become for me. At first it was a mantra for making connections with other human beings, “I can imagine the moment, breaking out through the silence”. That in my youth I had disconnected pretty much with all of humanity, spending all my time in my bedroom, going to school and not talking to people. I had a hope that one day I would be able to make meaningful relationships with other people, half disbelieving that day would come, half disbelieving that those people existed. And then when I realised how wrong I was and that not only would I meet people I could communicate with but that they would communicate back to me, my little heart settled down to looking for love, to find a connection with a nice chap who would talk with me and make love with me, “All the things that we both might say, And the heart it will not be denied…”. He could communicate and compliment me, taking that last shard of loneliness from my heart. I struggled and wrestled as we all do with this issue and finally, from the most unlikely place, at the most unlikely time he introduced himself. And I was completed and I was complimented and I am the luckiest son-of-a-bitch to stumble upon him. And all through the relationship new levels of intimacy had to be reached and made available to him on my part. The status quo of ‘potential conversation’ reducing as the years have gone by to be replaced with understanding and utter knowledge of what makes me tick. And now all these years later as I look back at that boy in his bedroom for all those years alone and afraid, I think to my friends who stand by me and remind me of what the world’s fabric is really made off, and I think of the man who I share this home with and his words of wisdom and his precious smiles that I would kill for. I realise that the song has in the past six months mutated once again. When I say that my parents are married and alive and well I want you to have the complete understanding that he is a total stranger to me, I know as much about him as I do someone on the cover of the gossip magazine that my partner reads. If not more so as at least they have an easily digested biography to accompany their article. He lives in the house that I shared with my mother in my youth, and apparently was there at the time of my conception but really, who is he? And why doesn’t he want to sit in the same room as me? Why has he never wanted to a part of my life? 'Till we're both on the same damn side, all the barriers blown away” One of the truths that I severely doubt I will ever be swayed from is that we become our parents, or if after much navel gazing we will become their polar opposite. And this is what I face right now, not isolation or expression but a serious problem that I will lose whatever form of communication that I have developed becoming this man, becoming my father. It scares the shit out of me, that I will be sullen and a problem and lacking any social grace. And its only very recently I’ve realised that the only way I am going to get any closure, or any form of movement on the subject is to confront him, “all the barriers blown away”. The absolute irony of all this is my friends and my partner disagree with this, they think that I should just bite my tongue and move on, let him have his room in the house and politely avoid each other; this same advice that led me to them? They say he is of an older generation; he is four years older than the man who wrote these lyrics. They say he is a product of a different place, but I am a product of him. Perhaps though the question that this little flurry of banging at these black plastic keys is, why does he not want to come talk to me? Why does none of the sentiments of this song seem to apply to his relationship with me? |
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| Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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James W. I might take a word you have to offer here seriously if this site was called songfaqs.net – oh but wait, its not. And once again I see that pompous, snottery from you James W, ‘oh heavens, look it’s a…independent thought’. God save us, next they will be thinking for themselves. But we could flame this on for some time for our amusement but rather for the sake of completing my time with this thread, it seems James W, you have pretensions to having access to something some of us have been calling, “The Truth”. In that regard you have my every sympathy, though I fear one day you will wash ashore with the rest of us and realise through no fault of your own the truth was as much a mirage as the venom that you project on those who disagree with you. I would comment on supernova but I’ve found oasis to be music for morons by morons, and comment is all the currency we have here. And the site could be plural because there are as meanings to as many songs as there are listeners to the songs you silly creature, have you even heard of postmodernism? Have you paying any attention to the world around you? Might I suggest http://www.wsu.edu/~amerstu/pop/text.html, in the vague hope you choose to grow beyond the rails someone lays down for you. Ohh…and you’re a cretin. |
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| Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Way to miss my point... | |
| Damien Rice – Volcano Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Yeah it is lovely, as much as I love the production on the original album its nice to hear the warts and all version, and sorry for your loss all those years ago. | |
| Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| James I to have a fully functioning language centre, and it may surprise you to hear that 'meaning' does not entail 'what james w' thinks. In fact should you manage to unlodge your head long enough you might come to realise that the website that we are enjoying actually has meanings set to plural...oh my, you could actually think that the site was intended to share different...meanings. Sweet mother, could that mean that y'know I might see what you are saying and yet...and get this...disagree? OMG, and could that mean y'know just between us girls, that my experience of the song might be...different??!?!?!?!?!?!?! | |
| Counting Crows – Holiday In Spain Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| The blof version also has one of my favourite counitng crows lyric "Most of the time rewinding the lines" That one means a lot to me | |
| Peter Gabriel – Blood Of Eden Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Please do...I genuinely touched, thank you. | |
| Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| No sorry I like to type words to find out what hilarious consequences eschew. Fortunately we have people like yourself as guiding beacons for us to steer ourselves from the evils in our lazy souls. Because James W sent his considerable intellect across the cosmos right into my mind and upon looking around decided that I simply was more uninformed than him. Oh lord what will I do for thee, someone please rescue me from myself for I am weak, and I must listen to the wireless NO MORE. That I find the interpretation that this song is about cobain more interesting must clearly mean that I have mental health issues. When I find a song that presents such a cold disregard for someone blowing their brains out to be a more interesting take on a rock star doing himself in rather than a bureaucrat up to his eyes in trouble that must make me defective, for how dare I have an opinion. Thank god for James for he is the light. Cretin | |
| Filter – Hey Man, Nice Shot Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| To be fair the song becomes considerably more interesting when applied to Kurt...note back and to the left, back - and to the left... | |
| Damien Rice – I Remember Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This isn’t an interpretation of the song in as Damien means it to be – rather it is something that is deeply personnel to me and rather than put it in my blog for no one to read it, perhaps I will share it here to break it up and feed a different kind of life. I am tempted to just stick to the structures and make this a quickie but considering the importance the matters this song addresses for me I will give it my full attention for tonight. The first verse reminds me of the minute I met my boyfriend, we had spoken for about three weeks online before I agreed to a meet and when I looked in his car door – everything just clicked, though the temptation to go into love metaphors of miracles and the work of saints is my usual fare at this moment what I want to put across here is how my memory of the very second is so very clear four years later. That though the sun spun on and the moon showed his head that night in my mind – that moment is so clearly perfect, that if I could download my head onto a DVD it is the clearest chapter picture I could hope for. That hopeful smile, welcoming and familiar. And every time I find myself missing my boy for whatever reason I hold onto that second, it is a touchstone for my soul. And no, I couldn’t believe what I found either. The second verse however concerns my fantasy life, the world I dream to lull me off to sleep. I created this particular universe when I found myself alone after another relationship broke up about a year before I met my current partner, whom I refer to in the first verse. In this fantasy life I have a partner who I based on a series of photos from a local paper, common enough – I assumed this was a healthy enough endeavour. This fantasy life lasts several decades and is quite complex in terms of how things move for us both. But what the fantasy brought me (which I was clearly in need of) was a sense of family, something that is a little tricky to find in gay relationships. Here I explored my needs and found things out about myself that I never realised. These first two verses invoke both images for me, my love in fantasy and reality. So when Damien then sings: ‘come all you lovers / dive into my arms / and hope that my sanity covers the cost’ I am forced to consider, is it a good thing to have these two worlds in tandem with one another? Is it a terribly good idea to have two functioning universes? One utterly out of my control and another completely in my grasp. When Damien adds: ‘this is love this is porn’ I must also consider is the fantasy I have any less valid than the reality? Granted it’s not ‘real’ but I have a number of crystal clear memories of my fantasy friend; as pure in my mind as that bright August day when I opened my boyfriend’s car door for the first time. Those who demand simplicity will demand that I acknowledge that the fantasy cannot fulfil me sexually or emotionally. The more demented among us will ask why I bother with another flesh being who brings their own array of problems (not least of all is demanding as I type this that I go to bed – oh the sweet irony). To the first I ask you, is emotion any less valid when what makes you laugh or cry comes from words and moments created inside your head? To the second group – my fantasy friend is not a doll – he is as complicated to me as when I first entered his house in my head five years ago. Fantasy life gets pretty boring when you imagine watching the telly together; if anything it creates more conflict because the two characters don’t just chill out together, one of us is always doing something or other. But my point was is this love or is this porn, what is love? An age old question that I have a problem with (in the pop sense of the word). To be utterly honest, I have the same level of concern with both my boyfriend and my fantasy friend. Both tend to my needs emotionally and sexually and I tend to theirs. Both offer filters of myself and the world I live in which have brought some truly startling pieces of wisdom of which I have been grateful to the both. However the flesh part of me has always had trouble reconciling the two living in tandem. It would be one thing to have a fantasy life with whatever inspiration came to me. But this was never porn in my head. Why so many social situations in the fantasy, most of which I am not the centrepiece (which would allay some of my worries as at least I could say it was some stroking of the ego). No this is commitment, I return to the same character who changes as the story has seen fit as much as when I open my eyes and look across the bed the man I love changes as life’s tale is told. In that point of view I would have to say that the relationship I have in reality is thus pornography in that he is only a series of beautiful images. This I do not believe, we have coffee together – we play, we holiday – we clearly are in love. So I question myself deeper and I remember a little chunk of Greek philosophy which was, “love is a promise”. That when I tell my man that I love him what I am saying is, “I promise to do right by you and take care of you”. “I promise that when I enter a room and you are there I will reserve my most enthusiastic hello for you”. That I will support him and hold him when he is sad, and I will remind him that he is truly a great thing of creation. The thing is this commitment doesn’t mean that I can’t feel the same for my fantasy friend; I support him there to and hold him etc etc. But at this point when everything points to duality Damien points out: ‘I wanna hear / what you have to say about me / hear, if you're gonna live without me’ I want to hear back woos and coos, I want to know that when things get rough I have someone to lean on. This is not quite the answer it sounds (surprise), remember my fantasy friend was composed as a crutch to quite a difficult period in my life; he has given me so much in terms of support. But I want feedback on whom and what I am. As do we all, as this forum is evidence of. Should it be self generated in a place where we know ourselves most intimately but perhaps provide false information to soothe our souls? Or perhaps by an outside agent who can offer a close hand report of our actions in the outside world but may not have all the relevant facts about ourselves? But that last comment I quoted asks, “if you’re gonna live without me”? My fantasy friend cannot exist without me (hopefully) my partner can. Does that not mean that I need to invest more in keeping my fantasy friend awake and moving as his existence depends on me? ‘I remember December’ and I remember both of them in it. Both voices, first two verses – existing peacefully unaware of the other. ‘Can my sanity cover the cost, to remove the stain of my love’, can I maintain both universes to service what I need? Need and existence spinning around in both places. Perhaps what I need to think about is paying the mortgage, letting the dog out or going to my bed. But I will finish this with my point about memory, I remember them both – does that make either less real, or less special? I remember the smell of my boyfriend’s car for the first time, where I touched him the first time (the park, his ear). And I remember the first time I entered my fantasy friend’s house and how he touched my shoulder. Where he told me he loved me the first time and what it is to touch the length of his smile. Post Script Of course now that I have written this I realise that this is far too personnel to post, well maybe – I dunno, [clearly answered in its existence on this forum!!] However after a smoke I realised something – I remember his death…as I said the fantasy life is mapped for several decades; for the span of our life together. Granted my partner might die in his sleep tonight (but let’s hope not) and I will then know the same memory. But the point is this; one is a linear relationship the other is not. Although my fantasy friend’s story was almost composed chronologically in essence the story is already written, I am just filling in the gaps. Whereas I must accept reality one second at a time (as much as that irritates me as I am sure it does you) . What leads from that is that when that day arrives that I lose my boyfriend (this all presupposing that there isn’t a bus with my name written on it) to death can I not just keep making stories up, filling in gaps of what memories I don’t have? Is that my right, or is that disrespectful of the reality I live in? After all it is this reality I refer to that we all share (again hopefully) and in some ways I am pissing on people’s turf as they say round my way (dissing ‘da hood) after all my reality is presumably yours to. I wonder if there is a non-linear non-quantum relationship hotline. |
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| Nine Inch Nails – The Day the World Went Away Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I think this song shows us that trent reznor is actually a buddhist and he is talking about experiencing zen. It is a buddhist tenet that the world is an illusion yet its presence is before us. In a state of zen the illusion of the world vanishes and the original nature of the mind is seen. Its about acheiviing that level of spiritial fulfillment befcause it is necessary to fill the spiritual void that a life of illusion creates. it is about the quest for deeper meaning with life and the relaisation that life must disappear for that meaning to become apparent. The day the whole world went away | |
| Damien Rice – Volcano Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Sex really is hard work and not just on the knees. | |
| Natalie Merchant – Ophelia Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| So my second paragraph meant nothing to you? I'll have a double helping of patronising cow thank you. The validity of my reading is not the issue here, I made clear "you can see how this following interpretation could be coloured in by my lectures rather than my mind just wandering about." Note the key concepts, "interpretation" and "coloured in". Coloured in on here indicating that I am uncertain how much of my reading and time with the song is my mind and how much was those god forsaken texts of 60's womenhood trying to excert herself. Christ why do I bother? | |
| Natalie Merchant – Ophelia Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Sorry daftcow perhaps you misread me? What I was indicating was that these where fulfilments of stereotypes, masks if you will. That in my perception of the song the narrator is removing the lines that have been put down before women over the past 200+ years. Granted it could be a tale of someone's imaginary friend, but what an odd choice of name. Not doubting the existance of girls with the name of ophelia but it draws attention to itself and thus leaves itself ripe to draw images from. And at the end of the day, my reading makes me feel more from the song. It becomes a rallying cry for women to remove their own barriers, each little image, each little story being less than the some their parts. The common history of women raped by men for longer than history dare remember, is reconstructed and women no longer simply equals mother, women is all the things listed in the song and more. The imagination becomes the only limit, it becomes her/your aid. | |
| Damien Rice – I Remember Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I think this song is about a women in love and how she chooses to express it. And wonderfully he then shows how a man expresses it, 'blow of my horn, stain of my love' - you mucky pup | |
| Counting Crows – Holiday In Spain Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| what do people think of the version of this with bl0f? And is it just me or did he go and record new lyrics for the last verse? | |
| Damien Rice – Woman Like a Man Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This song always reminds me of the runner up of Big Brother 4: USA | |
| Peter Gabriel – Blood Of Eden Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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I sent this in an email a couple of years ago, after listening it and Peter's thoughts on it...I was thinking of Adam and Eve. I always wondered what they where like. What do you say to each other after a thing like that? I often wonder what went through Adam’s mind when he realised what Eve had done. Did he even consider his options. Did he even look at the creature before him in a different way. I mean defying God isn’t your average awkward moment around the coffee machine. And sometimes I wonder what the world would have been like if he hadn’t taken the apple. What a dull world, no big slurpy kisses, no songs of wooing, no sonnets, no Casablanca. And sometimes I wonder if all this occurred to Adam as he stood before her and perhaps he choose to bite the apple because he couldn’t bear to be without the woman he loved. That perhaps love does conquer all and sometimes, and I will tell you people that this, this is my point, that love, love conquers all, even God and maybe that’s the point. I love that big goofy bastard, I really do. Fuck, maybe Adam couldn’t take losing another body part. But what about that idea, that the fall of man was God’s greatest achievement. Hey, he’s the one who says he’s a man with a plan… |
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| Peter Gabriel – The Drop Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| I'm convinced this is about the 11th of September. | |
| Phish – Limb By Limb Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| "The shoulder that I leaned on was carved out of stone" - But then again, we don't hug walls though do we? | |
| Tori Amos – Cooling Lyrics | 20 years ago |
| ...and yes heaven is worth giving up for these kisses | |
| Damien Rice – Volcano Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song reminds me of a very specific time in my life when I was involved with a guy who was a little bit older than me. And at first things where lovely but as it became harder and harder to see each other it became harder to communicate in any way when we did get time with each. And through tricks and turns in life after it all went REALLY pear shaped we kept bumping into each other in various situation comedy moments. And I always wondered what was going on there coz for a while it was the stuff songs are made off, and yet so quickly it turned. And when I got the album I found such a solid answer in volcano I was really startled – more so by a new artist in quite some time. For there it was me and he splashed across the skies. The first verse nails right in to what I was doing when we where meeting; taking some misguided advice every time I did meet up with him I set out to give him the best blow job I could – that I would be the one who would make him cum harder than any guy could make him cum. And now with perspective how it must have seemed to him this little fella taking him so specifically sexually, that the conversation was left to the back of the priorities. Would a welcoming hand job have sufficed? And a weakness for chubby men within me meant that this lad who really had no experience at this point of someone else’s desire for them was probably quite disconcerting, if not borderline ridiculous. And “don't build your world around volcanoes”; that voice, that voice inside that thinks that within us there is this mystery to us that only we know of. Something that is so dark, so repugnant that no one should ever know and will never know. So he warns her off, lets her know that she should be getting off the ride as he is no good for her. Folks can get themselves really tangled up in that mess, that inner/outer world having to be different. More on which in a bit. The chorus acknowledges the adoration of the lady is just as hollow as that, she adores him but he suspects that she doesn’t love him for what he is, and most certainly her feelings aren’t in sync with his in regards their relationship. All she can offer him are mountains, little adventures one after the other and all he wants is the still sea. Though the lyric here is played as though if he where offered the sea he might want the mountains instead. Isn’t the grass always greener sometimes, perhaps what he wants to say is that he doesn’t want this sort of relationship right now. What I love is that Damien plays with this further, he gives to the lady the right to answer back, and she gives it to him. In my relationship I always felt that sense of aloofness coming from my beau, as I was saying that what I was getting in communication was not what was going on inside his head. That a game was being played, that every word was being vetted twice before it left his mouth – and frankly it pissed me off. I, hell anyone can take what the other has to say, no matter what it is – yes there are consequences, yes at first it can be shocking but if it is real inside your head it needs dealt with whatever action is appropriate. But don’t make a fool of me by telling me one thing and thinking/doing another. That’s fucking manipulation, and shows nothing but disrespect. I – she could [have] be a completely acceptable partner – its just he hasn’t the balls to tell her that the way he feels. His holding back information in some effort to protect her doesn’t impress her. She thinks okay – you don’t want me to be uber lover but tell me don’t make me question your every word in return. For if he is playing game by telling her to contain her desires and passions and she is playing a counter game by challenging his remoteness. Both ultimately trying to provoke the other. They both sing the chorus acknowledging this, both accepting that what is currently the status quo is simply fog, that their relationship has no foundation and sooner or later it’s going to hurt them both. But the gentleman steps up to the plate and accepts the blame in the last verse, or rather as he admits that she is a glorified fuck buddy for him - her lack of experience hinders her as she should have the experience to know that this is what happens in single life. There are people who we meet purely to keep our genitals working, its not that there’s anything wrong with them, it’s just that there’s nothing necessarily right about them either. And this is what he has been hiding and what she has been avoiding – that sex is the only thing that unites them. And that she is too young to see it. And yes see my banal life before you to, how silly it seems now but once upon a time I loved someone with no understanding of their feelings to me. I to convinced myself that it was one of a number of psychological reasons as to why someone wouldn’t go to the next level, fear of intimacy, fear of abandonment etc etc. Only to realise that he didn’t really care – perhaps the lack of caring was due to these issues but that I was never to be the one to pick those particular scabs. And instead of doing the decent thing and moving on to let us all pick up the pieces he let in go on all the while letting me convince myself that this was the time I would win him over. But I was not the one. The thing is recently I heard that he was talking about the situation that had developed and he had admitted that even though he was the senior agent in the relationship he himself was too young to have a good handle on the situation, perhaps that’s the best comment of all – he was too young to treat. A truly great song on a seriously memorable album, GO BUY IT YOU FOOLS |
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| Peter Gabriel – Signal To Noise Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Well...First things first when I first heard about this song I came under the misperception that this was called 'signal to THE noise', which as I understand it means the great new sound, the first track of an artist who is going to make notes that will change things. There might be a more coherent meaning to the phrase, if so feel free to leave a comment after this :-) A lot of this song's lyrics are self-evident but as no one else has got their finger out, I will explain the obvious structures. In the first verse lyrically we hear a sense of despair, barely holding on to hope; the possibility that the things that we hold dear - have been a waste of our time and that as result of this, we - I: might be wrong. Some might also enjoy the imagery of Pink Floyds 'The Wall' (not a necessity but good for the more smug among us (of which I must admit to)). Musically this is complemented with a sparse soundscape, apart from the lush violins there is very little going on, a contrast for most of the album. Then after Nusrat (more on which later) the second verse (a personnel favourite) pleads the listener/audience if they/we can offer the words that can soothe against this world that we all share. This world that we made. 'And all the while the world is turning to noise' This line has been running around my head for the past five years, since I downloaded the VH-1 mp3. Its tempting to look at the lyric literally, though somewhat jarring compared to Peter's recent output. I do enjoy the notion that this line could mean that t(his) ‘noise’ is turning into music. That all the things that he sees on the telly or in his backyard that horrify him seem to be becoming fodder for his next torch song. However my more serious perception of the line is sadly more fiddly and more about me than anything else. That sooner or later you become desensitised to these things, that it becomes too overwhelming and that we become jaded and bitter. (NB I also have a wanky Kant heavy interpretation of this line but I will never speak it in public lest I learn to completely loathe my psyche) This noise takes over everything in the narrator's perception except for the little mantra that we have already heard (again more on this later). Sonically this contains what I think is the most dynamic moment of the record, the moment when the drum machine cuts back to allow the loop of the ticking tape crackle for a few seconds; perhaps something stripped away, perhaps a purity; I guess it depends if the glass is half full or half empty. And then it gets personnel... The narrator strips away everyone, he takes you and me and everything away that has contributed to forcing his perception along a certain line. (On a strictly personnel level 'when all things beautiful and bright’ has a distinct resonance. As a chubby chaser and to hear the words in that context, causes me a smile. I am SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of being told what I should think of as beautiful but this is seriously off the beaten track). That one thing in his heart? Send out the signals deep and loud. To communicate, a theme explored in Mr Gabriel's previous work most notably in come talk to me when blocked communication channels causes unprortinate problems. When Nusfrat sings, apart from acting as appropriate noise (to the uninformed (i.e. me))) he is communicating, something. So if my uninformed perception takes in Nusfrat’s sounds as being noise - could it not be argued that if I understood what he was saying (in a strictly linguistic sense) then instead the sound would no longer be noise and rather a signal? To explain: if noise, the stupid random acts of objects making vibrations in the air could be seen as the stupid random acts of life; then surely a signal, a direct communication; might be thought of as being something other than life‘s natural order of things. A sense of things exceeding their specifications. That a lump of flesh wriggling around two other lumps of flesh can teach and inform, harm and destroy. That a tongue and lips can offer more than assisting digestion. The “like words together we can make some sense” concept. I remember reading somewhere Peter talking about how he came to conceive ‘Here Comes the Flood’; the last track on the first Peter Gabriel Album (window I think) and as a side note he was talking about one of his theories that when night time creeps up on us, like a radio the signals become clearer. The collective conscience is a tempting metaphor for this reference, that receive and transmit can be accomplished by psychic means is the obvious outcome of this reference. However my understanding on these things are extremely limited if not coloured by a deep resounding scepticism towards this more overt understanding of the collective conscience. No, that one thing in his heart? That thing for me is hope, hope that we take our tools, our language, our pictures, our feelings and instead of vibrating the air stupidly into the TV set, screaming our tears and our frustrations at the greatest problems that affect our species; that instead we mould and create. We refine and strip away the all the things that Peter describes in the last verse (and more) to talk, to express and perhaps finally to correct. thanks for bearing with me |
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| Natalie Merchant – Ophelia Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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On a purely sonic form I love this song dearly, its such a whirlwind opening to an album that i think it was a brave decision to sequence the track in its track one slot, but no matter... However in regards to the actual meaning to the song I was (un)fortunate to have just bought it the week before i started my uni's course on feminism in media (more a tactical choice on my part rather than intellectual curiousity). So you can see how this following interpretation could be coloured in by my lectures rather than my mind just wandering about. Ophelia as a lass in hamlet is obedient, perhaps simple minded (though i don't think so) and directly controlled by two men, her father (think track 2) and her partner/twat-like main squeeze. The name of ophelia (to me) before this song always meant 'loopy fuckwit who can't get her bloody act together'. She is pushed and pulled, BETTER she ALLOWS herself to be pushed and pulled when she should be kicking booty a 'la buffy. Ophelia was pampered and kept so far away from this reality that most of us share, that she could not see that neither side were black and white. That without the skills to assimilate different sides of the coin she could only descend into her madness and ultimately leave the play dead. What came from all this when it reached my ears was that I got the sense that Natalie (god bless her boots) was 're-claiming' the name for all that women, the gender/species has become. That womenhood (or gurrrrls) has unburdened itself of the certain inevitability that ladies grow up to have babies and obey their fathers till the right guy comes along to tell them what to do. Not that women in Shakesphere's time where not capable of being independant; if anything they where more independant then than what became of them during the victorian age. However as a 'good' girl ophelia must follow her protocols until it results in emotional breakdown. Ophelia in the song is certainly not a good girl, but nor is she a bad one, she simply is, a women. She is a series of women (or a very multi faceted one) who have fulfilled one place or another. A nun, a socialite, a 'moll', a beauty queen, an idol, a circus preformer and of course a mother. All of these, and i mean all of these showing a strength of character and purpose of varying moral grades. That opehlia in this song is more than this notion that pop culture once embraced so ferverently of a glorified washing machine incapable of doing anything other than being mrs brady. That now someone like myself when i hear the name of ophelia I can remind myself of the wild and shocked applause. When i took my feminism class I was one of 5 men in a class of 150. And though sympathetic to the feminist movement I found that class to be orientated to dogma - and led by observing calculated trailers and talking about the most obvious and skimming over anything resembling genuine intellectual growth. I managed to absorb more about how i felt about the movement of women in the 4 minutes that this song takes than in the 12 hours that class put me through...truely a classic |
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| Counting Crows – Catapult Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| Actually for the record my last dying wish is to have my corpse loaded into a giant catapult and be fired into a a huge sheet of clear plastic, for 'comedy splat effect'. The notion of 'comedy sliding down plastic slowly' also fills me with glee. | |
| Counting Crows – Chelsea Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| no words, no words could ever some up what this song means to me. Its just...the dogs knackers | |
| Counting Crows – Ghost Train Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| See round here, though i like the way he allows us to see the reason as to why he thought he'd like to let her on, but y'know its adam, he probably wipes his nose with great lyrics that he knocked up the night before and tosses them away! | |
| Counting Crows – Round Here Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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While i'm on the subject there should be a mention of "Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white." Adam has sang rather prominantly 'Thunder road': "There where Ghosts in your eyes of all the boys you sent away" And 'The Ghost in You': "The Ghost in you, (s)he won't fade away" Ghosts in this context could be discussed in terms of previous relationships, the 'imprints' that past loves have left on our soul. The hurt, the shame, the regrets; the sense of doing something with someone who may truely love us but we can't ever forget of that night when we kissed another girl/guy on the very steps that you stand on when you hear another tell you, 'I love you'. I have foound as I grow older that the ghosts can affect the next relationship, on both sides. That something as simple as leaving your partner to call out for some grocieries leaps down their psyche to recall some unpleastness a previous boyfriend delivered on them. In the context of 'round here' the lead character could be said to be considering themselves reduced to being devoured by ghosts so that it has climbed inside their skin and removed the pigments, that as they walk through the fog whatever spark that they possesed as their own has been vanquished into nothingness. That no one notices the contrast of white on white. This could be carried further in that despite that Maria is clearly a little nutty, but deeply in love with the lead character the character cannot save her to save himself because he has been reduced to this shadow, this whisp in the corner of our eyes. A nothing that walks beside us. So as she calls 'SAVE ME SAVE ME, "I'm thinking of jumping" All the lead character can offer is that 'everybody is tired of something', and then as sambo states previously, the character upon seeing that what (s)he has become, starts screaming out the little things that seemed to mean something when we where little. The things that you thought being an adult where all about. "Round here we're never sent to bed early And nobody makes us wait Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late" And this friends and neighbours was one of those songs that changed my life, this was one of the songs that did more than make me bop round my room. This song made a part of who I am, and it is part of my psyche that I ahve come to rely on time and time again not only for myself but for my partner as well. And i hope that the ghosts will not linger for you as they do in the 'Ghost Train' I hope they nod their heads and move on. Good nite peeps |
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| Counting Crows – Round Here Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| I remember reading somewhere that Adam said that Maria was in fact him... | |
| Tool – The Grudge Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| I ahve a problem with someone who can relentlessly whinge his way through an album and then try and sing about letting go of a grudge...hooker with a penis anyone? | |
| Joni Mitchell – Big Yellow Taxi Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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To me it brings across the fallacy of the era in which she sings. The guts of the song being various rallying calls of the 60's. And however well meaning these intentions where, the focus of the song is this 'big yellow taxi', which took her old man. That the dreamers of the 60's where either so devout to the notions of the latter half of that decade that they simply didn't see the more immediate emotional crisis going on or rather perhaps that it is a little bit easier to rant and rave at the horrors of the world en masse than it is to consult that most imtimate place where your lover cannot handle being with you anymore. I find it interesting that post 11/9/01 that even Yoko Ono once confining herself to her bed for peace, supported the military response to afganistan acknowledging that the 60's peace rallies had more than an elment of maschismo. Granted that level of aggression was useful to a degree it did lead to a short-sightedness that has been endlessly recorded in current popular history. And that is what strikes me about Joni in this period of her work, for all the joy that she manages to put across; its the relentless desire to present the other side of the coin to her generation that makes me feel so connected to her. And don't even get me started on blue... |
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