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Lady Liberty Lyrics
You can wash out your lying eyes in the bathroom down the hall. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I guess I didn’t know you at all. I can picture you inside some stranger’s house, inside some stranger’s bed - you’re trying to seem mysterious, the covers pulled over your head. It’s all right, lady liberty, it’s just too bad you couldn’t do the same for me. You say you’ve been used, you’ve been betrayed. Yeah, and that old bed’s been newly made. You just stick around awhile with me until you’re strong enough to leave. And I can picture you the first time you decide to spend the night - you wonder if you should give me a call and ask me if it’s all right. Yeah, it’s all right, lady liberty, it’s just too bad you couldn’t do the same for me. Don’t call me or send me any more letters, baby. I just can’t stand to see your hand writing things that you don’t mean. I waited, our faded love growing even more faded. The shades were down, I faced the wall, and I could hear you breathing. I tried to bring us back to life. I gave my heart so many times. And was it worth it after all? There is a bathroom down the hall.
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The way he says " Yeah, and that old bed's been newly made" Drives me crazy, its so cool, its so snide and bitter, this is just one example of how okkervil river puts so much human emotion in the way they sing their lyrics.
Agreed and the way he chuckles to himself while singing that like is equally awesome.
Agreed and the way he chuckles to himself while singing that like is equally awesome.
BEAR WITH ME THROUGH THIS.
In the back of my head I have a REAL idea of what this song is about, but I want to paint a picture in your mind of what I'd like to THINK it's a about.
SO there's this girl who's had this really good guy friend all her life that has been by her side through good and bad, yadda yadda... So now that they're in college and he has had feelings for her for a while now, she goes off the deep end ensuing a lifestyle that's just not her, according to the critical, over-protective best friend. After all the bullshit she's put him through, he finally decides to put her in her place and tell her what he really thinks. Including snarky comments like, "it's just too bad you couldn't do the same for me," and obnoxious repetitions of, "THERE IS A BATHROOM DOWN THE HALL!"(to wash out her lying eyes, of course!) He feels she has betrayed him to be like all the other women he has encountered, and she's nothing more than common. (somewhere in there I like to think she spent the night with a frat boy and had to do the Walk of Shame the following morning, but that's only in my wildest imagination.)
love, love, love you will sheff even if I make this song out to be something really wrong.....
I feel that this song is a metaphor for the realities of a free trade economy and the hardships it can create domestically on the the job market. "Lady Liberty" is really the United States, and the speaker is really a disillusioned American.
Or it could just be about a girl. ;)
Well, I love this song. I think it may just be about a girl, and he calles her "lady liberty" because she is so free...maybe even too free, for he can picture her in a stranger's bed. Although I am probably wrong, I still love the song.
I also think it's about a girl (too many of the lyrics, I just couldn't see how they'd apply to a country or economy). I think he calls her Lady Liberty because she acts so freely that she really doesn't care what she does or how it effects other people, and, I also gleemed from the song that she might have trouble keeping her legs together. Notice how many times he mentions that "there's a bathroom down the hall"? I think he says this as kind of a polite way of saying "get the hell out" and then repeats it to make the message more clear.
I'm sure its about a r'ship he's attempted to resurrect repeatedly and she's cheated on him, and is taking 'liberties' to stay with him, until she's secure enough to leave... which I feel he's finally given up on, despite her pleas (in letters) to be true...
In the first line he sings "You can wash out your lying eyes in the bathroom down the hall." At the end when he repeats "there's a bathroom down the hall" it's just making a reference to washing out her lyin' eyes.
I think he can tell she's lying by looking at her eyes, and she just clings to him to know she won't be alone, not because she loves him. He knows he's being used, that she's taking "liberties" with him.. He wants her to leave he doesn't want her in his life anymore, because he's been too hurt.
I like to imagine its about the United States.