In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Heading out this morning into the sun
Riding on the diamond waves, little darlin' one
Warm wind caress her
Her lover it seems
Oh, Annie, dreamboat Annie
Ship of dreams
Oh, Annie, dreamboat Annie
Little ship of dreams
Going down the city sidewalk alone in the crowd
No one knows the lonely one whose head's in the clouds
Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles
Heading out to somewhere
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
Riding on the diamond waves, little darlin' one
Warm wind caress her
Her lover it seems
Oh, Annie, dreamboat Annie
Ship of dreams
Oh, Annie, dreamboat Annie
Little ship of dreams
Going down the city sidewalk alone in the crowd
No one knows the lonely one whose head's in the clouds
Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles
Heading out to somewhere
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
Won't be back for a while
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"There's a part - 'Cash in now honey, cash in Miss Smith.' Miss Smith is my Mother; our last name was Smith. Cashing in when she cashed in her life. So... she decided that, to her... at that time, she was desperate. Life wasn't worth it for her, that was her opinion. Some people think, never take your life, and some people find that their life isn't worth living. She was in love with my Dad, and my Dad was not faithful to her, and it broke her heart. She was very desperate and she did something that I know she regrets."
Gentle Hour
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This song was originally written by a guy called Peter Gutteridge. He was one of the founders of the "Dunedin Sound" a musical scene in the south of New Zealand in the early 80s. From there it was covered by "The Clean" one of the early bands of that scene (he had originally been a member of in it's early days, writing a couple of their best early songs). The Dunedin sound, and the Clean became popular on american college radio in the mid to late 80s. I guess Yo La Tengo heard that version.
Great version of a great song,
Blue
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“Blue” is a song about a love that is persisting in the discomfort of the person experiencing the emotion. Ed Sheeran reflects on love lost, and although he wishes his former partner find happiness, he cannot but admit his feelings are still very much there. He expresses the realization that he might never find another on this stringed instrumental by Aaron Dessner.
I love this song and I'm surprised no one has commented on it.
To me it's about a country girl that ends up in the big city. No one knows her and she's starting to see that it's not all that it's cracked up to be, but she's still determined to make it.
I think it refers to an acid trip....."heading out this morning" ..."alone in the crowd"..."head in the clouds"...."Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles"...all are, or could be drug references
I heard this story a long time ago from a girl who used to live out West and knew the Wilson sisters....
Apparently Anne Wilson was high on something (probably LSD) one afternoon, and was watching TV. The "Steamboat Willie" Mickey Mouse cartoon came on and she'd never seen it before (this was before VHS, DVDs, etc.) and was quite enamoured with it. She later had a drug-heightened dream where she was floating around on a cloud ship, seeing the world from a surrealistic cartoon-like and negative perspective, and when she woke, wrote down the concept of "Dreamboat Annie".
If the story is true, it's essentially a drug-fueled dream sequence about Anne's loneliness and isolation brought on by (and partially named for) a Disney cartoon.
I think it's less about a drug trip or a country girl in the big city, than simply about a creative person who, like all of us at times, sees herself as set apart from the crowds of people around us, drifting off into a dreamland of our own making. Despite the reference to the "lonely one," I see the imagery as largely positive: Annie is a ship, self-sufficient, and enjoying her voyages into the dreamy clouds, which is why she "won't be back for a while." Of course Annie must in part be Ann Wilson herself, the co-author of the song who finds inspiration for her unique art in events and settings which seem mundane and saddening to others. Too many people, instead of making art about the life around us, simply cover their sadness with cheap commercial "art," burying themselves in magazines covered with the posed smiles of someone else. They too are lost in a dreamworld, but someone else's--Annie's dreamworld is hers alone.