Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Questions deserve answers,
answers deserving action.
What am I, of the populi?
I am but a fraction.
Is there heaven, is there hell?
Is that tuna melt that I smell?
Come on.
answers deserving action.
What am I, of the populi?
I am but a fraction.
Is there heaven, is there hell?
Is that tuna melt that I smell?
Come on.
Lyrics submitted by knate15
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More Featured Meanings
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Trouble Breathing
Alkaline Trio
Alkaline Trio
While the obvious connections with suicide or alcoholism could be drawn easily, more subtly this song could be about someone who views the world through a negative lens constantly and how as much as the writer tries to show the beauty in the world, this person refuses to see it. It's one or another between the rope and the bottle. There is no good option for this person. They can't see it. Skiba sings it in a kind of exasperated way like He's tired of hearing this negative view constantly and just allowing that person to continue feeling the way they feel knowing he can't do anything about it. You can hear it when he says maybe you're a vampire.
Somewhere Only We Know
Keane
Keane
Per the FAQ on Keane's website, Keane's drummer Richard Hughes, stated the following:
"We've been asked whether "Somewhere Only We Know" is about a specific place, and Tim has been saying that, for him, or us as individuals, it might be about a geographical space, or a feeling; it can mean something individual to each person, and they can interpret it to a memory of theirs... It's perhaps more of a theme rather than a specific message... Feelings that may be universal, without necessarily being totally specific to us, or a place, or a time..."
With the nostalgic sentiment and the overall tone of the song, I think Keane is attempting to express a Portuguese term known as 'saudade', which does not have a direct English translation but roughly means "that which we remember because it is gone."
Zombie
Cranberries, The
Cranberries, The
"Zombie" is about the ethno-political conflict in Ireland. This is obvious if you know anything of the singer (Dolores O'Riordan)'s Irish heritage and understood the "1916" Easter Rising reference.
"Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken
-
Another mother's breaking
Heart is taking over"
Laments the Warrington bomb attacks in which two children were fatally injured on March 23rd, 1993. Twelve year old Tim Parry was taken off life support with permission from his mother after five days in the hospital, virtually braindead.
"But you see it's not me
It's not my family"
References how people who are not directly involved with the violence feel about it. They are "zombies" without sympathy who refuse to take action while others suffer.
Indigo
Of Mice & Men
Of Mice & Men
This track is about is about questioning why the sky would choose to be blue if it had the choice to be anything else, “blue also meaning sad,” states frontman Aaron Pauley. “It's about comforting a loved one in a time of loss by telling them you feel blue, too.”
In an interview Les explained that the song simply was he and Ler wanting to do a theme for something. So they did this little goof of a ditty. Ironicly they would be asked to do the theme for South Park just after Tim left the group for a few years, or as I like to call them Primus' Shit Years.
Knowing Primus, this story could be true lol. If so they did a good job with it, definitely sounds like it could be the theme for some weird show or movie.
While tripping on mushrooms at a Primus show in 1996 in Kansas City, I had a revelation of what this song may be about.. We have so many questions about life where we came from .. what it's all about and you realize how small you really are in relation to everything else.. so why worry about silly things when you can enjoy the good things and just be you "Is that a tuna melt that I smell? C'mon!" Just my little take on it..
Perhaps from some american TV show. I've never heard of it in Britian.
@JAStewart Or here in Australia... ;)<br /> Might have to google it some day...
Tis not a show her British buddy, but I do think this is suppose to be Primus' theme from hell.
Why? Because the first album they made with him was the Brown Album? If not, please recognize Brain's talent by listening to the live recording of Tommy the Cat found on the album Rhinoplasty. Ain't no psuedo-Mexican like 'im!
The brown album is one of my favorites, how is the brain albums the "shit years?"
One, this is from Tales from the Punchbowl. Two, I don't know.
I like how philosophical it starts off, pondering questions that deserve answers and the action taken that follows those answers. Realizing that we are only miniscule fractions of the entire human population. Wondering if there is a heaven or a hell. And then being distracted simply by the possible smell of a tuna melt.