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,
Alexander, our older brother
Set out for a great adventure
He tore our images out of his pictures
He scratched our names out of all his letters
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
Come on Alex, you can do it
Come on Alex, there's nothin' to it
If you want somethin' don't ask for nothin'
If you want nothin' don't ask for somethin'
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
It's for your own good
It's for the neighborhood
Our older brother bit by a vampire
For a year we caught his tears in a cup
And now we're gonna make him drink it
Come on Alex don't die or dry up
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
It's for your own good
It's for the neighborhood
When daddy comes home you always start a fight
So the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights
The police disco lights
Now the neighbors can dance (the police)
Now the neighbors can dance (disco lights)
Now the neighbors can dance (the police)
Now the neighbors can dance (disco lights)
Look at them dance
Set out for a great adventure
He tore our images out of his pictures
He scratched our names out of all his letters
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
Come on Alex, you can do it
Come on Alex, there's nothin' to it
If you want somethin' don't ask for nothin'
If you want nothin' don't ask for somethin'
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
It's for your own good
It's for the neighborhood
Our older brother bit by a vampire
For a year we caught his tears in a cup
And now we're gonna make him drink it
Come on Alex don't die or dry up
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika
It's for your own good
It's for the neighborhood
When daddy comes home you always start a fight
So the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights
The police disco lights
Now the neighbors can dance (the police)
Now the neighbors can dance (disco lights)
Now the neighbors can dance (the police)
Now the neighbors can dance (disco lights)
Look at them dance
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More Featured Meanings
Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
I Can't Go To Sleep
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan
This song is written as the perspective of the boys in the street, as a whole, and what path they are going to choose as they get older and grow into men. (This is why the music video takes place in an orphanage.) The seen, and unseen collective suffering is imbedded in the boys’ mind, consciously or subconsciously, and is haunting them. Which path will the boys choose? Issac Hayes is the voice of reason, maybe God, the angel on his shoulder, or the voice of his forefathers from beyond the grave who can see the big picture and are pleading with the boys not to continue the violence and pattern of killing their brothers, but to rise above. The most beautiful song and has so many levels. Racism towards African Americans in America would not exist if everyone sat down and listened to this song and understood the history behind the words. The power, fear, pleading in RZA and Ghostface voices are genuine and powerful. Issac Hayes’ strong voice makes the perfect strong father figure, who is possibly from beyond the grave.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
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.
Page
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
There aren’t many things that’ll hurt more than giving love a chance against your better judgement only to have your heart crushed yet again. Ed Sheeran tells such a story on “Page.” On this track, he is devastated to have lost his lover and even more saddened by the feeling that he may never move on from this.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Thank you for putting your point views, it is very inspiring. Here is mine. While the other neighborhood songs are sung by the individual who struggles in his "neighborhood", this one is the voice of the neighborhood, and the family. It's a unifeid voice, sung by all the younger siblings, about the older, different one. Aalex is different, perhaps weak or ill ("bit by a vimpire") and doesn't get along with the envoierment's demands ("if you want something" etc). He is their Laika (hawler, in russian), who was nourished in the sole purpose to be sent to her death for the common good. They endure Alex wierdeness ("caught his tears in a cup") and now demand him to go for what they dim as a "great adventure" "for your own good", but is really "for the neighorhood". Though they try to present it at first as something good, we realise in the vampire's paragraph it comes from an angry place ("gonna make him drink it), and like Laika, who did die and dried up, we know by their cynical wishes he will never come back (at least, not as himself).
I don't think Alex is violent - he denounce his family (the pictures, the letters) who treat him like that. Also, it is his daddy who "starts the fight". It is true he is being presented a dangerous boy becuase that's what he is, in the eyes of "the neighborhood" - because he is different. It is actually the neighborhood who is violent, convincing itself that its "fights" are part of the good neighborly order, making even a domestic violence being more welcome than Alex.
The Laika aspect sets the Russian tone. With that in mind, Alexander was Vladimir Lenin's older brother who became a revolutionary against the Czar before Vladimir did. Alexander clashed with his family who were mostly still monarchists and left them behind to fight in a terror cell against Czarist rule. He was caught and hanged for his deeds by the authorities which in turn set Vladimir on the path to revolution.<br /> <br /> So yeah, that's my two cents. It could be about Lenin.