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Trance Manual Lyrics

cross the palisade
at the holiday inn
see the mujahidin barricades
just walk right through

past the bullhorns
and sleepy 47s

right by the coalition guards
I’m in the back of the second floor basement
I’ll have my editors
arrange for payment

come to me now
you are warming weather
come to me now
the kind that comes with
sandbags along the river

wear your aqua mirabilis
dotted on your pulse points
a miraculous transformation
ahh my aching joints

you are a vision in the air
cheap lipstick, bleached hair

ohh dressed like that
you are a flag of a dangerous nation
oh dressed just like that
you are some kind of declaration

come to me now
you are warming weather
come to me now
the kind that comes with
sandbags along the river

here cowboy bars
and dance clubs don’t exist
the trance manual says just stand alone
and then shift and shift

come to me now
you are warming weather
come to me now
the kind that comes with
sandbags along the river
Song Info
Submitted by
balalín On Dec 08, 2005
7 Meanings

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Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

Thus song is about an american and an iraqi prostitute.

Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

Umm...actually, I'm pretty sure it's the prostitute thing.

Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

Another example of Vanderslice taking the political and rendering it beautifully, intimately human. So good.

Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

Just a guess, I always thought the "Trance Manual" to be the Qur'an, the "Islamic book of divine guidance".

Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

good song for flying.

Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

I read in an online review of the song that it's about a "journalist transformed by a visit by a prostitute", but I think the meaning can go deeper than that. It could describe any relationship that can be considered "dangerous". Specifically, an affair.

The person singing is trying to woo a woman that he is not supposed to be with. When they meet, she has to go through elaborate security measures, similar to sneaking around on a boyfriend or spouse. He calls her the "flag of a dangerous nation" meaning that he shouldn't be messing around with her, but she is "warming weather" and is like spring in his life. Yet, when spring comes the snow melts and the river rises and floods the country around it. They can't meet in normal date places like bars and dance clubs and when in public they have to be very careful of how they act so they "stand alone" and "shift and shift." In the video, the girl lighting the matches is wearing a wedding ring and we know John Vanderslice has sung about being attracted to someone else's girlfriend in "You Were my Fiji". Maybe he is exploring this idea again in this song too.

Whatever the meaning, this is a beautiful song!

My Opinion
Cover art for Trance Manual lyrics by John Vanderslice

this song is about how gay akymoto is.

 
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