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Sick of Elephants Lyrics
You were right
There was never reason to worry
Money made your eyesight all blurry
Making lists of pacifists
Recalcitrant poses
Can't you see how dangerous
The one you chose is
Which brings us back to
Might makes right
So we learn from Wars of the Roses
Pain was only fear kneading (?) your toeses
Making haste to spite your face to cut off your noses
Convince yourself and others that these
Fish smell like roses
Can't you see how dangerous
When you're too content to make a fuss
Can't you see how dangerous
Squint your eyes and see
Elephants, sycophants, elephants (x 4)
Squint your ears and hear red-faced rants
Pleated pants
Sycophants
That's what you are
Can't you see how dangerous
When you're too content to make a fuss
There was never reason to worry
Money made your eyesight all blurry
Making lists of pacifists
Recalcitrant poses
Can't you see how dangerous
The one you chose is
Which brings us back to
Might makes right
So we learn from Wars of the Roses
Pain was only fear kneading (?) your toeses
Convince yourself and others that these
Fish smell like roses
When you're too content to make a fuss
Can't you see how dangerous
Elephants, sycophants, elephants (x 4)
Pleated pants
Sycophants
That's what you are
When you're too content to make a fuss
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
In a blog, someone said Andrew Bird introduced this song live: "Bird explained that he wrote it the day after the last national elections and said he'd been travelling around the country on tour, through red states and blue states and ended up "the night of the election in a blinking red state, Ohio" and the next day he wrote this song.
if this is indeed a musical hit on the republican party, which could definately could be the case, it would be quite a bold move on bird's part considering his usual position of nutrality. everything else we have from AB has always led me to believe that he trys to stay out of petty conflicts about issues that are created by the "red state/blue state" situation
maybe its just me but i always felt like bird tries to stay more enlightened by focusing on "the bigger picture" or coexisting and just keeping humanity progressive rather than getting caught up in trifling tiffs that are ultimately non-climactic or otherwise unimportant
either way brilliant song =]
Mr. Bird himself has this to say in a recent interview: "I have songs like “Sick of Elephants,” which pretty directly talks about Bush getting re-elected."
So, that's that! However, as someone mentioned previous, Andrew doesn't typically get involved in political issues in his personal life or in his music, as further evidenced by another quote from the same interview just sentences after the Bush quote... "There are things I feel strongly about, universal issues that are not particularly partisan."
Interview is here incase you're interested. :) http://www.headcount.org/blog/?p=619
where did you find this song? i bought Armchair Apocrypha and it didnt include this bonus track. i have only heard a live version..
(iTunes exclusive, at least for the moment - they force you to buy the whole album)
finally got the studio version! oh my god.. this song is sooo nice!!!
(The elephants are obviously the Republican Party.)
The Wars of the Roses were a series of civil wars (in 15th century England).
I love the way "...fish smell like roses" combines "smelling fishy" and "smelling like a rose."
Pleated pants!
i believe it might be "pain was only fair leaving your toeses"
Damn Republicans, I live in Ohio, and its cool that Andrew Bird is Liberal/Democratic "Can't you see how dangerous The one you chose is?"
AlexKuykendall -
Are you kidding me? Petty and triffling? You think a war is a petty? You think the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is trivial? That's NOT part of the big picture? Or did you just mean the other trivial things this administration and ultimately the republican party are responsible for, like the failing economy, katrina, politicizing the justice department, i mean who cares about those right?
Give me a break, this is what happens when conervatives have good taste in music, they try to rationale the artists poilitical views. Andrew Bird has always had an opinion, maybe you need to read the lyrics for Sovay again.