Techno Ted may be a person who caused Chris incredible emotional pain & trepidation as well as moments of peace & happiness but now is removed and awaiting his fate. Darling may be a different person who is also free of him and can live her life free of Ted's tyranny. "In between all the laughing, and daydreams ... lies: a desert of truth" Lies are like a desert or the omission of Truth: Where there were Lies then Truth was absent. The song, "Techno Ted", may be a cathartic celebration of the downfall of this person.
I had a lover, her name was Grace
She found me down in a lonely place
She dug me out with an old jaw bone
She dressed me up for to take me home
She fed me words that I could not taste,
For I had no tongue, it had been replaced
By a green and a growing flower which grew
And I knew if I ever spoke, I would speak true
We lived together in an old hotel
A broke-down palace with a wishing well
The neighbor girl taught me how to spell
And how to steal what I could not sell
But I fed my tongue on the Devil's rum
In a roadhouse run by a godless bum
On a drunken night, with a stolen gun
I shot my lover as she made to run
The judge said, 'Son, what have you done?'
But I didn't speak a word, no I didn't speak one
And the judge sent me away
And they buried my Grace, yeah, the very next day
They sent me out on a midnight train
In the rain, rolling down through the dusty plain
Four men sitting with an old shotgun,
Silver stars pinned on every one
They busted my mouth for to get at my tongue
To see just how this had all begun
So I opened my mouth like a dragon's breath
I only spoke truth, but it only brought death
And I laid those boys to rest
For the truth, in truth, is a terrible jest
For there ain't no road but the road to home,
There ain't no crops but the ones you've sown
And if you learn one thing from me
You better guard your tongue like your enemy
I came to ground in a one-horse town
On the western rim where the sun goes down
Where a branded man might start again
For to right his wrong, for to lose his sin
But my tongue kept growing, it would not cease
I grew quite weary, couldn't get no release
So I went to the magistrate and turned myself in,
Picked up a shovel, and he made the grin
And they planted me by the sea
Now the birds of the air make nests on me
She found me down in a lonely place
She dug me out with an old jaw bone
She dressed me up for to take me home
She fed me words that I could not taste,
For I had no tongue, it had been replaced
By a green and a growing flower which grew
And I knew if I ever spoke, I would speak true
We lived together in an old hotel
A broke-down palace with a wishing well
The neighbor girl taught me how to spell
And how to steal what I could not sell
But I fed my tongue on the Devil's rum
In a roadhouse run by a godless bum
On a drunken night, with a stolen gun
I shot my lover as she made to run
The judge said, 'Son, what have you done?'
But I didn't speak a word, no I didn't speak one
And the judge sent me away
And they buried my Grace, yeah, the very next day
They sent me out on a midnight train
In the rain, rolling down through the dusty plain
Four men sitting with an old shotgun,
Silver stars pinned on every one
They busted my mouth for to get at my tongue
To see just how this had all begun
So I opened my mouth like a dragon's breath
I only spoke truth, but it only brought death
And I laid those boys to rest
For the truth, in truth, is a terrible jest
For there ain't no road but the road to home,
There ain't no crops but the ones you've sown
And if you learn one thing from me
You better guard your tongue like your enemy
I came to ground in a one-horse town
On the western rim where the sun goes down
Where a branded man might start again
For to right his wrong, for to lose his sin
But my tongue kept growing, it would not cease
I grew quite weary, couldn't get no release
So I went to the magistrate and turned myself in,
Picked up a shovel, and he made the grin
And they planted me by the sea
Now the birds of the air make nests on me
Lyrics submitted by incubowski, edited by cadences
The Man Who Would Speak True Lyrics as written by Eric Earley
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Techno Ted
Audioslave
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Yo La Tengo
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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,
No Surprises
Radiohead
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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.
Magical
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
How would you describe the feeling of being in love? For Ed Sheeran, the word is “Magical.” in HIS three-minute album opener, he makes an attempt to capture the beauty and delicacy of true love with words. He describes the magic of it all over a bright Pop song produced by Aaron Dessner.
Punchline
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran sings about missing his former partner and learning important life lessons in the process on “Punchline.” This track tells a story of battling to get rid of emotions for a former lover, whom he now realized might not have loved him the same way. He’s now caught between accepting that fact and learning life lessons from it and going back to beg her for another chance.
I follow the storyline, but I feel like there is some additional symbolism for the tongue that I'm missing. What does it mean when his tongue is replaced by a green and growing flower? What exactly happened to the police men escorting him by train, that he apparently killed? And there's got to be some meaning behind his lover digging him out with a jaw bone.
Perhaps the first stanza really belongs at the end. The "lonely place" is his grave, and the jawbone is what is left of his mouth after he is executed. (Thus the flower growing from his decaying remains.) Perhaps that is why he warns about "guiding the tongue." He was silent before the judge, somehow said something the free himself on the train, and was a free man after that. It was when he couldn't guide his tongue any more that he met his fate, and was "planted by the sea" by the authorities. <br /> <br /> In which case, the name of his lover (Grace) must have two meanings. The Grace he killed couldn't have dug up the flower that sprung from his corpse, so maybe he is referring to more a spiritual grace in the first stanza - followed by an account of how his tongue got him into trouble when he confessed to killing the woman Grace. <br /> <br /> I still think there's more that I'm missing.