Fix what’s wrong, but don’t rewrite what the artist wrote. Stick to the official released version — album booklet, label site, verified lyric video, etc. If you’re guessing, pause and double-check.
Respect the structure
Songs have rhythm. Pages do too. Leave line breaks where they belong. Don’t smash things together or add extra empty space just for looks.
Punctuation counts (but vibe-editing doesn’t)
Correct typos? Yes. Re-punctuating a whole verse because it ‘looks better’? Probably not. Keep capitalization and punctuation close to the official source.
Don’t mix versions
If you’re editing the explicit version, keep it explicit. If it’s the clean version, keep it clean. No mashups.
Let the lyrics be lyrics
This isn’t the place for interpretations, memories, stories, or trivia — that’s what comments are for. Keep metadata, translations, and bracketed stage directions out unless they’re officially part of the song.
Edit lightly
If two lines are wrong… fix the two lines. No need to bulldoze the whole page. Think ‘surgical,’ not ‘remix.’
When in doubt, ask the crowd
Not sure what they’re singing in that fuzzy bridge? Drop a question in the comments and let the music nerds swarm. Someone always knows.
No, no, no. The meaning is exactly what the song says. It's about the tragic death of a friend from a hang-gliding accident.
Mr. Becker comments:
" 'Surf and/or Die' was a song that I wrote about an incident that happened with some friends of ours in Hawaii where a young guy was killed in an accident and it was very shocking, for a young, healthy person that you know well, and that you loved the family, and everything, to suddenly not be there one day. And I remember going to the, they had a little sort of a memorial service for him, and one of the Tibetan lamas from the Dharma Center in Paea, the town I live in in Hawaii, came and said a little piece there. And it was very moving, and I could see how his perspective on the continuum of life and death and the whole Tibetan Buddhist thing kind of made the whole thing a little less meaningless and senseless-seeming. And anyway, I wrote this poem about it later and it became the song... At some point after that, my wife said, hey, she had met four of these monks that were hanging out in Paea, a couple had come over from Tibet, and said how'd you like these guys to come up and say a prayer or blessing in your studio? And I said, great. And I started thinking, well, I've got this track here, I'll just, why don't we just record the blessing, I thought. And I thought, why don't I just record the blessing right on this piece of tape with the song on it and see what happens, and not play the song for them or anything, but let's just let them go in and do the chant. And then they went in and they did these prayers, it's actually a series of prayers that they do, and we recorded them. And then after they left, we listened to the track with the prayers on it along with the rest of the music, right, just to see what it sounded like, and it was in the same key, and it was right in rhythm with the track, and everything else. And it was the prayer for the departed and so on, so I figured, great.... And the song itself is basically a kind of a pedal point bassline, drone underneath there and everything, so we ended up using it."
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No, no, no. The meaning is exactly what the song says. It's about the tragic death of a friend from a hang-gliding accident.
Mr. Becker comments: " 'Surf and/or Die' was a song that I wrote about an incident that happened with some friends of ours in Hawaii where a young guy was killed in an accident and it was very shocking, for a young, healthy person that you know well, and that you loved the family, and everything, to suddenly not be there one day. And I remember going to the, they had a little sort of a memorial service for him, and one of the Tibetan lamas from the Dharma Center in Paea, the town I live in in Hawaii, came and said a little piece there. And it was very moving, and I could see how his perspective on the continuum of life and death and the whole Tibetan Buddhist thing kind of made the whole thing a little less meaningless and senseless-seeming. And anyway, I wrote this poem about it later and it became the song... At some point after that, my wife said, hey, she had met four of these monks that were hanging out in Paea, a couple had come over from Tibet, and said how'd you like these guys to come up and say a prayer or blessing in your studio? And I said, great. And I started thinking, well, I've got this track here, I'll just, why don't we just record the blessing, I thought. And I thought, why don't I just record the blessing right on this piece of tape with the song on it and see what happens, and not play the song for them or anything, but let's just let them go in and do the chant. And then they went in and they did these prayers, it's actually a series of prayers that they do, and we recorded them. And then after they left, we listened to the track with the prayers on it along with the rest of the music, right, just to see what it sounded like, and it was in the same key, and it was right in rhythm with the track, and everything else. And it was the prayer for the departed and so on, so I figured, great.... And the song itself is basically a kind of a pedal point bassline, drone underneath there and everything, so we ended up using it."
It's about a not-entirely-voluntary, but nonetheless providential, detox.
I think.