In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
One Friday night I took a pill or maybe two
Down at the car park I saw everyone I knew
And before the night had started we had planned to crash a party
Just a place that someone knew a local house belonging to a gangsters crew
And at the door they shone a light into my face
Have to admit I felt a little out of place
But I made my way inside past a thousand crazy eyes
Then a friend took me aside said everyone here has a knife
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now
I swear to god I've seen it all
Nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
Those little doves had sent my mind and heart a-beating
To say I felt weird really doesn't need repeating
I could sense the mounting tension the atmosphere of violence
And then they took a guy out side and someone stabbed him with a knife
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now I swear to god
I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now
I've seen it all,
I've seen it all now I swear to god
I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked
Down at the car park I saw everyone I knew
And before the night had started we had planned to crash a party
Just a place that someone knew a local house belonging to a gangsters crew
And at the door they shone a light into my face
Have to admit I felt a little out of place
But I made my way inside past a thousand crazy eyes
Then a friend took me aside said everyone here has a knife
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now
I swear to god I've seen it all
Nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
Those little doves had sent my mind and heart a-beating
To say I felt weird really doesn't need repeating
I could sense the mounting tension the atmosphere of violence
And then they took a guy out side and someone stabbed him with a knife
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now I swear to god
I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I've seen it all
I've seen it all now
I've seen it all,
I've seen it all now I swear to god
I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight
I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked
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Standing On The Edge Of Summer
Thursday
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Gentle Hour
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo
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,
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
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.
I normally don’t like to give interpretations of lyrics, mostly because the music I usually listen to has “stream of consciousness” type lyrics and it’s hardly any use to start interpreting those. But since Jake Bugg has quite a narrative style of writing perhaps some things can be said of his lyrics. Anyhow, after a few listens I figure the narrator of the story (not necessarily Bugg himself) is actually the one who ends up dead. So when he says “and then they took a guy outside and someone stabbed him with a knife”, the narrator is the one being stabbed. I figure this because the last sentences are “I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked”: the light he’s seen being the proverbial ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ instead a light of ‘insight’. On this interpretation, which is arguably a bit of a stretch, the words “I’ve seen it all, nothing shocks me anymore after tonight” are quite literally true; if you’re dead, you have seen all you’ll ever see and nothing can shock you anymore. To give this interpretation some credibility, I would recommend checking out the video. SPOILER ALERT: Jake Bugg is not the protagonist in it (as he has been in some of his other videos such as “two fingers”), and the protagonist who is not Bugg ends up being dead, but he only figures this out at the end of the video.
just watched the video. I've always kind of wondered what he meant by "not the kind I would have liked." I never occurred to me he might be writing sort of from someone else's perspective. Trippy.
I'll admit that my first impression of this song was, "This 18-year-old kid is really singing about having seen it all?" But that's a subjective hang up.. your age ultimately doesn't preclude you from having a legitimate sense of despair for the worst that the world can offer, which is what this song represents for Bugg. Super catchy too, anyway.
I think the lyrics can be taken very literal. He is describing what happened one night that turned bad. I think he speaks of this song in an interview. He tells about people thinking he is trying to look cool by singing about smoking and taking drugs. But what he is trying to say is the opposite. He says: “I did this this night and it didn’t end to well. I’m just being honest you know, I’m not trying to look cool I’m just singing about the way life was at that time you know, evaluating it.” I think it’s about ‘two fingers’ as well.
Awesome song...underrated in my opinion.
It’s easy for critics to not credit the guy with the intelligence he deserves an assume (incorrectly) that he is literally saying “I’ve seen it all”.
It’s a turn of phrase that is commonly used, either by someone in “shock” or someone that arrogantly believes that they have had experiences that others haven’t and are therefore better for it.
He used this double use perfectly when he sums up in the final stanza
“I've seen it all nothing shocks me anymore after tonight I've seen the light but not the kind I would have liked”
Like a person in genuine shock, he is viewing what is happening to him as something happening to someone else