submissions
| Argent – Hold Your Head Up Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Last night at a Zombies concert in Dallas, Rod Argent said that the words were indeed, "Hold your head up, woman." It's about empowerment when times are tough. They played a rousing rendition of it! |
submissions
| U2 – Numb Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Adding to what LoveisBlindness said, I had heard or read (can't remember the source) that the song was written by taking bits of advice the band would receive from manager Paul McGuinness, but taken out of context. The advice pertains to dealing with a major tour (ZooTV) and how to deal with personal matters so they didn't interfere with their professional lives (for example, Edge's divorce).
The music video, and I believe this was conjecture the way I learned it, but it would seem accurate...
Edge was simply told to sit in a chair and lip-synch the song in its entirety, in one take, without a teleprompter (keep in mind, the song had just been completed and had not been rehearsed yet for live performance), while the band and film crew would attempt to distract him from this purpose. He didn't know what to expect... he just had to sit there and remember the words, without reacting to the distractions. |
submissions
| Tripping Daisy – Prick Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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A rare turn for Tim DeLaughter, this song expresses explicit anger at a former friend he lost to drug addiction. He slowly watched the friend he once knew fade from existence as the heroin consumed the former comrade. Some of the lyrics indicate that the friendship ended when Tim came to a crossroads: he could have followed down the same path, but chose not to. "Release me, life of no matter. My Life is here: I will overcome." |
submissions
| Tripping Daisy – Prick Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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A rare turn for Tim DeLaughter, this song expresses explicit anger at a former friend he lost to drug addiction. He slowly watched the friend he once knew fade from existence as the heroin consumed the former comrade. |
submissions
| Van Morrison – Snow In San Anselmo Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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A beautiful, haunting pastoral lyric about a California town experiencing snow for the first time. You get the sense that time stops and everyone falls silent for a moment to acknowledge the changed scenery around them. The warm production with the full bass sound really puts you in the wintery setting. I love the way the slow, lumbering backing music gives way to the jazzy shuffle with sax & walking bass line, with the choir layered in on top, as if to suggest the peaceful snow falling over the nightly goings-on of the town gives everyone a calming effect. |
submissions
| Blue October – You Make Me Smile Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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He tends to over-express himself. He realizes that he tends to dote on his lover too much and puts her up on a pedistal. He's unable to stop doing so because of his need to say what's on his heart, but it's chasing her away. |
submissions
| The Fixx – Saved By Zero Lyrics
| 16 years ago
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I caught the band on MySpace and posed the question: "Saved by Zero, what is it about?" They got back to me pronto. Jamie's response: "Simply, you can't fall from the floor." |
submissions
| Billy Joel – And So It Goes Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I've been in a relationship with a wonderful girl for two years now. I went into it knowing about some troubling decisions and mistakes she's made in her past, but I was willing to forget them and let them stay in the past. Our love for each other has been intense, and we've both accepted that each is the other's perfect and only match. When those problems she had resurfaced several months ago, I gave her an ultimatum... If she chose to revisit her sorted past again, I'm out of here. Leaving her is the last thing I wanted, but I desperately wanted to see her get past a double life of secret drug abuse. I was willing to bet she would pick us over the drugs.
My ultimatum worked, and she has been clean for seven months now, although it has been a struggle for her. Two months ago, she began her life anew, finally free of any cravings or wanting to see the people she knew then. I'm proud of her. However, she just told me last week that she feels crushed under the weight of my ultimatum. She told me that she has been living in fear that our love wouldn't be strong enough to servive a single mistake. As a result, she began to resent me and fall out of love. I had no idea she was feeling this way until last week. I apologized and let her know my love for her was intense as ever, and I have forgiven her for anything she has done and how proud I am of her. Too late... she is no longer excited to see me, turns her cheek to me when I want to kiss her, and no longer returns the sentiment when I say "I love you." I said all the right things, but not when she needed to hear them. I was silent too long, and this song really hits home. I don't know if I'm letting go of her. The decision is hers. |
submissions
| 10cc – I'm Not In Love Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The song is clearly sung from the perspective of someone denying his own feelings. It seems likely that he is singing about someone with whom he was in a relationship, and he is trying, in vain, to talk his way into forgetting about her. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – All at Once (It's Not Important) Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Recovering from a severed relationship, the author is trying to get used to the idea of being alone. It doesn't quite register. He has invested so much love and so much time in a relationship that he and his lover thought would last eternally, so the notion that it could just end as quickly as it started seems so strange. How could all of those promises and words of devotion not mean anything if they weighed so heavy at the time. "It don't mean much" is not so much a declaration by the author as it is an attempt to grasp the idea that the other party is so ready to call it quits. A similar song to look up would be "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – 1,000 Seconds Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The overall concept of "Ten Silver Drops" comes to a head here. The album centers around that careless moment when lovers are fighting and an offhand hurtful remark goes beyond its intended mark, and scars the receiving person too deeply to recover. The bulk of the eight songs reflect the perpetrator of the remark, overcome with remorse for uttering the thoughtless words, realizing that his remark was the last straw for his former lover. "1,000 Seconds" closes the album with the recounting of the actual fight. Who knows what it was about? It's not important. It's the fact that words went too far and the pain of knowing they can not be taken back that matter here. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Lightning Blue Eyes Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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While reflecting on his recently-ended relationship with someone, the author is trying to recall the feeling of falling in love back in the beginning. |
submissions
| The Trashmen – Surfin' Bird Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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The actual lyric is "the bird is a word." It is about the rising popularity in using the middle finger to tell someone to f___ off at the time. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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In short, Lepra Messias nailed it. It's a poetic expression of the maxim, "better to have loved and lost than not loved at all." I will explain:
Cohen has been a soul-searcher all his life. He has studied every philosophy, creed, and religion known to him in search of life answers, even becoming a monk at one point. He especially finds the Christian Bible rich in lessons and prime for metaphorical allusions.
The religion, in this song, stops there. This is not the story of King David or Samson & Delilah. It merely alludes to their stories to express his own story: a one-sided love affair. Like David, Cohen was searching for a "secret chord." In Cohen's case, that chord is a mutual love. He acknowledges though, that as someone who ultimately lost in the game of love, he is perhaps an unlikely person to relate advice on love: "the baffled king composing 'Hallelujah,'" "The only thing I ever learned from love, was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you."
He then begins to examine himself in the second person, relating to the time he met the object of his affection. He then swiftly describes allowing himself to be emasculated by his unabashed adoration of her by alluding to Samson, who let Delilah close enough to him that she could take his power and throne by cutting his hair. Still, he is captivated by her, even in her betrayal: "She broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the 'hallelujah.'
After that, the verses vary from performance to performance, but as evidenced in one alternate verson "Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a lonesome 'hallelujah'" he reveals the crux of the problem: he was deeply in love with her, and to her he was merely a conquest. |
submissions
| Robert Plant – Big Log Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Equating this song with the myth of Led Zeppelin's pact requires a lot of imagination. The pact, along with most everything else found in "Hammer of the Gods" is simply myth... creating legends out of merely talented men. Were Black Sabbath satanists? No, but misleading their audience into thinking they were was a boon to publicity. Truth is the legend of the pact was lifted from the song "Crossroads," which the guys were all fans of.
On to the meaning of the song...
It's pretty cut-and-dry. He loves life on the road. Even the monotonous drone of the tires and the weary rocking of the bus. It allows him to become interspective. His imagination is piqued by the myriad scenes passing by his windows and this allows him the freedom to create songs. His lover, on the other hand, sits and home and stares at the mirror, waiting for the tour to be over. It is a doomed relationship. She waits for him to come home, and then he waits to hit the road. So while he is out on tour, she decides to leave him. "There is no turning back... on the run." He doesn't like that she is leaving him, but such is life on the road.
As for the title... maybe he was in the bathroom on the bus staring at his new creation while writing this song. No idea there. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – The Leaves Are Gone Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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None of these songs are about war. They are simply personal songs about trying to make a living doing what they love and being experienced enough at doing it to know the pitfalls. There are references to war, but those are analogies to trying to make it in the music business.
This song, however, is simply asking "when we die, will our love continue to go on?" |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Sad and Lonely Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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He's gone through the post-break-up depression, and now he's hoping she's still feeling that way too. At least it would validate the relationship they had instead of it just being a waste of time. He's saying, "If she feels bad about it, that would make me feel better." |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Light's On Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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As a touring rock band, they know every show they play leaves an impression on new listeners ("Everywhere you go you leave a trace").
Their role as a band is not new... they are only imitating what their influencers did ("You're curled up under the light, with shadows of the fallen, And everyone you've known that's been replaced"). Now it's their time to stand in the spotlight a be judged by the audience against everyone they've been inspired by (Pink Floyd, Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, Gilbert O'Sullivan, etc.) |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Now Here is Nowhere Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Secret Machines lived in a one-room loft with all of their music gear at one end of the room when they first moved to NYC. This song paints a picture of waking up with the sun coming in the windows, shining on the guitars, keyboards, drums and amps at the far end of the room, reminding them of why they were there. That enough is inspiration to start writing. They begin to emerge from writer's block (as documented in "Nowhere Again.") |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Marconi's Radio Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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It's about waking up and realizing you're wasting your life dreaming. You have no right to complain things don't happen for you if you don't set things in motion yourself. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Alone, Jealous and Stoned Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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Although their previous album contained veiled lyrics throughout, this is pretty heart-on-the-sleeve material. It says exactly what it means. It's a wonderful expression of that deep heartsinking feeling you get when you're anticipating spending time with someone... perhaps a new girlfriend or boyfriend you're just starting to fall for... and they leave you hanging with no explanation. Anyone who has been stood up can relate. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – First Wave Intact Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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This being the first track on their second record, and them being aware that this could be the first impression they make on the masses, this song is a commentary on their cautious approach to the possibility of fame. Being a rock band, and fans of rock music, they have observed how fans will embrace a new band with a new sound and put them on a pedistal as the new "rock gods," only to knock them off the pedistal when they realize the band is not doing anything different from what came before... there are only so many formulas to making a rock song. "First wave intact" means they are just trying to survive the first stages of success and fame, and the subsequent backlash that is inevitable. Although their lyrics are very eloquent and veiled in their meaning throughout this album, all the songs are essentially about what was going on with them personally in the period between leaving Dallas as an up-and-coming local sensation and becoming serious major-label musicians. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Nowhere Again Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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As a budding new band intent on making a go at a career, they found themselves in an all-familiar situation; a brand new record deal followed by a severe case of writer's block. Why is it inspiration ends when success is handed to you? This is about dealing with lack of inspiration when you most need it, and all of the distractions that can keep them from their goal. Everyone has ignored that "Cellophane flowers" is a direct reference to The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky." He's saying that he feels inspired lyrics don't come as easy to him as they seemed to come to one of his heroes, John Lennon. ("Cellophane flowers never happened for me") His role in life seems more about a day job than his chosen field - making music. The need for a day job to pay rent, along with other distractions... girlfriends ("She motions to me, I start turning away"), and alcohol ("Warming the blood flow with poison") are blurring his vision of his ultimate goal, and he finds himself back in the rat race instead of rising above it. ("You'd be surprised, how we race, While our lives, erased.") The song becomes its own irony in that it captures the frustration of writer's block so eloquently. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – Nowhere Again Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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As a budding new band intent on making a go at a career, they found themselves in an all-familiar situation; a brand new record deal followed by a severe case of writer's block. Why is it inspiration ends when success is handed to you? This is about dealing with lack of inspiration when you most need it, and all of the distractions that can keep them from their goal. Everyone has ignored that "Cellophane flowers" is a direct reference to The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky." He's saying that he feels inspired lyrics don't come as easy to him as they seemed to come to one of his heroes, John Lennon. ("Cellophane flowers never happened for me") His role in life seems more about a day job than his chosen field - making music. The need for a day job to pay rent, along with other distractions... girlfriends ("She motions to me, I start turning away"), and alcohol ("Warming the blood flow with poison") are blurring his vision of his ultimate goal, and he finds himself back in the rat race instead of rising above it. ("You'd be surprised, how we race, While our lives, erased.") The song becomes its own irony in that it captures the frustration of writer's block so eloquently. |
submissions
| Secret Machines – The Road Leads Where It's Led Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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A veiled poetic mission statement of the band. They aim to become a band that touches each person who hears their music on a personal level. They seek to put spirituality and soul into an explosive musical package. ("Angels stole the show, The roaring seraph, singing thunder") Not that what they're doing is wholly original, they just want to do it better than anyone else is at this time. ("The road leads where it's led") In the end they know they're only human and another band will come along and show them up. ("Your clever disguise, Uncertainty fails.") |
submissions
| Secret Machines – You Are Chains Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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When Secret Machines left Dallas for the Big Apple, they left behind girlfriends. Although they weren't happy about leaving the girls behind, it was necessary to kickstart their career, seeing how Dallas was losing all semblance of inspiration for them. The song is about that parting which, although regretful, was necessary for them to continue to be true to themselves. |
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