submissions
| The Tragically Hip – Coffee Girl Lyrics
| 7 years ago
|
|
The lyrics dance around the subject of vulnerability. Young women in 'hip' (*cough* white *cough*) neighbourhoods are given all kinds of overt and/or coded signals to imply that they are SAFE because of the supposed values of the predominate culture or sub-culture in through which they travel but "when the moon's behind the hill" they are not safe. "Perfect" was a comforting illusion. There is also some meaning in the outside observer tone of the lyrics. Is this coming from a customer who just thinks about the lives of the people who serve him coffee in this depth for no particular reason? Is it a stalker? A protector? This is not given away. |
submissions
| The Outfield – Your Love Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
Just a quick point - The singer NEVER says anything about HIS love. He wants to use her love for him to his own advantage without anyone he cares about finding out. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Wildflowers Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
"basically just a love song"??? There are actually a lot of conflicting disordered thoughts contained in this song. You belong where you feel free / You belong somewhere close to me / You belong in that home by and by [by and by is a cliched term for the afterlife where people go when they are DEAD] A lot of people who are abandoned by a lover go through conflicting emotions like this. I know I did. |
submissions
| The Kills – Baby Says Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
"Baby" is a woman who has been exploited sexually by men with more social power than herself. She is vowing to get something that she values out of the transaction. "A howl of romance" is not all that she wants. She wants all that would come with it. The thing that makes this song so striking is that the words that "Baby" says paints a picture of hopelessness. She is dying to meet "me" and I am given snippets of information that tell me that she is dangerous and desperate and that she has already projected attributes onto me that I may not agree with. She reminds me a bit of Alabama from True Romance. She got her 'howl of romance" but things didn't go too well after that. |
submissions
| Hey Rosetta – Becky, I Keep Singing This Song Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
'Becky' is dead as the result of a traffic accident. The singer is alive and filled with conflicting emotions about living and dying... Remembering and forgetting. The conflict is internal but set in a backdrop of nightlife and bar culture. Society expects a bereaved person to 'move on.'
It is said that we all have three lives - a public life, a private life and a secret life. The richness of this song is that it tears up the boundaries between these. |
submissions
| Cat Stevens – Boy with a Moon and Star on His Head Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
I have to wonder if 'Cat' made some efforts to include the wife (an obligatory aspect of a wedding) into the lyrics. Maybe it's like the Piña Colada Song and it turns out that the gardener's daughter IS the wife. Or maybe the narrator is in some kind of cult where wives are completely subjugated and confined to prescribed roles. |
submissions
| Ben Folds – Root To This Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
The lyric "You will never know me" is central to this song. Every other lyric is just bluster and blather representing an inauthentic social mask of vulgar sexual bravado that is constructed to conceal the crushing fears and insecurities of the woman who is singing this. |
submissions
| Terry Reid – Without Expression Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
If you listen to the lyrics on 'TERRY REID Without Expression (1973)' on Youtube you will see that Terry Reid uses words the way a toddler uses lego blocks. He doesn't spend any time considering which one to pick out of the pile because his satisfaction is/was in the building not the built. |
submissions
| John Prine – The Accident (Things Could Be Worse) Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
|
John Prine wrote this song to prove once and for all that time travel into the past is impossible. If time travel were ever to become possible, the inventor, after having killed Hitler and won several lotteries, would go back to the late seventies and advise John Prine not to put lines about being raped by minorities into his songs because of the imminent advancement of cultural sensitivity in America. By that I mean I was only commenting on the fact that Prine wrote a lyric that is the opposite of timeless because America is a racially charged place |
submissions
| Hey Rosetta – Parson Brown (Upirngaangutuq Iqalunni) Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
A very dark song. A metaphorical 'snowman' has his dull senses awakened by the innocent affections of a child. The dark reality is mostly only hinted at through the musical arrangement and the title.
The ending - "we don't need their law, like the paper it's written on, it will fade. it will melt away. like snow, it runs to the river below" - acknowledges that the intimate actions are illegal. The 'snowman' is a child molester.
The priest in this article - http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20061019/NEWS/610190725?p=1&tc=pg - has a a similar moral detachment with regard to his behaviour. Human beings seem capable of creating an internal narrative imbuing themselves with 'innocence' when they have committed an act that is in reality morally reprehensible. Is this kind of molester any less monstrous than those who dehumanize or blame the victim? In their own minds, certainly, but outside of their imagination, the consequences are the same. |
submissions
| Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
|
Most disingenuous song ever. If he loved a woman 'too much' why not spend all his time with her? There's no room for suspicion then. He wanted to bully and nag his wife into suspending disbelief so that he could keep doing what he wanted to do. He wore a jumpsuit because he was an emotional toddler. It's too bad that nobody counselled him well enough for him to live a better and longer life as his voice was a beautiful thing. |
submissions
| Diana Ross – Upside Down Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
|
This is a song written and produced by two men who have the female singer sing 'respectfully' to a man who deserves no respect from her. She has no respect for herself. But it's catchy and you can dance to it. |
submissions
| Hey Rosetta – Another Pilot Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
Donald Margolis is Jane's father who works as an air traffic controller. He owns the building his daughter managed for him where Jesse lived. He sent Jane to rehab once before and goes with her to recovery meetings. Donald becomes furious when he discovers that his daughter is back on heroin, suspecting Jesse is at fault. He nearly calls the police, but relents when Jane promises to go back into rehab. Depressed, he goes to a bar and strikes up a conversation with a stranger (Walter) about the heartache of raising children. His words inspire Walter to help Jesse get clean from heroin.
The next day he arrives at his daughter's house and finds medical personnel taking her out in a bodybag. He answers a few questions about Jane, says nothing to Jesse, and leaves with his daughter's body. After a hiatus, he goes back to work despite still being distraught over his daughter's death. He makes a fatal error that causes a 737, Wayfarer 515, to collide with another plane in the skies over Albquerque.
Donald is all over the news following the crash as the investigators question to what extent he was responsible for the accident and whether it was appropriate for him to be allowed to work so soon after his daughter's tragic death. While driving, Walt overhears on the radio that Donald was rushed to the hospital from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, which visibly disturbs him as a reminder of his involvement in the Wayfarer disaster. [Breaking Bad Wiki] |
submissions
| Hey Rosetta – Welcome Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
There are additional lyrics on the Live at Chicago Music Exchange performance and they are awesome. They go between 'fear and greed' and 'Let young hands'
So do I welcome you to it?
Sing 'let the god damn games begin!'
'Cause the god that gives deliverance
Has a thing for disappearing, kid
When they're fighting on the beaches' heads
The five am to Winnipeg
The knights that fight in poison pith
The needle edge of old regret
But the wind will only shift again
And the breath beneath your epaulettes
Strength enough to carry it |
submissions
| The Tragically Hip – Long Time Running Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
'Drop a caribou' means that the protagonist is suggesting that he might put a Canadian quarter into a payphone and tell on his ex.
Overall, the song is basically the ramblings of a man who is speaking to a former lover with a lot of bitterness but also a kind of awe. It's like he has just lost all the vestiges of affection that he had for her and he is hyper-conscious of this. I always picture him saying all of this out loud in an empty room. He knows that nothing positive can come out of saying these things to her but he has to say them out loud to move on. |
submissions
| The Tragically Hip – Grace, Too Lyrics
| 11 years ago
|
|
The lyrics allude to a very specific incident. In 1981, there was a 'knock at the door' Police in British Colombia wanted to question Clifford Olsen because Kim Werbecky told police she had been brutally raped and assaulted after getting in a car with a man who promised her work washing windows in Whistler. She was considered an unreliable witness because of her lifestyle and history and the serial killer was eventually released. He used this M.O. before and AFTER this incident to lure young people to their horrible deaths. |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.
