| Slade – Run Runaway Lyrics | 3 months ago |
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@[scaryshari:49723] - Yes, Shari, the 80's being one of the worst decades in music is simply a subjective discussion. I graduated high school in 1985 and feel that from the moment I began my intense interest in music, the eighties were coming up over the horizon. I was able to see the decade very clearly with regards to popular music. If the 80's were so bad, how can one explain the Remain in Light album, Nebraska, Scary Monsters, Songs From the Big Chair, Solitude Standing, etc.? Some 80's albums have inspired great things out of me over my lifetime. For me, the 70's and 80's are musical ties for being my favorites (not best, not worst....simply favorites). Peace back at you. |
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| Bob Dylan – Red River Shore Lyrics | 3 months ago |
| @[Eddydewilde:49720] - Thank you, Eddy. It's more than interesting how I woke up this morning and decided to check this account for the first time in a very long time, for no apparent reason. A very knowing moment in my day. I believe there are no coincidences. As we all know, Bob has done a great job of keeping his mystery, even after sixty years in composing songs. I truly believe that God, some very special people, and this song (among other songs) rescued me from a tragedy. We go forward in time, and in the thoughts of Wordsworth, "We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind." | |
| Bruce Springsteen – Living Proof Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| After Bruce finished recording the songs that made up Human Touch, he still felt there was something missing, and sat out in search of that one last song that would complete that album. As is typical of Bruce finding his inspiration in the books and songs of others, he found his inspiration while listening to Dylan\'s Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3, in the final song on the album, Series of Dreams. That one song ignited a spark that would be the catalyst for the entire Lucky Town album. From Series of Dreams begat Living Proof. The proof is in the bass drum beat; they are exactly the same. \n\nFrom there, Bruce took the lilt from Dylan\'s fourth line in each stanza of Series of Dreams (ie - "and comes to a permanent stop") and transferred that lilt to his new composition "Book of Dreams" (hear lilt: "the room fades away and suddenly I\'m way up high".\n\nBruce now had two songs: one about the birth of his first child and one about his wedding day. From there, Bruce crafted an album about his personal transformation. | |
| Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[BeautyUntamed:40742] : You stated, "By contrast, the singer says he’s living under a bridge. Whether he is literally homeless or is exaggerating how poor and outcast he feels, he certainly is not living as well as his ex-wife and her new man are living."\r\n\r\nThe answer to this became much clearer to me after hearing the USA outtake Brothers Under the Bridges, about young guys and gals who would, in essence, "race out at the trestles". In Brothers Under the Bridge, as you probably know, Bruce describes the street racing life with, "neath the trestles drinking the beer and the wine." I think, through some movie or some book or maybe he heard someone talking about that type of experience, he got that idea. Bruce has stated that he got the idea for Racing in the Street by talking to a young guy in Asbury Park about his racing lifestyle. Maybe, it was that guy that gave him the idea about racing under suburban bridges. | |
| Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[BeautyUntamed:40741] : You stated, "By contrast, the singer says he’s living under a bridge. Whether he is literally homeless or is exaggerating how poor and outcast he feels, he certainly is not living as well as his ex-wife and her new man are living."\r\n\r\nThe answer to this became much clearer to me after hearing the USA outtake Brothers Under the Bridges, about young guys and gals who would, in essence, "race out at the trestles". In Brothers Under the Bridge, as you probably know, Bruce describes the street racing life with, "neath the trestles drinking the beer and the wine." I think, through some movie or some book or maybe he heard someone talking about that type of experience, he got that idea. Bruce has stated that he got the idea for Racing in the Street by talking to a young guy in Asbury Park about his racing lifestyle. Maybe, it was that guy that gave him the idea about racing under suburban bridges. | |
| Bruce Springsteen – Jungleland Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[BeautyUntamed:40740] \r\n\r\nI do believe you have stated the case, perfectly and most eloquently. Bravo! | |
| Bob Dylan – Red River Shore Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Last night, July 31, I awoke at 3 a.m. to a full moon outside my window, above a clear black sky. The moon shone right through onto the bed. I lay there awake just staring up at it, and began thinking of the opening lines of this song, Some of us turn off the lights and we live In the moonlight shooting by Some of us scare ourselves to death in the dark To be where the angels fly After hundreds of listens over the past four years, I think I understand what it means, now. We go to bed at night and accept the limitations, and troubles, that life (or God) hands us, or we lie awake most nights, forever unsettled about the troubled events and losses in our life, and carry that despair with us until the time of our death. Years go by. The world keeps spinning, thus ever-changing for those who don’t have the same aching pain inside as Dylan’s writer, or as those of us who have experienced such hurt. Wordsworth once described in “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” about how places stay the same, but, people change. Wordsworth and Dylan are both describing a time period of many years. But, where Wordsworth is speaking of his return to the place of his youth many years later, he observes of himself, “Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first I came among these hills…”, Dylan is speaking about living in the memory of how his character once remembered the girl a long time ago. Years have gone by. Yet, he hasn’t changed, and neither have his memories of the girl. His memories of her are, in essence, the same as our own memories of those who we once knew, because we are all “living in the shadows of a fading past” and “trapped in the fires of time”. He knew the girl for a (possibly) brief period of time. His memories of her are fixed. Though, his recollections of the place where he knew her are no longer there, as places do changed over time. He becomes a “stranger in a strange land”, and no one seems to remember him or the girl. They have become “Rank Strangers” to him, if you will. Our memories become our perspective. No one else can share the same perspective, especially after the years have faded those memories to the point where revisionist history begins to occur, to some extent. Nearing the end of his life as the “sun went down on me a long time ago”, but “had to pull back from the door”, he discloses what so many of us also feel as we near the end of our own lives. That is; regret, disappointment, and discontentment with our lives cause us to not be ready to embrace death, as it closes in on us. His one regret is not being able to spend “every hour of my life with the girl from the red river shore”. Anyone who has ever loved someone deeply, or experienced a profound, unlimited love only to have lost that love without understanding why, would do anything including being brought back to life to be with that person. The writer recalls the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and wonders “I don't know what kind of language he used or if they do that kind of thing anymore”. This makes one come to the sober conclusion that loss is eventual, and that the ones we love are on loan, and our days with them are numbered. Some of us have a person we once knew, a long time ago, who had graced our lives with such an extreme, intense presence that our experience of that person and our loss of that person causes our memory to remain fixed, forever halted in time. Years go by. The world keeps spinning for everyone else around us. For us, the world stopped the day we lost them. For the writer, the same holds true. Dylan is correct when he states, we are all “living in the shadows of a fading past”, because human beings “move on” and forget the people of our past, who weren’t as important to us. Time and memory, often fade away. In the end, he comes to the realization that, “Sometimes I think nobody ever saw me here at all, 'cept the girl from the red river shore”, because to everyone else, they were just two people. To the writer, the girl from the red river shore is someone he’ll never ever forget, even upon his death. And even then, he’s wondering if God can bring him back from the dead, so he can continue his quest to be with her. One more day is another day away From the girl from the red river shore ***This is a song I have listened to so many times, because it reminds me of someone I lost once, and dealing with that loss is a daily struggle, often "scaring myself to death in the dark to be where the angels fly". The "moonlight shooting by" last night was only a memory of how I used to feel prior to the day she was born. |
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| Neil Young – Powderfinger Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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"Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger" In this context, I associate the word "protect" with "cover". "22" finds disillusionment after making the decision to raise a gun and pull the trigger. His naive faith is now gone. Although he once was the one last "innocent" in his family, he now joins the ranks of "adulthood", saying goodbye to childhoods' end. "22's" wish to remain among society's inncocent is gone, and that split second decision is a regretful one. He can't believe the thought even crossed his mind and is now in regret of his actions. True adulthood leaves a bitter taste on us. But, it is a 'taste' that we all much swallow, nonetheless. The world awaits us all. We cannot remain "22" forever. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – Dancing In The Dark Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Dancing In The Dark is for Springsteen what The Fall of the House of Usher was for Poe. Springsteen and Poe are literary homeboys, in two different art forms, on account they both disguise the overall message of much of their work. The reader must consciously take note of what is truly being said, underneath the layers of their craftsmanship. Dancing In The Dark is Bruce at his melancholy brilliance; his impassioned outcry to search for some meaning, while around him, his life is a deteriorating wasteland. This was exactly the way it was for him in the early to middle 1980’s. He abhorred himself (...I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face...) because his struggle for perfection is, well, a struggle. What Bruce is doing here is NOTHING that all of us haven't experienced before. Underneath the disco/pop dance track is a confession of Bruce's dark and moody personality. It is not necessary to be a fan for Bruce’s writing in order to appreciate what he is going through. This can be any one of us at any given time in our lives. This song measures up to Bruce's great standard, with the best of them. It is one of the most highly misunderstood and underappreciated of all of his songs. It is misunderstood, by even diehard Bruce fans, because of the upbeat synth in the music. It is underappreciated because most people think it is a happy song. The music is fun. The video is beautiful and exciting and colorful. On the contrary, Bruce is extremely desperate for something good to happen in his personal life. He later confessed that at the time, he did not have a life. He only had a work life. (...I'm sick of sittin' ‘round here trying to write this book). He is reaching out for companionship. All the while, his soul is tortured by life's implications, failed personal relationships, isolation and despair. And so, he is, in effect ‘dancing in the dark’ or scrambling around in a dark world where there appears to be no meaning. His search and constant struggle for meaning finds him asking for someone to "give him just one look", but really hopes for human contact. Bruce touches on this theme on all kinds of songs. Years later, after his failed marriage, he will write Human Touch, another song filled with melancholia. Bruce has been searching for meaning and redemption since the beginning of his career, through all of his work. But, it wasn't until The River album (1980), where he came to the realization that his self-imposed isolation had to end for him to connect and have a real relationship with someone. That realization gained momentum with Dancing In The Dark, and hit its peak on the Human Touch album. The song Human Touch is an extension of "Dancing". At the ripe old age of 29, Bruce writes the song Cadillac Ranch; a song that is metaphorically about dying (“…when I die throw my body in the back and drive me to the junkyard in my Cadillac”). Over the next few years, into his early 30’s, Bruce has an increased worry about getting older and dying. In “Dancing”, Bruce writes...."You sit around getting older...", just as in Glory Days, he is talking about the passage of time and the ticking of the clock. So, he's not making deep connections with people, his work is all he has, and in his eyes, even that isn't going well, because his manager, Jon Landau, told him to write a hit song, after Bruce turned-in no less than 60 songs for his Born In The U.S.A. album. Bruce yelled, "You want a hit song, you write it!" But, Bruce wrote it. He wrote it that very night, in a matter of minutes. Alone in his hotel room, he penned one of his most personal and deepest songs. A song filled with isolation and despair. But, he masks the song with a brilliant Top 10 dance track. Though, don't let the synthesizer and electric drumming fool you. It's a very dark and brooding song, with an element of self-hate. If you are not familiar with The Fall of the House of Usher, try reading it with this song in mind. Thematically, both works of art are, in essence, the same. Existentially, both artists struggle for meaning and purpose while their lives are in upheaval. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher invites his unnamed friend to spend a period of time with him at his house, to play music, paint, read. His subconscious reason for inviting the friend over to the home is to avoid the feelings of despair that are slowly destroying his soul. All the while, the house is crumbling down around them. This is a metaphor, of course; just Poe’s way of symbolizing Usher's soul. ("Man I ain't getting nowhere. I'm just living in a dump like this"...was Bruce's crumbling house in Usher). It's really quite amazing, because I highly doubt that Bruce thought of Poe while writing this song. Yet, the two are coming from the same deep, dark place. As I said, Bruce does this in ALL KINDS of songs. There are so many continuing sagas to Bruce's life thru his songs. They are NOT just pop rock songs. They are the fingerprints to his life. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – Radio Nowhere Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| What do you do, in the eleventh hour, when you're cut off from the rest of the world and there is no one listening, no one reaching out? What do you do when you're lost in the world and all you get is white noise and a hum, while the world keeps spinning. A void that isn't getting filled by human kindness, in a selfish world, seeks out that connection in rock and roll music. It's not the preferred "rhythm". But, it'll have to do until there's a "world with some soul" and someone out there who's listening. | |
| Pink Floyd – On the Turning Away Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Those who have suffered tragic loss, a seeming eternity of 'pain and the trouble' and despair are on an island. Life goes on for those who have yet to endure such daily worry and hardship. It's a lonely existence on that island, while the majority go on with their lives, only thinking of the 'pale and downtrodden' in-between parties, concerts, movies, vacations, restaurant visits, and other leisurely activities that come only to those who haven't had to burden something that almost impossible to overcome. When it's convenient, they may give an occasional thought to turning towards the "weak and the weary", facing their own "coldness inside" and overcoming that weakness, just briefly, conveniently. "It's not enough just to stand and stare" 360 out of 365 days a year, while those long, empty 360 days are torture for the ones who are left to dream about a better day. |
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| Electric Light Orchestra – Mission (A World Record) Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Advanced civilizations and most certainly, God, stare down on us sentient, unenlightened beings, and make the conscious decision not to interfere in our troubled lives. They have the ability to intervene, but, keep with the original mission of creation, and study us from a distance, all-the-while they are in-awe of the beauty and complexity of what it is to be human. One street-level person is in peril, while another is singing from his/her lofty position in society. The disparity of life on Earth is tragic, yet beautiful; thus our lives are worth analyzing and reflecting-upon, and seen by God and advanced societies as a very 'sacred' thing. | |
| Bruce Springsteen – The New Timer Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Having to leave your home to search for a job, which would help you carve out your place in the world, is a lonely but brave decision. In some ways, you sever your ties. That's not your intention. But, time and distance do sever, or at least weaken, ties. There's a certain kinship in the brotherhood you find in someone who is not of your own blood. That brotherhood is forged, not in the usual way where 'blood is thicker than water'. It is forged naturally, by being forced to count of the kindness of someone when you are down, and being there for someone when it is not necessarily convenient, but when you are needed the most. When there are two things you have in this world; the possibility of work and a true friend or partner, and that person is ripped from your existence, you find your dignity has been taken from you. When you've lost everything, it doesn't take much courage, but desperation, to deny God's graciousness and replace it with vengeance. |
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| Bob Dylan – Where Teardrops Fall Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Far away, as in time, not necessarily in distance. Far away from the destruction, the initial loss, is where the writer is right now. He still hasn't gotten over it. Still grieving from something far off, long ago. Often, when we set down to sleep, as the candlelight flickers out, the one we lost, who can never be replaced, is the last image in our consciousness. Every morning, that image is the first to greet him. The writer faces another day. He starts from scratch, with an empty cup. It takes everything he's got to get it filled. He makes a decision to end his pain by going to see his lost love. The question for the listener is whether that person is deceased (so, he would be ending his own life to see her) or alive somewhere. I, for one, like to believe that it's the Girl from the North Country. |
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| Bruce Springsteen – Iceman Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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This is when Bruce began writing about adult worries; no longer young people's worries. The world awaits us all. The world takes it's toll. But, the answer here lies in the first stanza: "I wanna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I got" (which found it's way into Badlands, a song with the same theme as Iceman), and the final stanza: "Better than the waiting, baby, better off is the search". When a person gets robbed of his/her dignity, there's nothing more that can be taken away. It doesn't take nerve or bravery to fight back and carve out your own humble existence in this world. It's basic survival. It's human nature to fight for survival when all is lost. Some are more vulnerable, have less resilience, and are not cut out for the hardness of this world. The writer saw what it did for his wife/girlfriend: "My baby was a lover and the world just blew her away". The writer isn't as soft as his girl. He's looking life straight in the eye and telling it that he was "born dead" and there's nothing more that can be taken away from him that already hasn't. In the end, he reminds himself and us, it is better to search and strive for everything attained in this world than it is for it to be handed to you. And if you lose, you lose fighting for it. It's much better to lose fighting than it is to win without having earned it. This theme is imbedded in most of Bruce's lyrics up through the recording of "Trouble In Paradise" which was the first song he recorded after he disassembled the band (the first was actually Viva Las Vegas, but that was a cover song). |
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| Mark Knopfler – What It Is Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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The writer is observing the daily pettiness of human behavior, while the importance of solitude and loneliness are on his mind. On this particular night, people are not just eating, they're "shoveling food", getting drunk, complaining, as if they didn't have any real worries. All the while, the writer is observing "frost on the graves" and people waiting in line at the homeless shelters and soup lines. They are protected in the night by the garrison and the toll taker. But, the garrison is asleep watching over nothing but old ghosts, and the toll taker is cold and has someone on his mind. It's modern times. Places change, but, people stay the same. The dungeon doors, the castle, the horse and wagons all suggest that people have been doing the same meaningless activities for hundreds of years. So, what's changed? Here, Knopfler hints at the Iron Hand from his final DS album. A lone piper plays the national instrument of Scotland and sets the songs tone, as the writer is thinking about someone he's lost. His observances of a carefree society in the midst of loss and despair yields the answer, "It's what it is." There's people with small worries, and then there's him. The highland drummer joins the piper as the wind blows stronger, triggering the writer to shiver and remember a person from his past. With the "ghosts and the ancient stones" previously mentioned, this "something from the past just comes and stares into my soul" is likely someone who has died. A brief mention of the Scottish Blues is another hint that the writer is lamenting for someone he's lost. In the wee small hours as the lantern's are about to burn out, the writer confesses that he's been up all night writing lyrics. In an instant, he's back out on the street searching. He's still amongst the ancients. He and the ghost of Nathaniel Bentley (nicknamed Dirty Dick after his refusal to bath for the remainder of his life, as he grieved the death of his fiancé on their wedding day in the late 1700's) are still in search of Little Nell. The writer is in search of his lost love, just as Bentley kept in search of his. Bentley never threw away their wedding cake, allowing it to decay on the dining room table. Bentley used to wait by his fiancé's grave for her return. Knopfler purposely references Bentley, as he too in this song is still searching for those lost "arms to fall into". For those who have lost someone dear to them, and are forced to observe the daily petty behavior of people, there is only but one thing to say in the end, "It is what it is". It's what it is, now. |
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