submissions
| Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul – Solidarity Lyrics
| 25 days ago
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About (or at least inspired by) the Solidarity movement in 1980 which led, ultimately, to the collapse of the Soviet empire and the liberation of much of Eastern Europe. My kind of political protest song! |
submissions
| Al Stewart – Year Of The Cat Lyrics
| 3 months ago
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I was 15 when this came out, and I wanted to be the character in the song: travel to a distant land, meet an exotic and alluring girl, and stay there with her. |
submissions
| Donald Fagen – Walk Between Raindrops Lyrics
| 3 months ago
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In the third verse, I think it's actually "farther shore"--a reference to the afterlife. He's remembering a day with his now-deceased love, looking forward to the day he dies and they are reunited. |
submissions
| Robert Cray – Smoking Gun Lyrics
| 3 months ago
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I love how "smoking gun" is a metaphor until the last line of the last verse, where suddenly it isn't. |
submissions
| Chicago – 25 or 6 to 4 Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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@[Hilde:49657] If you can't think of anything because you have writer's block, write about writer's block! |
submissions
| Carbon Leaf – One Prairie Outpost Lyrics
| 4 months ago
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A few years ago I was on a train going from Chicago to Denver- and this song was playing in my head the whole time--"alone in a flatland 'tween the dream and the real." |
submissions
| The Waterboys – Long Strange Golden Road Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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It's a "*Long* Strange Golden Road" all right, over 10 minutes long! (Worth the time, however.)
Best line: "She was Venus in a v-neck sweater/She was all that ever mattered." |
submissions
| Daisy Jones & the Six – Regret Me Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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Daisy Jones & the Six are deliberately designed to resemble Fleetwood Mac, and this is the most Fleetwood Mac-like song of the bunch; has the same angry edge to it as "The Chain." |
submissions
| Jason Isbell – 24 Frames Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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@[1063266265:49195] The "pipe bomb" that is God destroys "everything you built that's all for show," leaving you to deal with what's really important. |
submissions
| Jim Stafford – My Girl Bill Lyrics
| 5 months ago
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A clever bit of misdirection--it's not clear until the very last verse that there's a comma between "girl" and "Bill." |
submissions
| Rob Jungklas – Hell and Helena Lyrics
| 6 months ago
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The "Helena" mentioned in the song is Helena, Arkansas, which Robert Johnson called "the blues capital of the Delta." I was unable to make out the name in the first line of the second verse. |
submissions
| Solas – Sorry Lyrics
| 6 months ago
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Whoever he is, and whatever he did, he's used up all his second chances and gone over the moral event horizon. "Sorry won't save you this time." |
submissions
| Tami Neilson – Holy Moses Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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I originally thought it was "Time stretches on, a blues marathon", which, come to think of it, works just about as well as "fool's marathon." |
submissions
| Arlo Guthrie – City Of New Orleans Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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I'm old enough to remember what trains were like in the era of the "disappearin' railroad blues." I start to tear up every time I hear it. |
submissions
| The Big Wu – Kangaroo Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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Air Supply was an Australian pop/soft rock band that had two or three hits in the US in the late 70s and early 80s. |
submissions
| Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – 666 Conducer Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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It's about people who mislead or do evil to others. "Conducer" means someone or something that leads to a specific result. "666" is, of course, the "number of the Beast"; that is, a reference to the Devil. A "666 conducer" would be someone doing the devil's work. The narrator asks if the conducer has a conscience: "How do you do the things you do, sir?" |
submissions
| Quarterflash – So Who's Lonely? Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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Performed in a 1982 concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was broadcast on the "King Biscuit Flower Hour," but AFAIK never released on an album or as a single, and not available on any streaming service. (Unfortunate, as this may well be their best song.) The King Biscuit performance is available on YouTube, however: https://youtu.be/wVriIL_uGJc?si=bntCTyMNl3uApEg0 |
submissions
| Marshall Crenshaw – You Should've Been There Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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I love the double meaning of "you should've been there" in this song. Usually, we use the phrase to mean "you missed something really cool," but he also uses it to express his disappointment: "I thought I saw you walking by into town/Into the crowd I went chasing you down/When I grabbed your arm, she spun around/A stranger glared, you should've been there." |
submissions
| Clannad – Caislean Oir Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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"Caisleán Óir" translates to "Golden Castle." It's a description of the castle and its surroundings. Musically, it has that wonderfully ominous Druids-at-Stonehenge sound. |
submissions
| The Wonders – That Thing You Do! Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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In the movie, the song is originally written as a slow ballad. When they go to perform it at a "Battle of the Bands" contest, the drummer speeds up the tempo without warning the rest of the band. For the first verse, the band is "behind the beat" before catching up. Of course, it works much better speeded up, they win the contest, and they're off on the rocket to stardom. |
submissions
| The Moody Blues – Higher And Higher Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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The whole album was inspired by Apollo 11. "Climbing to Tranquility"--should be written with a capital T--is a reference to the Sea of Tranquility, site of the first manned moon landing. |
submissions
| Gin Blossoms – Super Girl Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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She went off and became famous, or at least successful, and forgot all about him--but he still loves her. |
submissions
| Pink Floyd – Time Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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When my oldest boy was in 7th grade, his class put on a production of "A Christmas Carol" and my son, who was in charge of music and SFX, used this piece as the music bed for when Marley's ghost confronts Scrooge with regrets of how he spent his time on Earth ("I wear the chains I forged in life . . . .").
Made his father proud, he did. |
submissions
| Josh Rouse – Sparrows Over Birmingham Lyrics
| 7 months ago
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The vibe I get from it is that it's about a girl who is physically impaired ("Bones still soft/Legs fell numb") who grows up isolated ("An isolated pup") and eventually gets married ("Wedding bells rang"). It's arguable that she's miraculously cured through the intervention of a minister ("You witnessed a man/A holy man/Touched your head/With his gentle hands/An oh God was watching over you"), but it could also be that the minister is just a positive influence on the trajectory of her life. |
submissions
| Great Northern – Houses Lyrics
| 8 months ago
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@[Spyxed:48449] The one line is "Put some time in a box", but you're spot-on concerning the interpretation. |
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