Flicks

such a fun song it\'s almost YODEL-ey in some fun techno way

can\'t really see what the lyrics could mean though

this is the first song from frou frou that i heard, which led to my love affair with immi's music, and it remains my favorite of hers from frou frou even after all of this time. I love how fresh her voice is in this song...especially during the "people concertina..." portion.

as for the meaning, I think it's about the act of loving["lung of love" implying that when you love someone, you're "breathing" love] being tiring["breathless"], and all of the foolish things people say behind her back["tongue of fool"] cover her in hostility["lap me in enmity"]...either their hostility, or the lies cause her to be hostile in reply... or both.

as for the thing about lies, 4 walled makes me think of a home, and a hessian is german mercenary in the british army in the US... so a lie close to home[to do with love, the fools] and it's being kept by someone sneaking around. she's viewing this "hessian" and thinking "oh, if only I could have seen the future and the fact these lies were going on, I could have saved her from being burned[heartbroken] by this person."

"and I'm motioning still/they stand inside me/the moments until the one I leave" to me means she's finding it hard to walk away from the situation, probably due to the "cindered" girl getting away from both her and whoever screwed her over. the whole "colourless..." bit says to me "in my numbness, I try to give her love, but of course, as soon as I try, everything blows up in my face again, and everyone who tries to comfort me about it is too disconnected from me to really give a damn or understand at all."

as for the "people concertina" bit, it sounds to me like people she knows gather around her over this whole ordeal, chattering to her about what's been going on, because they can see in her face she's playing out all of the events back in her mind over and over again, vividly reliving it all, unable to escape her memories.

so basically, this song is about loving somebody, and watching that person be destroyed by the lies of others, or else the lie of a certain person, then the gossip starts, and she tries to comfort that girl, but fails...the girl leaves, and she's stuck reliving the memories. perhaps the girl the narrator is singing about is a love interest, best friend, or even herself.

I think this song is about how memories replay like movies, sometimes.

'Senses all inclusive.'

Like how something happens and you remember it so well 'and a flicker of the future could've saved..' and hindsight, of course.

Just a random thought.

apparently, it's a about your life flashing before your eyes before you die, i can see the last line corresponding but ii'm not sure about the rest....

I really like delial's interpretation. :)

The music has a very repetitive and quick tune (and percussion) which I think is perfect; if one could hear what replaying memories sounds like, this is how it might sound. I'm not sure where "life flashing before your eyes before you die" came from, but I can hear that in the music as well. The sound is reminiscent of a train coming to hit you.

I can understand the previous comments here, but for me this song has a different meaning. First, this is my favourite song in Frou Frou's work like delial said. As for the meaning it's hard to define what the song is about, but one thing that always comes to mind to me in that part 'a flicker of the future could have saved the cindered sisters' is the Inquisition. And it almost seems as if she is dreaming and/or seeing things that not necessarily happened to her, and that those things end up being dear to her and so she says 'They stand inside me The moments until the one I leave' All in all, this song always makes me happy and it gives out a sense of hope.

Heap and Sigsworth stated in 10/02 to VH1 some of what the intent was:

VH1: The lyrics for “Flicks” and “Must Be Dreaming” are very surreal. Do those images just pop into your head or do you work very intently on creating them?

Heap: “Flicks” just flew really easily. I like the idea of taking moments of your life that are really important to you and creating a film out of them, like 15 memories you just can’t live without. It’s weird, because you can start off with an idea and be really excited about writing the song. Then, three months later, when you finally get around to writing a song - or finishing it - it’s totally different!

Sigsworth: One of my favorite songs is Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” where he starts like he’s telling you a story - “A man walks down the street …” and then before you know it, the story has gone off to Neptune. You don’t know at what point it went from being conventional storytelling into complete sci-fi. If you can draw people in, set up something that they believe is real, and then subvert it, that’s the best. So I’m assuming that it is intended to be ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations.

To me, this song is about two sisters. One of them was burned alive by the Hessians, and the other is with the body, kissing it, thinking about memories, and mourning. The whole last part of the song sounds like crying.

I think that this song is about using your past experiences and memories to make choices in the present (the beat and sounds certainly suggest things whizzing past in memory and time being distorted).

"I'm motioning still they stand inside me" - time is marching by as she is waiting and thinking about the choice she should make, with her experience guiding her.

"Colourless I kiss her cold forehead I feel life, lose it in a minute" - one of the memories, dreamt nostalgically in black and white (maybe something to do with a death?), before that memory flicks by and is replaced by another.

"People concertina into my private magic lantern" - All the people she has known squeeze into her past and guide her like a lantern into her future.

At least, this has always been my interpretation.