| Destroyer – English Music Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Fun fact: there is no Ambleside-by-the-Sea in England, though Amble-by-the-Sea is a seashore town in Northumberland, England. However!, Ambleside is a tory part of West Vancouver. | |
| Yeasayer – Reagan's Skeleton Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Live version here clarifies a couple lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cdQQXpo2nM8 | |
| Stars – The Theory of Relativity Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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First, can I just say I want to walk on stage to that huge synth intro/bridge someday? Someone make that happen for me. First three verses are glorious classic Stars. We are young and vital, but nonetheless nostalgic for a past that could never really be! "You call it luck, I call it tragedy" playfully references the title theme (relativity!). We are struggling for authenticity but afraid of our own power! Then things get weird. A cybergirl? Haha, what the hell are you talking about, Torquil Campbell! And it's snowing in Hawaii!? One gets the impression that it's ~~the future~~ and climate change has totally boned Stars. That "new third world" reference, also pretty ominous! It's suddenly kind of weird that the Amy Millan character is so dismissive about '93, before whatever vague catastrophe must have struck. But it's also compelling that the two of them are still framing that difference in terms of their own personal histories -- we're mourning high school glory, not a way of life. But when Torq sings "Find someone close and and hold them like you care" you get a sense that bigger things have changed (with that typical half-pretended affectation). Then we close, celebrating that even in their new privation, they can still choose to be individuals. Once again powerful and, potentially, free! Oh, Stars. I've missed you. |
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| Passion Pit – Carried Away Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Ahh! Where'd they go? | |
| TV on the Radio – Will Do Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| "through your fuse it blows", I think | |
| Robyn – Konichiwa Bitches Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| That's "Thrilla in Manilla" (not "mah nilla") up there, after the famous boxing match: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrilla_in_Manila | |
| Telekinesis – Dirty Thing Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Should be "brushed your shoulder," not "brought" Thanks for the transcription! |
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| Broken Social Scene – Texico Bitches Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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per the website (http://www.brokensocialscene.ca/discography-spotlight.php?search=AC054): texaco bitches have you begun again texaco bitches i think you found a friend texaco bitches the air you breathe is real texaco bitches why do you like to steal i wanna be fair like a wanna be fag texaco bitches this town is going down texaco bitches i hope you stick around texaco bitches the guns beneath the youth texaco bitches this story needs some truth i wanna be fair like a wanna be fag i wanna be fair like a wanna be flag texaco bitches the light is coming in texaco bitches i think we're bound to win texaco bitches my weapon is my truce texaco bitches i do not like to lose i wanna be fair like a wanna be fag i wanna be fair like a wanna be fag |
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| The National – Lemonworld Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"Lemonworld" is really evocative -- it suggests something elliptical, self-contained, bright, cheerful, but also fundamentally sour. The idea reminds me of British summer estates in Woolf and Wilde. The narrator's a "college man" struggling with his sense of privilege against a backdrop of war and violence that he's largely unaffected by, but he's also unaccustomed to the "pricey" setting of the country retreat. Flowers and "summer lovin' torture party" remind me of Mrs. Dalloway's Bourton estate, where a younger Clarissa struggles with her tempestuous feelings for Peter and Sally even as her intent to marry Richard grows clear as they throw open French doors and stroll through flower-gardens. One particularly resonant passage: "Perhaps that summer she came to stay at Bourton, walking in quite unexpectedly without a penny in her pocket, one night after dinner, and upsetting poor Aunt helena to such an extent that she never forgave her. There had been some quarrel at home. She literally hadn't a penny that night when she came to them -- had pawned a brooch to come down. She had rushed off in a passion. They sat up till all hours of the night talking. Sally it was who made her feel, for the first time, how sheltered the life at Bourton was. ... Sally's power was amazing, her gift, her personality. There was her way with flowers, for instance. At Bourton they always had stiff little vases all the way down the table. Sally went out, picked hollyhocks, dahlias -- all sorts of flowers that had never been seen together -- cut their heads off, and made them swim on the top of water in bowls. The effect was extraordinary -- coming into dinner in the sunset. ... The strange thing, on looking back, was the purity, the integrity of her feeling for Sally. ... Absurd, she was -- very absurd. But the charm was overpowering, to her at least, so that she could remember standing in her bedroom at the top of the house holding the hot-water can in her hands and saying aloud, "She is beneath this roof ... She is beneath this roof!" ... She could remember going cold with excitement, and doing her hair in a kind of ecstacy... and feeling as she crossed the hall "if it were now to die 'twere now to be most happy." That was her feeling ... all because she was coming down to dinner in a white frock to meet Sally Seton!" ("I want to sit in and die...") To be clear I'm not suggesting Matt wrote a song about Clarissa Dalloway -- I just think the parallels are nice :) |
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| The National – Slow Show Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Twenty-nine is also about right for Hamlet's age. See: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006ZHt | |
| The National – Slow Show Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I think this song is a reference to the "dumb show" that Hamlet staged for Claudius. I think the love that he's depended on, the love he thought he was waiting on for those 29 years, started to be a second priority in his life ("lost in drawers") and has failed ("and the wall leaned away"). Maybe he's discovered infidelities? I don't think it's a happy song. Or else the "dumb" in dumb show is just "cute and silly" act and he's contrite about how his priorities shifted without him noticing, and now he's gonna go set it right as soon as he can get away from this miserable party without her. Which is a lot fuzzier. |
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| The Servant – Cells Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| -"on mass"+"en masse" | |
| Sneaker Pimps – Lightning Field Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I've always kind of wondered if this song is a portrayal of the death of Christ. The imagery's certainly there. | |
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