| John Lennon – Happy X-Mas (War Is Over) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
John's Christmas song always sounds 'corny', until I hear it. Every time. Genius! I never tire of hearing it, only hearing about it; and it's one song which cannot be covered. No-one comes over as sincere as John. The meaning is plain - We have to _desire_ an end to war for it to cease. Imagine... |
|
| Neil Young – Like A Hurricane Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
I like everything about it. The three recorded versions (known to me) have different characters; but it is the original studio cut which I remember listening to in the '70s on Radio Caroline (a pirate radio ship in UK waters) which evokes the strongets memories. It brings back my miss-spent youth in glorious waves. That aside, I enjoy jamming around with the riffs. There's so much in there! Neil's second best song, after Heart of Gold... |
|
| Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven Lyrics | 18 years ago |
|
It reminds me of the WB Yeats poem, The Two Trees. There are two paths, and we have a choice at any time. I won't bore you with my own footfalls, but would like to say that this is one of my favourite 'uplifting' songs. |
|
| The Velvet Underground – I'm Sticking with You Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Mo also sang After Hours, at least it appears on a live set recorded in Paris in the 'Nineties. Both songs are 'uncomfortable' for people used to the vocal abilities of the other band members, but they have a certain charm. |
|
| U2 – Vertigo Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
I heard Bono interviewed on BBC Radio 1 this afternoon. When questioned about 'Una, dos, tres, catorce...', he replied that "There may have been a little drink involved...". QED. This is the best song they've put out in years, and I look forward to the album. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Bike Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
YEEEEEEEHAAAAHHHHH! Syd would have loved you guys. I remember writing stuff like this in my late teens, well, I grooved along in 12-bar to my mate Charlie's weird-shit improv lyrics. One recorded song survives, and I guard it zealously. Syd was completely bollocksed when he wrote / performed Bike, and so were we. Its wonderful stuff. Just don't try it at home, kids... |
|
| Pink Floyd – Astronomy Domine Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| The lyrics, like many of those from acid-inspired songs, are largely a rhythm device. The meaning of the song is in the guitar line. Dave Gilmour's live version (Ummagumma) is technically exquisite, but doesn't transmit Syd's original ideas. This, along with A Saucerful of Secrets, gives me 'bad' memories sometimes; remnants of a misspent youth! | |
| Janis Joplin – Little Girl Blue Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| It looks pretty dry as raw lyrics; this one has to be heard. It's so intensely sad, moving, and sums-up Janis' life; the lonely girl behind the don'-gimme-no-shit exterior. This is definitely the other side of her from Ego Rock! | |
| Nazareth – This Flight Tonight Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Yeahhhhh... It's one of those song with inconsequential lyrics, but the tune / sound... I was in my early teens when this came out, and it got a lot of airtime on UK radio. That thundering rhythm and howling bottleneck! Almost as soothing as my mum's spin-drier. I heard it in the car on the way home tonight, it brought back a lot of happy memories. |
|
| U2 – Pride (In the Name of Love) Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
We used to call this one the 'Lemonade Song' 'Lemonade of love...' Product of a noisy work environment and an overactive imagination. I hope this observation isn't taken as disrespectful or iconoclastic; all you others have picked over the bones of this song effectively. It's just that when two half-deaf, middle-aged bass players working together in a factory in the mid-'eighties heard this tune, the humour was inescapable. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Has anyone decyphered the 'interview' skit at the beginning of the song? The best I can do is: "...disciplinary remains, mercifully." "Which is..." "..an assurance!" I believe it to be vital to the meaning of the song, as presented in the album. It has little inherent meaning, but the tone of the conversation sets the scene for the dispair which follows, contrasting formal opprobrium with a soulful outpouring from an open heart. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Fearless Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Which football team is being cheered at the end? I can hear both Liverpool and Everton; Was it recorded at a Mersyside derby, and are the boys having a little 'fun' with us? Seriously, though, the 'idiot' is the same fool which Ian Anderson found when he wrote the Jethro Tull classic, 'Minstrel In The Gallery'; the wise and foolish self / non-self (delete as applicable) within us all. The song is about self-reliance, self-determination and the will to question authority to the point of dissent. This is not a Syd tribute, and Jesus? Let's stick to what is before us, and not play that game where Jesus, Krishna or the Great Prophet Zorquan can be found in any piece of text. | |
| Janis Joplin – Mercedes Benz Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This one's great for street singing after the bars have closed. On a more serious note, it's easy to draw comparisons with David Bowie's early song, "God Knows I'm Good"; many people rely on religion as a crutch to support their lack of self-reliance, and Janis seemed to have this thread through her work. From a personal viewpoint, I don't like the song much - I prefer her love songs. | |
| Janis Joplin – Half Moon Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I'd say that if a woman sang this to me, I must be doing something right. This is real good-time stuff, and if I were female, I'd like to sing it, too. (I do actually sing along to this with a Janis tape in the car, never mind the gender...). Great song. | |
| Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in the Sky Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| The really wonderful thing is that they used Claire's first take. It's so spontaneous, it encompasses so many emotional colours, and forms the centre of this complex view of human dispair and doubt. Many people see DSoTM as just a massive technical achievement, without regard to the enormous personal input. This track is my favourite piece from the album. | |
| U2 – New Year's Day Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Back when this song was new, I felt it was the band's reaction to the sectarian violence in Ulster. I now realise the depth of my delusion; it's something much wider in scope. | |
| Genesis – Supper's Ready Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I've listened to this song occasionally for many years, since the seventies. I feel it's more metaphysical in nature, but anyhow, it's plain amazing. | |
| Pink Floyd – Echoes Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Something wonderful happens to the 'ping' thing late in the song. It gets a return, an echo, and the building rhythm section takes an upswing. That's the most beautiful part of the song for me. | |
| Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Hah! 1) Grafitto seen above a toilet-roll holder, toilets in Physics Department, Warwick University, 1986 : "Sociology degrees - Please take one." 2) This song is for everyone who has lost a friend. The legend records that Syd appeared at the studio during the recording of the album. 3) I heard this given as a solo by a fellow student at Durham, and it reduced many in the bar to tears, and it said more about our species' interrelationships than any religion or synthetic 'science' can. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Julia Dream Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| It doesn't exactly hit my spot, but it was the first Floyd song I learned to play. Easy chord progression, simple words. On that point, I'm sure the words above are inaccurate: I'll go and check. | |
| Pink Floyd – Corporal Clegg Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Roger has, for most of his writing career, had a thing about losing his father in the war. This is the earliest one I've identified, and I grew weary when The Final Cut appeared. I had a boring job in my late teens, looking after a large number of aircraft batteries which regularly came to me for maintenance. I named them all, using names from Floyd songs; when I ran out of them, I used entities from Bowie and Stones numbers, painting them in tiny letters on the ends of the cases. I didn't use Corporal Clegg. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Heh! "And by the way, Which one's Pink?" Z/28 has a plausible observation, but did they fit the movie script to the album, as interpretively as all the (non-authoritative) contributors to this discussion? Perhaps, as I write, the truth is on his way home from the pub. Cheers, Dave! |
|
| Big Brother & The Holding Company – Piece of My Heart Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
From an insensitive male's point of view, yeah, I think the guitar sound is great. Guilty. I often thought, later, did I really say / do that? Growing up with this song was part of my interpersonal learning process - Shame I listened, but did not observe. |
|
| Big Brother & The Holding Company – Summertime Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This version differs from the Gershwin original, not just in the lyrical content, but also in the style. I sing the _original_ while I work (along with a great number of numbers), and could not possibly get myself around Janis' version. It is so damn soulful; I hope I never get so low, and wonder if I can get that high. | |
| Big Brother & The Holding Company – Ball and Chain Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Heh! We're here, anakwill, and.. We don't understand, how come, She's gone, man? When a beautiful creature destroys herself with drugs, and leaves us alone, we all ask deep questions. Janis had many ways of looking at love. Ball and Chain was one of the most pessimistic, laying out how lost love can be sooooo bad in the heart. We've all been there, even old farts like me can still get fucked-up over a woman. The band's discovery on the train, "There is no tomorrow, man, It's all the same fucking day..." blows apart the good day / bad day thing. Moments, NOW, life; do it or regret not doing it. Janis feared sleep; in case she "...missed a party, man," : Gurdjieff wrote, "Sleep little without regret.". This song is not about regret, it's about what we feel. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Dave Gilmour is just this nice guy who drinks in a pub in Billingshurst, and plays a mean guitar. I can't imagine him doing drugs. I can relate to the medical stuff in the song; I had that feeling as a kid, very poorly. Other than that, I have always enjoyed Gilmour's work onthis song, it's one of his best efforts. |
|
| David Bowie – Cygnet Committee Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| We listened to this as teenagers, stoned, and it meant SO much. Decades later, in the clear light of day, it means so much more. Definitely the definitive Bowie dystopian rant. | |
| David Bowie – All the Madmen Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| It's about his brother, committed to an asylum in South East London (Cane Hill). | |
| U2 – With or Without You Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Thinking on this song and acting on the outcome was a bad idea. Personal problems aside, this song confirms The Edge as a rhythm guitarist, but when there's no rhythm, where is the guitar? A Zen view of a very airy tune. |
|
| Janis Joplin – Ego Rock Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| So, the blues can be fun. Miss you, Janis... | |
| Black Sabbath – Paranoid Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| The song might be tosh, but it felt good at the time. | |
| Pink Floyd – See Emily Play Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
Guilty. I named a motorbike after this song, and it's my daughter's middle name. Innocent. That's Emily. She was the best bike I ever owned, and my girl? That's another story. |
|
| Joni Mitchell – Woodstock Lyrics | 19 years ago |
|
I lived through the worst years of the Cold War. I remember those ...bombers / Riding shotgun in the sky and waited. Songs like this turned our perceptions round, there was always hope. Hey! we got away with it! We still gotta get back to the garden, but many of us are genuinely trying. Like Joni, I never made it to Woodstock. I was in short trousers and England at the time, but songs like this take me there any time I want. |
|
| Neil Young – Hurricane Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| OK. This song reminds me of sleeping in the woods as a teenager; six-packs of cheap beer, Radio Caroline (non-Europeans might need THAT explained) playing stuff like this until the batteries went dead in the morning dew. A god had clearly passed through, that night. Remeniscent tosh aside, I love this song, speshly the Live Rust version. It reminds me of some of my women (Wooops, there I go agin...) | |
| Sting – Fields of Gold Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| A near-perfect love song, in the opinion of a far from perfect lover. I can't help getting caught up in its huge emotional content, silly old sod! | |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.