submissions
| Tom Waits – Big Black Mariah Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Well, it seems like this guy who's been drinking a lot of wine (box of Red Belle Dame?) and taking pills (Benny Jag Blue) went for ride in his sportscar and either crashed in the sugar cane and died or caused some accident where he's now going to jail. It seems like Big Black Mariah is a hearse, but Wikipedia says a Black Maria is a paddywagon. And one commenter below mentions that hearses are never Ford. So I think it's a man who's committed some crimes and got caught out in the countryside, and the paddywagon with its ladder and hammer to the floor done come take him away for good. He'll be wearing a wooden coat, meaning he'll probably be executed and put in a wooden coffin. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Big Black Mariah Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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From the "Black Maria" wikipedia page
Black Maria may refer to:
Black Maria, a slang term for a police van used to transport prisoners, originally these were horse drawn and so could take some time to arrive at a crime scene. “Black Maria” was a famous racehorse of the day, born in Harlem USA in 1826. The name was sardonically applied to the police carriages (which were also usually colored black).
Black Maria, the name of the truck that stops to aid the lone survivor in the film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Edison's Black Maria, a film studio created by Thomas Edison |
submissions
| Tame Impala – Why Won't They Talk to Me? Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Isn't he singing "why won't YOU talk to me?" sometimes. In the last refrain it really seems like he's singing this.
If true, is it a breakup song? Did she leave him because he's not in the clique anymore? Or does "they" represent all the girls who've left him? |
submissions
| The Decemberists – O Valencia! Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Valencia Street runs through the heart of the Mission District in San Francisco. The Mission is an interesting blend of Mexican families and artist/musician/hipster types (generally white). It's the "cool" part of the city, but sometimes there's awkward tension between the overprivileged white hipsters and the hard-working Mexican families. For instance, there are at least several gang-related murders in the Mission every year. Within a few hundred yards, people are sipping cappuccinos and eating pastries and drinking at nightclubs. This song must be referring to a fictitious murder that takes place on Valencia Street. It has to be fictitious, because Valencia is mostly white and people don't get murdered on this street; the real-life murders happen at least a couple of blocks east, past Mission Street, where drug addicts and dealers and gang members break into cars and steal people's bikes and shoot one another in dark alleys. |
submissions
| Yo La Tengo – Season of the Shark Lyrics
| 18 years ago
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One of my very favorite YLT songs. I took it on a much-more-surface level. I just see the song as an old friend speaking to another old friend about how life can seem scary and dangerous and sad ("the shadows on the wall / are not as bad as they appear"). But in the end, life might just be the season of the shark. Whatever might be waiting for our souls when we die might be something a good deal better than life here on earth. |
submissions
| Iron & Wine – Naked as We Came Lyrics
| 19 years ago
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beautiful and poignant song. young couple with children sleeping in their beds. but someday one of them will die in the other's arms. |
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