| The Mountain Goats – Unmasked! Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[Sobertoast:7837] This is among the funniest comments I've read about a mountain goats song. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Tollund Man Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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@[KingQwerty:3500] Yes! That's a paraphrase of the final lines of Sonnet 73: "This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long." Thanks for posting that. It is interesting. Consider the exuberance of the sacrifice, the tollund man, who loves what he sees as he takes his final glances at the world around him, loving well what he must leave. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Cobra Tattoo Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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As Claedalus says, there's a passage in genesis referred to here, in Genesis 3 specifically. There is also a reference to Matthew 3. Both these chapters mention serpents (the serpent in the garden, Jesus calls the Pharisees vipers). Notice "YOU will bruise my head, *I* will strike your heel" i.e. the speaker is the serpent. Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Matthew 3:9 "And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." |
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| The Mountain Goats – Ethiopians Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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I really like the suggestion that this is about that verse from Jeremiah. I think I remember John Darnielle commenting on this though, and it's actually named for the Jamaican rocksteady and reggae goup (think lover's reggae), The Ethiopians. I really love the consistency between this song and the ones that DID make it onto Tallahassee, take the lyrics from 'No Children' together with the line "postcards to friends we used to have ... rub their noses in the ugly fact that we are still alive". Also compare the verse "your eyes, twin volcanoes, bad ideas dancing around in there" with the line "nothing .. more dangerous and frightening than you when get bored." The Ethiopians are pretty solid, by the way, if anyone reading this is into early ska, rocksteady, etc. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Pink and Blue Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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I think a poetic features is worth further notice here. There's a kind of multistable ambiguity in the crow lines that I think shows real genius in songwriting. Here in the second verse: "crows outside complaining about the finer points of local politics" we have an observation about the background environment from the narrator. But, is his observation about crows or (say) old men? Are crows making noises back and forth that he imagines to be a discussion of local politics? Or are their people out there talking about local politics, and he imagines them to be crows? Of course either of these is possible, and I think the song is made richer for drawing your ear to the ambiguity in the stream of consciousness description. |
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| The Mountain Goats – New Chevrolet in Flames Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Quick note of reference: Compare "Oh would that you would kiss me..." with Song of Solomon Chapter 1, Verse 2 "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine." | |
| The Mountain Goats – Bride Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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A couple of things here. Most importantly, this song takes its inspiration from the film The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1936, starring Boris Karloff). At the end of the film, the monster's now animated Bride is repulsed by him, when all he wanted was a friend (his only friend, a hermit, he has now lost). He is upset, and shouts to warn Doctor Frankenstein and his wife to leave as he grasps a lever to explode the laboratory. To the Bride and the duplicitous Pretorious (who had the bride created) he blocks their exit and tells them to stay. He shouts to them: "We belong dead!" The laboratory is destroyed, killing them at the monster's pulling of the lever. The Monster at this point has a limited vocabulary. He has been taught a few words by the hermit in the woods, and only through him does he seem to gain the concept of friendship and love. He is dumb in two senses, of course. He has spent most of his life unable to speak. He is also unable to meaningfully articulate or understand his feelings. The song must be taking a liberty with the fact that if there is a love story here, it is not for the two beings given life in Frankenstein's lab. It does however reflect a lot about the Monster's death at the end -- he makes his gesture count. He is now aware through his Bride of his own creation, but she is not. He can choose their only logical end, regardless of what he feels. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Going to Queens Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I couldn't stop listening to this yesterday, I love Rachel Ware's voice with John Darnielle's throughout the song. The erotic imagery here is just dominant. "Your hair was dripping wet Your skin was clean" Wet hair, I think, is often used in erotic imagery in poems. I swear there's a great example I've got somewhere, but I just can't pull it out of my memory banks at the moment. Look at the next line though, which is even more clearly erotic. "Your body .. heavy on mine" continues the sensual image. But, like with a whole lot of Mountain Goats songs, the sad twist (as jfruh pulls out from the comment John Darnielle made) is we cannot trust the narrator when he says "You were all I ever wanted, you were all I'd ever need". The narrator thinks so, maybe so does the object of his desire, but even they aren't sure. Especially clear with the ending "I will know who you are yet". So far as the opening, I think it's poetic genius, but just lays the scene, provides the sense of background for the story that there actually are kids jumping rope outside heard through a window with the window flowing in. |
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| The Mountain Goats – You Were Cool Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| As to the spiked heels thing, for a hint to one possible interpretation: Gender is not specified in this song. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Horseradish Road Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I'm reminded of the lyric from Soft Targets "There is nobody innocent here. I've got more blood on my hands than you do." It's another song of mutually assured cooperative self-destruction. This time the pace is slower, and it relies on extensive low-key imagery. This is muted and mournful for a future (but very certain) tragedy. Diminishing returns, and a turning road. Opera and classical music, and signs of crime and deceit. Also notice the paralell: Enigma variations ... things I could guess, the things that I already know. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Scotch Grove Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Bluebeard is a folktale written (though I'm not sure if it originates here) by the 17th century author Charles Perrault. Bluebeard is a filthy and feared man who a young woman is forced to marry. When he leaves the country, she leaves his keys and tells her not to open one room. When she does, she discovers his many former wives hanging from hooks on the walls in a room full of blood. She is unable to wash the blood off, and her disobedience is discovered. She would be killed by him, but for the intervention of her brothers and instead inherits his fortune. The interpretation I imagine here is a very, very angry person. Being probed and tested for by a significant other attempting to infuriate him, and afraid of his own anger, that he might snap. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Baboon Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| John Darnielle's own explanation (thank you, ABOAS) is probably the best I could ever have mustered and true to the spirit of it. Like with 'No Children' I get the sense of sharp, indignant bitterness. I feel possessed by exactly what Darnielle said, that disgust you get looking at a person with whom you were once happy and now you draws an utter revulsion. You want nothing more to stand up and when the next battle when treated to that disrespect. | |
| The Mountain Goats – The Coroner's Gambit Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| It might be because I just heard the poem sung to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme, but to me this also recalls Dickinson's 'Because I could not stop for death --' | |
| The Mountain Goats – Jaipur Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Another thing to mention here is the refrain "Swing low, sweet chariot/ Coming fer to carry me home" is from the Negro spiritual 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" by Wallis Willis. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Soft Targets Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Actually, I believe it to be literal. I think that's a strength of the song. He is actually talking about a vampire. The song is a story, and it wouldn't be the first time he's used those particular themes as such. If it's a metaphor it's a bad one. The second part I agree with you about though. It's a pure admission that they both do terrible things. The song is eerie and the imagery is gothic and haunted. The metaphors are crafted to fit perfectly, the ghost in the attic, etc. | |
| The Mountain Goats – Linda Blair Was Born Innocent Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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It possible, the more definite reference is to Born Innocent, starring (you guessed it) Linda Blair (of Exorcist fame.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Innocent |
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| The Mountain Goats – Genesis 30:3 Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I think there's a bit of context that can be presented here. Biblically, Shaggy R has the score on the exact verse, but in context the story goes like this: Jacob had left the home of his father Isaac, fearing the anger of his brother Esau from whom he had stolen a blessing of prosperity. Isaac had told him not to marry a Canaanite woman but instead go to the house of his mother's brother, Laban, and marry one of Laban's daughters. Sure enough, upon arriving he meets Rachael, daughter of Laban andfalls in love with her. Laban tells Jacob, that if he works 7 years for him, he shall be allowed to marry Rachael. But at the end of the 7 years, on the night of the wedding, Laban tricks him and marries him to the older daughter Leah. Upset, Jacob demands from Laban what he was promised, but Laban explains that tradition dictates the older daughter must be married first. Should Jacob want both he can marry Rachael in a week, but he is to do another 7 years of labor. He agrees, and Leah begins conceiving Jacob's children. Rachael, however appears to be barren, and so, she tells Jacob to have children with her servant so she can have a family. Here, we might imagine Jacob, tricked into the marriage with Leah, seeing Rachael angry and distraught, saying to this request: "I will do what you ask me to do, because of how I feel about you." The next important thing to mention is a touch of John Darnielle context, and verges on interpretation of my own. The first is that this is the first love story in the bible that seems real. I mean, most of them are functions of God's promises or just happy little things where it hardly matters and the woman basically isn't there. John says, "All the relationships in the Bible prior to that are working relationships, but there’s people and love in this story." John mentions in the same interview* that there is a complication to both his feminism and his feelings about writing here. He mentions that this story is pretty blatantly patriarchal and seems to treat womanhood as being the same thing as giving birth, but also it uses a trope similar to the one where a g7uy does something rash for a girl showing his love, but we're supposed to applauding his self-destruction rather than think he's a psycho. I think this has many of the elements of the regular Mountain Goats love songs here. Sadness underscored by love (or the other way around) the two of which are inseparable. Maybe things will get worse, but they're certainly bad and everyone's aware. He Contextualizes it with the tension of the first hard love story of genesis. The view seems like it may change from Rachael's to Jacob's, but it might be Rachael's throughout. * This interview, and a lot of the John context appears in Paste Magazine's October 2009 edition. The interview is available here: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/10/catching-up-with-the-mountain-goats-1.html |
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| Sarah McLachlan – Do What You Have To Do Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I'm telling you people: *This song is about Dido and Aeneas* there are plenty of reference to Vergil and the Aeneid! Seriously people, it's not just sappy and without background like you're suggesting! It's from an epic! | |
| Modest Mouse – Trailer Trash Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I really like this song, and those who say you can't realte, I've got one thing to tell you: Listen again. I'm not trailer trash, my parents are divorced, but that means nothing with the way I relate to it. You're probably all right by the way, it's about himself, most likely. But I reate to it from mood more than experience. Looking bck on something the way he seems to, to me, it shows me something. It shows me about the struggles he's had, the self-loathing, blatant honesty of some things we look back on. I don't live in a trailer without class, but it's too human for me not to relate. | |
| Modest Mouse – Out of Gas Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| "You will come down soon too/You will come down too soon" That's what he told them. That's the important part to me, it seems. Yeah, he's drunk and in a bar. He's out of gas and going nowhere. He's completely fucked. That's what it seems like out of gas is, he's not doing well and he can't leave. And here, after he's hit bottom, he takes a drink, and all those assholes who think they're better than him, that's what he tells him. You will come down soon too. | |
| Dido – Don't Leave Home Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Hasn't anyone here ever heard of the story of Dido and Aeneas? The classic? Vergil's epic poem The Aeneid? The opera, even? It's where this singer got her name, by the way. | |
| Dido – Don't Leave Home Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| It makes sense that it's possesive. In the story of Dido and Aeneas, Dido WAS possesive when Aeneas tried to leave. | |
| Sarah McLachlan – Do What You Have To Do Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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I don't think anyone's picked up on it yet, but here it is. This song is Dido and Aeneas. There are nearly direct quotes from the Aeneid in here. I would know, too, I translated four books of it. For those of you not knowing this classic, lemme give you all a brief synopsis. Aeneas is a survivor of Troy, he's prophecised to go and find a city, but Juno is trying to stop him. Along the way, after Juno tosses him over the seas with a storm, Aeneas winds up shipwrecked in Carthage, where the Phoenician Dido is buildng a city. Dido is a strong woman leader, she has escaped her brother Pygmalion, after he killed her husband Sychaeus. Dido is not supposed to marry again, but after hearing the lost Trojan King's story, she falls in love. He stays there wiith her, they fall in love and spend a night in a cave avoiding a storm, and begin to live together. The gods step in at this point, and Aeneas, in order to fulfill the prophecy, must leave to go found a city. He is "led by fate", a phrase repeated in the Aeneid, and he would be punished by the gods for not leaving. She is heart-broken and begs him to stay. When he does not, she begins to plan her suicide. Her suicide happens in the center of the city, where she runs herself through with Aeneas's sword, then lays upon a funeral pyre, burning, and dies. Now to the lyric. "What ravages of spirit/ conjured this temptuous rage" is right our of book 1 of the Aeneid. It talks about the anger of the spirits and the fate of the man, Aeneas. "And fate has led you through it" is there as well, "fato profugus," in latin. "Apparitions of your soul" is something that happens in the Aeneid, after Aeneas leaves dido, and she dreams him. "trying to escape this desire" surely refers to Dido longing for Aeneas and trying to forget him. The verse beginning with "a glowing ember" is one of the parts that really convinces me. They talk about Dido burning as if embers inside of her were hot and burning with this desire for him (that's partially the gods doing) and it also foreshadows her death upon the pyre. That's what this song is, a love song and a suicide song. |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight, Tonight Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I love the exuberance to this song, Carpe noctem. It is your life, your youth, and you need to embrace it. Embrace the night, make every action be yours. Feel, believe, live. | |
| Modest Mouse – Grey Ice Water Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Yeah, I'm agreeing. Forgetting that lover mentioned in the song. I love the way this song is so calm and relaxed, slightly sad maybe. The song seems to really capture the idea of leaving things behind, maybe starting anew is what I think of when I hear it. great song, this one. |
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| A Perfect Circle – Judith Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Too many comments here to read all of them. Let me say that I think this is a song criticizing on religious hypocrisy, christianity, guilt for religion, and those that go about all that I mentioned in the completely wrong way. | |
| Modest Mouse – Baby Blue Sedan Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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OK, lemme give this one a try. It isn't loaded with anything easily understandable, no one interpretation seems to work well, really. Tgallucci and Mandie struck something important, I think. Here is what I get from the song just listeing through it: "A nice heart and a white suit and a baby blue sedan,/ And I am doin' the best that I can." Yeah, it sounds like he's trying to get over something like a relationship or something like that, but more than that it sounds like he's trying to prove something, like his worth or that, as he says, he's doing the best he can. "All the eunuchs they were standing in rows singing/ 'Please stud us out just as fast as you possibly can'" This line, as mentioned is clever and ironic, but doesn't make lots sense. Maybe eunuch is metaphorical, some people may as well be eunuchs, or so it must seem to them. This type of thing, where logic doesn't seem to be present I think makes this song sound almost drunken- this song sounds like it is from that perspective exactly, or so I think. Drunk at a party or reunion or something. "Sad song, last dance and no one knows who the band was/ and Henry you danced like a wooden Indian." Still sounds sorta drunken to me, like at a party. This adds to the mood though; the song is sad to him, sorta depressed, isn't it? Apparently Henry isn't doing so well himself. Let me add that the unknown band seems to be like something forgotten, it didn't matter, regretfully, and I think that says something. "Except this one mattered and I felt it had a spirit/ And I sht the story, because I didn't hear it that way" This gives me the impression of regret, maybe it's something (a relatiionship, perhaps) lost, it wouldn't normally matter, but now to him it does, the "sad song" is an analogy to that, I suppose. This is something he wish he didn't lose. "And it's hard to be human being/ And it's harder as anything else" Certainly true, isn't it? I definitely think so, especially in times of loss, sorrow, annd whatever the person in the song is underrgoing. It's a hard time for him. The improper grammer 'harder as' instead of 'harder than' seems to me to show the mind of the person in the song, perhaps drunken, confused and not thinking proper grammar, if not drunken, then maybe out of sadness. It reminds me of stream-of-conciousness writings, they often tend to be like that. "And I'm lonesome when you're around/ And I'm never lonesome when I'm by myself/ And I miss you when your around" I think this one was best put by mandie and tgallucci. It adds more of the idea of sadness, and of course, loneliness to it. Also, it indicates this about two people. |
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| Supertramp – The Logical Song Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| A couple people tell me that this song reminds them of me. The Logical part definitely, becoming logical (ccasionally cynical). Then there are things like "watch what you say, they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, fanatical criminal." As a bit of a political person, and an unconventional one, I can see how this could easily apply to anyone outside conventions. This seems somewhat satirical to me, it's called the logical song, yet everyone doesn't seem to be happy with his questioning, even as he matures. They'd rather him be a vegetable as it seems, that or ordinary. What you get for being logical I guess. | |
| Nine Inch Nails – Head Like a Hole Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This is what's on my playlist right now, so I thought I'd comment. It seems pretty straightforward, look what greed has made people into? Now on the other hand, it doesn't seem to go with the theme of the album. The rest of the album seems to be about the end of a relationship or something...this isn't. |
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| Cake – Pretty Pink Ribbon Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Yes, I am going to go with the recent answers. This song is about a female. She'd be in as bad of a situation as this guy would, but she's female, apparently an attractive one as well. Pretty pink ribbon isn't a symbol for cancer, more likely rather a symbol for feminimity. "Pretty" and "pink" both seem to apply to that, don't they? How about "sticky little kitten"? I think that's rather blatantly euphemistic, besides pointing out obvious synonyms for "kitten". I also agree with some of Julie's comments. | |
| Modest Mouse – Dark Center of the Universe Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Ok, when I first heard this song, it reminded me of something that has happened to me, and I don't know if it's what it was meant to be about, but to me this is what it is, and what it will always be: I was in a situation once where this guitarist whom I used to play bass with had a girlfriend...you hear all the time that the guitarists get the girls, but because of this I've come to believe what they *don't* say; the bassists take 'em away. This guys girlfriend was attracted to me, he didn't treat her well, and he was an ass. Well, long story short, I started seeing her, (without him present) and she broke up with him soon after. When he found out about that little affair he eventually was, well- not happy about it. True he was an ass, be that as it may, I felt bad about it. I was the asshole in that situation. That's what I think about. "It took a lot of work to be the ass that I am, and I'm pretty damn sure that anyone can, equally easily fuck ya over". That was true, it took a lot of decision to do what I did, and the relationship was bound to end anyhow. This type of situation, when you do something that would happen anyhow, could also explain "dry or wet ice both melt and you're equally cheated". Then what's the "dark center of the universe"? Well, how I saw that, as it applies to this, is that I'm not so terrible as he probably now thinks of me, I apologised endlessly, and said I'd understand if he didn't want to talk to either of us. "I might disintegrate into the thinair if you'd like". |
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