| Nick Jaina – Maryanne Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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One more minor correction on the lyrics: I think it should "There isn't a cross word that I can say," meaning basically, "there's nothing I can complain about, having gotten a chance to participate in the world" (unlike Mary Anne, who, as the song tells us, died at birth). On the lyrics "I'll be the rich one" and "you'll be richer": I don't think they're about making or having money, but rather about having a different kind of wealth, namely the chance to have experiences. This time around, the singer got to participate in the richness of life. MaryAnne, who was deprived of that opportunity this time around, will get it in another life. |
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| Elliott Smith – Needle in the Hay Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Can't possibly read all the 193 comments on this one, so maybe this has been said before. Obviously, it's about drugs on one level -- and is meant to borrow imagery associated with heroine addiction (even though Elliott Smith was not doing heroine at the time). But the most obvious thing about a needle in a haystack is that you can't find it. That's what people mean when they say it's like "looking for a needle in the haystack": You shouldn't even try. So I think that's the sense in which this song is a "fuck you" song: People shouldn't even try to understand him (the singer) because they never will, and he's sick of their trying to. I think a lot of the other lyrics fit with that theme. "You say you know what he did. But you idiot kid. You don't have a clue" obviously fits. So does the line: "He's wearing your clothes Head down to toes. A reaction to you" meaning, I think, his appearance doesn't provide any clues about him because it's not about him at all, only "a reaction to you." Similarly, I think the key thing about the line "what you've come to expect," is that it's about your expectations, which are totally off-base. I also get the sense that this theme -- that whatever was haunting him inside was just beyond everyone else's comprehension and his impatience with their not understanding that -- is a pretty common one in his songs. "Coming Up Roses" is another example: things look just fine on the outside ("roses") but the inside is "a kind of trouble that nobody knows" and that nobody **can** know, or should try to know. Same with St. Ides Heaven: "Cos everyone is a fucking pro And they all got answers from trouble they've known. And they all gotta say what you should and shouldn't do. Though they don't have a clue." Ultimately, I think the song is less about drugs than about deep psychological isolation and the sense it can never be overcome. |
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| Beck – Chemtrails Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| lso haven't been able to get this song out of my head for days now. And very glad to hear others say that it's probably *not* a preachy "save the environment" lecture. I've got nothing AGAINST those lectures in the US Congress, where they belong, but that would completely ruin a beautiful song like this one. Cryptic lyrics about escapism and spirituality, on the other hand, are terrific fit for the ethereal and haunting music. | |
| Beck – Chemtrails Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Also haven't been able to get this song out of my head for days now. And very glad to hear others say that it's probably *not* a preachy "save the environment" lecture. I've got nothing about those lectures in the US Congress, where they belong, but that would completely ruin a beautiful song like this one. Cryptic lyrics about escapism and spirituality, on the other hand, are terrific fit for the ethereal and haunting music. | |
| Sonic Youth – The Diamond Sea Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Haven't read Madame Bovary. But what Kurt Burt has written above seems right to me: The story is about how someone's realm of illusion grows from a small part of life (a mirror embedded within reality) into a larger realm (an entire diamond sea) that swallows reality. I think that someone in the song is a female, the person who -- once her soul is stolen by the mirror -- becomes the "looking glass girl" in the final lyrics who can't be made to smile by a real companion (whether a husband or a friend) because she is too deep in her fantasy world to be reached by a real person. I think this lines up with the lyrics -- "blood crystallized to sand. and now i hope you understand you reflect into his looking glass soul and now the mirror is your only friend." Blood crystallized to sand is about the flesh and blood reality being swallowed and transformed into illusion by the irreality of the "Diamond Sea." | |
| Super Furry Animals – Northern Lites Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I think it is about someone who actually *was* born in a manger -- or said to be born there -- and that's God. And it's about how God or the universe or nature (I doubt it matters much from the perspective of SFA) is now destroying everything on earth through global warming, fires, and lots of other Ten Plague-like calamities. Very pleasant music to go with such destructive lyrics. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – Chicago Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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On at least one level, this about the story of the New Testament -- and how Jesus saved mankind from an existence defined by sin (“I made a lot of mistakes”) and gave him a second start (“You came to take us. To recreate us.”). I think the refrain “All things go. All things go” has a double meaning and refers both to the temporary nature of the material world -- but also to how, when you are given a chance at a new beginning (of the kind described) the New Testament, you can’t take advantage of that opportunity without breaking radically with all aspects of your past. In other words, “all things [about your past life must] go.” The other line that pretty clearly recalls the New Testament is the line -- “We sold our clothes to the state. I don’t mind. I don’t mind.” In the Bible, Jesus says “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Caesar stands for the government or state (in some translations, it’s “Give to the Emperor that which is the Emperor’s). The state can have control over the material world -- including the clothes on our backs -- as long as it leaves the spiritual realm to God. I don’t think one has to believe in the story of the New Testament or agree with the theology in it to find the lyrics valuable.. Rather, I think the song is first and foremost about redemption, about breaking with the past, and about focusing on the spiritual life rather than on materialism. It’s just drawing on specific themes from The New Testament to do this (i.e., the notion that redemption comes from a redeemer and of letting the state have control over the material realm). |
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| Robyn Hitchcock – Ultra Unbelievable Love Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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My guess is that this about Jesus Christ and his rejection of the Pharisees' version of religious life. I think the phrase, "cartoon man in the real world" refers to the fact that Jesus was not of the world he was in. "Ultra unbelievable love" refers to the supernatural level of love he was able to show mankind according to the New Testament and "nail it down" is a reference to crucifixtion. Other lines in the song seem intended to refer to Jesus' rejection of the Pharisees' formalism: e.g., the fact that "vibat[ing] internally" is his "form of prayer" -- i.e., that his relationship with God is internal and not simply based on external routines -- and that "there are no jokes in the [Pharisees'] Bible" referring, I think, to the fact that their vision of God was far darker than that he was advocating. This doesn't mean that the lyrics necessarily grow out of a deep faith in the New Testament (or any other set of religious tenets). But I do think that they're using the New Testament story to draw an interesting contrast between different ways of thinking about, and relating to God and to other people. |
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| Robyn Hitchcock – Ultra Unbelievable Love Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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My guess is that this about Jesus Christ and his rejection of the Pharisees' version of religious life. I think the phrase, "cartoon man in the real world" refers to the fact that Jesus was not of the world he was in. "Ultra unbelievable love" refers to the supernatural level of love he was able to show mankind according to the New Testament and "nail it down" is a reference to crucifixtion. Other lines in the song seem intended to refer to Jesus' rejection of the Pharisees' formalism: e.g., the fact that "vibat[ing] internally" is his "form of prayer" -- i.e., that his relationship with God is internal and not simply based on external routines -- and that "there are no jokes in the [Pharisees'] Bible" referring, I think, to the fact that their vision of God was far darker than that he was advocating. This doesn't mean that the lyrics necessarily grow out of a deep faith in the New Testament (or any other set of religious tenets). But I do think that they're using the New Testament story to draw an interesting contrast between different ways of thinking about, and relating to God and to other people. |
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| Elliott Smith – Happiness/The Gondola Man Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think the first line -- "activity's killing the actor" -- together with the "cop turning traffic away" language -- is using a murder as a metaphor for some kind of irreparable damage to someone's personality that occurs as a result of that person's encounter with the world. In other words, what happened in that person's life ("the activity") killed something inside of that person ("the actor"). While I'm not sure Elliott Smith is singing about himself, I wouldn't be surprised if this line was inspired by traumas he is said to have experienced in his own childhood -- and a sense they resulted in something wrong with him that could never be fixed, at least not until his death or some other radical separation from who he is. The next set of lines similarly emphasizes that the deep-seated problem he's talking about is something that no one else can fix: "There was nothing she could do until after. When his body been buried below." I think that means that whatever it is that's been killed inside of him is already dead -- and *more* than dead, buried -- and so those people who might *hope* revive him and restore his ability to live a happy life are fooling themselves. And, as with other themes in his songs, this theme --the theme of something deeply wrong in a person's life that can never be fixed -- comes up repeatedly in his lyrics: e.g., in Division Day ("naked except for a perpetual debt that couldn't be stripped away -- an unrightable wrong"); in Pitseleh ("i'm so angry i don't think it'll ever pass"); I Didn't Understand ("my feelings never change a bit i always feel like shit i don't know why i guess that i just do"). And as in some of these songs, I think "Happiness" is also about how, when a person is damaged inside, that damage can cause pain (or worse) to other people which is why it only makes it worse for that person to "involv[e] somebody else" in his life. |
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| Elliott Smith – Angeles Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I agree with Wiglac and greener99: I think this song is a modern (and beautiful) retelling of the old Satan/Mephisopheles tale, where people can't resist selling their soul to the devil for some promise of near-term happiness -- and always come out the loser. In real life, the devil comes in innumerable forms -- drugs, money, the promise of stardom or other career success, and lots of other things that fail in the end to deliver any real happiness. Because the devil appears to be the deliverer of happiness, his immediate appearance is that of an angel (with this reference doubling as one to L.A., the best embodiment of life centered on false happiness instant gratification). The consequence of this misperception is eternity with him/its "poison arms around you." Incidentally, I also think Elliott Smith weaved the same theme into other songs. For example, "Junk Bond Trader" is another one where he seems (to me) to be saying that the things which we in modern consumer society think will give us happiness are ultimately empty. |
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| Elliott Smith – Strung Out Again Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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"was a parliament of owls flying over a city of canals floating on the body floating in the dams [in the Dalles]" I love the dream-like imagery in that line, but I think that, like the rest of the song, it's meant to be symbolic. The "city of canals" = the singer. In fact, in one of the live performances, the line is "my city of canals." Possibly it refers to his network of blood vessels. He also may be using a canal city as a metaphor for his own life because one of the distinguishing features of canal cities (like Venice and Amsterdam) is that they tend to flood with devastating results. It may be drugs that are coursing through and "overrunning" his blood vessels and/or psyche or it may be other things that make life unbearable and uncontrollable. I'd also guess he's intentionally using the same metaphor in the last verse of the song, where the experience of his fantasy island is cruelly interrupted by the tide coming in. The person represented by the city of canals is himself floating in the Dalles, probably drowned (in an earlier versions of the song, it was "floating face down"). This just emphasizes the fact this person has lost his battle for a tolerable existence. I think the reason this scene is being watched by a "parliament of owls" is because outsiders/on-lookers have a perspective and wisdom (owls often symbolize wisdom) that the person being watched doesn't (and could never) have -- which is why certain changes remain invisible to him and why he does not (and can never) know where he is going. None of that his inconsistent with his being aware of and resigned to that situation, i.e. with knowing his place and reconciling himself to the limits on understanding and controlling his life. |
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| Elliott Smith – Strung Out Again Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I used to think that first verse was largely social criticism in the vein of "A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to Be Free." Now I think it's more marvelling at his own dysfunctional condition. The singer is himself the "evil emperor" (which is why he sees the "emperor" in his own clothes) and he is himself the "rich fuck" who receives charity even though he is already rich. That last comparison -- someone who receives help even though he's already received a lot in life -- fits well with the line in "A Passing Feeling": "Still I send for relief . . . even though I'm beyond belief in the help I need just to exist at all." It also fits well with other lines in this song about facing oneself in the mirror and acknowledging that the hated image is you & there's nothing you can do about it. |
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| Super Furry Animals – If You Don't Want Me To Destroy You Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I think it's recommendation to the human race to reconcile itself to a natural world. You can read the first line as nature speaking and telling the human race what do to if they don't want "me" (nature) to destroy them & recommending that they begin by understanding nature ("take a leaf out of my book"). In the rest of the lyrics, the singer acknowledges this message -- acknowledges being held down by gravity. I think "your infinity" means the infinity of the natural world. Not sure if that's exactly what they had in mind, but it fits. It also fits with band's tendency to frequently write lyrics about the possibility of destructive encounters with nature and the future (e.g, in Northern Lights & Carry the Can). | |
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