| Morrissey – The Last Of The Famous International Playboys Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I wonder if the title of this is partially a reference to J. M Synge' 'The Playboy of the Western World', a controversial Irish play from the early 1900s. The play focusses on a small community in Ireland, into which arrives a mysterious man on the run, Christy. At first it appears he has killed his father, which lends him a seeming aura of mystery and dangerous attraction; instead of being repelled, the villagers are fascinated and one of the women falls in love with him. The play ends with the father (who was in reality injured rather than killed) also arriving, and the villagers turning upon Christy for having lied to them; Christy then escapes with his father, leaving his lover to lament in the play's final line "Oh my grief, I've lost him surely. I've lost the only Playboy of the Western World." It's an interesting play, and ties in themes of love, murder, betrayal, gang mentality and the glamourisation of crime, as well as having the similarities in the title. |
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| The National – Green Gloves Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"Evil is green gloves inside out next to a double martini on a cocktail table ... Evil is screwing strangers after cocktail parties" That's a few lines from a Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem called 'Big Fat Hair Vision of Evil'; I wonder if this song is referencing that. It seems to fit. |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Your Funeral, My Trial Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I love how this song supports two meanings. Obviously there's the obvious one - he's killed his lover, and the "trial" is a legal one. There's also the suggestion that he just had mixed feelings towards her, leaving the potential for it to be a "trial" in the sense of an emotional one: an experience that's just very difficult for him. Amazing. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Someday You Will Be Loved Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I think this song is about a one-night stand. The girl was expecting more and he regrets having hurt her. | |
| Ash – Shining Light Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| From what I remember, it was written about Tim's then-girlfriend (now his fiance). He'd driven her back to Dublin and was driving home when the idea came into his head. He wrote the song as soon as he got home. | |
| The Killers – Read My Mind Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Is it just me who hears "slip into my bed now, 'till I'm bored" rather than "slippin' in my faith until I fall?" | |
| Bright Eyes – A Perfect Sonnet Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song shows a sort of progression in how he thinks lovers should be treated: The innocence of a new love, the arrogance of getting complacent in a relationship (which then leads to a breakup) and the eventual sadness and acceptance. |
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| Bright Eyes – I Believe in Symmetry Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this could be related to existentialism etc. Although I do still maintain that the "no politics, no history" is a reference to the sannyasins. |
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| Bright Eyes – The Center of the World Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think the "at the centre of the world" is referring to how when you fall in love with someone you make them mean everything to you, and I think the "standing near a well with a bucket bare and dry" could be referring to wishing wells, but she's not picking up any wishes anymore. The "turned me into sand" is probably him falling to pieces when they split up. As he "scattered easy in her hand", it was probably something that she took nowhere near as badly as he did, and the "million others there" is most likely the millions of other heartbroken people out there. Aside from that I think most of it is pretty straightforward sexual/death imagery, culminating in an overdose. I think the "frame that you put around her face" suggests that he made her out to be more than she was. I think the imagery here is so clever. |
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| Bright Eyes – Trees Get Wheeled Away Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think this song is kind of about the confusion and isolation of modern living, especially the ending. "But at the end of the end of the day the trees all get wheeled away And you'll be standing alone in a blank, blank space" "But at the end of the play the audience walks away And you'll be a shivering cold on a well lit stage. " I think these lines are just about how you can busy yourself with activities and friends, but when it comes down to it, evenutally you have to stop and realise how alone you are, and that can be a scary thing. There seem to be a lot of lines dealing with the difference between appearance and reality as well. |
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| The Automatic – Recover Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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To me, this song is the hangover to Monster's excesses. And to me it sounds like "you'll never dance again", not "she'll". And that strikes me as the kind of thing you say when you wake up feeling like death and promise yourself you'll never drink again. |
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| Taking Back Sunday – Miami Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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To be honest, I think this song's meaning is probably quite a bit shallower than it appaers at first glance. I'm sure I read an interview in which Adam said that this was his favourite song on the album, but he wasn't going to say what it was about, as that risked cheapening it for people listening to it. |
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| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Where the Wild Roses Grow (feat. Kylie Minogue) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I think the chorus on this song is really interesting, it seems like she's too naive to realise that newspapers give murder victims sensationalist headline names (ie. "the wild rose") and genuinely can't understand why they don't use her real name. | |
| Ash – Goldfinger Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I'm pretty certain I once read somewhere that this is about waiting for a drug dealer. | |
| Ash – Warmer Than Fire Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Yeah, this was originally written by Steve Ludwin as a Little Hell song, but didn't suit their singer's voice. I know that Tim and quite possibly Steve Ludwin too went on a big, crazy trip to Costa Rica one new year, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is what the song was written about. |
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| Ash – Petrol Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| It's about a lynching. | |
| Stereophonics – Lolita Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Actually, it has more than just the name in common with Nabokov's novel. There's a reference to 'beds at the gold motel', where in the book Humbert takes Lolita all across the country, and 'to bind you' - Humbert winds up using bribery to keep Lolita sleeping with him. It also says 'to find you', which Humbert also tries to do towards the end of the book, and also 'can't find you now'. Not to mention the open plea of 'won't you come home with me?', which is basically all that Humbert desires. Personally I'd say it was almost defnitely based on Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. |
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| IAMX – Heatwave Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I think that the "heatwave" is both literal and metaphorical. I just picture "she goes the street way" as somebody watching their blonde lover walk past their window on the street below through the (literal) heat haze, with the state of extreme lust also being the metaphorical heatwave. |
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| IAMX – I Like Pretending Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Personally, I think the 'death-wish' is a relationship that's just so utterly consuming that a "self" outside of it ceases to exist. | |
| Bright Eyes – I Believe in Symmetry Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Actually, I don't know if anyone's read My Life In Orange by Tim Guest, but it's a memoir of a child brought up in various communes of the followers of the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. There was a school for the children set up in one of these communes, which adhered to the guru's adamant statement that children should not be taught things like politics and history. Given that a lot of their activity was based in Oregon, I'd tended to assume that "I want to learn such simple things, no politics, no history" was a refernce to the Sannyasins. |
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