| The Clash – Safe European Home Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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This is a great song — besides the fact that I can't hear the first ten seconds and not wish for a mosh pit, I love it because it's sarcastic and cynical and enraging and inspiring . Yes, it's *definitely* about racism and boorish closed-minded tourism — an "insular" mindset, if you want to call it that, like @[philtheanarchist:18179] did. I think he and @[boozm:18180] are the only ones who got it right, and the comments saying it's about how [they had a bad time because everyone wanted to take their money] not only miss the point, but reflect a blind-by-choice attitude at best, or flat-out racism at worst. I was reminded of this song when I was thinking about donald trump's fucking Muslim ban — another move to enforce his racist rhetoric, calculated to capitalize on the fury he's been selling to the half of a country who was already scared, and now he's got them whipped into a frenzy of finger-pointing and bullshit that pretty much translates to "keep 'em down where they belong!" And anyone who says he's just "trying to keep us safe" is just covering their ears and stabbing their own fingers into their eyes and refusing to see that this is the road to fascism. And the only way to fight the man who would be king is to keep your eyes open so you can SEE injustice and DO something against it — not just walk by and say it's ok, or snap your fingers and say it's "a good song" about a bad trip. The whole point of The Clash was political — they wrote songs about what made them angry — they called out injustice where they saw injustice — and to say that this song is about how "Joe an Mick dint have no fun in Jamaica" is just demonstrating ignorance as to what the whole movement was about and it misses the whole point of a powerful song from a band that inspired musicians and fans on every continent, changed rock & roll, blew up protest songs completely, and whose sounds and ideas formed a legacy that continues to influence generations of rockers in their time and to this day. |
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| The Clash – Safe European Home Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[boozm:18178] | |
| The Clash – Safe European Home Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[willc93:18177] Get yr ass kicked startin bar-room brawls much? Yah, I thought so — you're a tough fucker on the kb but in real life you no doubt fall down when someone looks at you sideways. Relax, Super Reading Force Kid, asianriot simply mistook "for" and thought it said "from". | |
| Fran Healy – Sing Me To Sleep Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This song makes makes my heart crack open and everything I tried to save up there my whole life spills out and soaks into the ground like tears and gasoline & All I have left: one book of matches/all I have left: no more matches now. | |
| The New Pornographers – The Laws Have Changed Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Perpetual_Peace, everything you say is right on. There's all kinds of metaphor to be read into the lyrics, but everything you've said is what NP intended with this song. Zuckertalert, all those names and phrases are there, but they're metaphors for Bush's U.S. policies, not simply literal discussions of the bible. NP are definitely literary lyricists and they've got their references down. This song is a straight-up clear indictment and Neko Case sings her lines with such a heartbreaking, yearning, wistful keening that it makes the political emotional -- it almost has that "saudade" of Portuguese fado in a way, as if Bush wiped out everything that came before, leaving us aching with longing for a time so far past that we can't even remember what it was like to feel pride in America... GENIUSES! | |
| Feist – 1234 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Hmm...I don't know if I buy all this regret. To me it feels nostalgic, and maybe it's just my own personal context, but I listen to it and it makes me feel sorry for anyone who *doesn't* put the horse before the cart. Money can't buy it back, but at least it was there, right? What if hearts *did* stay the same? Woudn't that be pathetic? Change = growth. Each new love leaves the heart transformed yet again. Your heart gets broken, you live through the pain, and then you rise again, like a phoenix -- older and wiser -- to do it all again. Thanks for the memories, and etc. | |
| Brand New – Welcome to Bangkok Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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How obvious can it be? Well, if you know anythiing about rock music symbolism, it is, anyway. The first discernable thing you hear is the "space cadet" line, which obviously refers to Jesse's childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. Specifically, it alludes to his recurring nightmare (chronicled in "NewTunes" print journal, vol. 46) that he is an astronaut trapped in his ship as he hurtles towards a black hole directly ahead while Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" plays on the rocket's sound system. When you combine this image with the chord progression that accompanies it, it becomes clear that the entire song is about his fear that newfound fame will lead to an unwanted pregnancy by one of the many "groupies" (or "band-aids", as Brand New apparently calls them) now surrounding the band, and he is urging himself to "pull out" before the consequences of his potentially foolhardy actions become inescapable. As scienceandhonor has pointed out, the song's title is a not-so-subtle allusion to the sinful union that tempts him when he takes a step towards eternal damnation. Halfway through the song, the repetition of the solitary B# which is almost camouflaged within the song's more vocal background screams is a clue provided to the listener in an effort to make the band's rededication to Jesus more clear to those who have not been paying enough attention to the rest of the lyrics on this new album. The "B#" refers to the "Babe" in the manger, to the "Baaa" of the lord's sheep, and to the "Boy Believers" who are now closer to God than the Devil in the struggle for ultimate victory over the world's (and the band's) [formerly] lost souls. (Also, "B#" is to be taken literally, as "Be Sharp"--a directive to us all to pay attention to the world around us and know that Satan is Everywhere, even in our breakfast cereal, if we would only know how to look for him. Hello, Alphabits... B is for Beelzebub...) If Jesse's strangled screams behind the instrumentals are not a clear signal that he is using every fiber of his being to turn to Christ, then there's really no more he can do in this song to convince us. This is especially pointed, considering that there's hardly a song on this album that doesn't have some reference to the Bible, the "father", or some other form of God, either veiled, or billboard-style, like it is in "Jesus Christ". The reference to "Deja Entendu" is also very straightforward: Jesse has "Already Heard" the pleas of Jesus and is trying to make up for lost time as he prays for the understanding of his female fans, explaining to them that he will not be able to "go the distance" with them if he is to remain true to his beliefs and remain pure for the woman who will join him on his lifelong journey to salvation. Have I missed anything? Oh, props to May Angels, who is right on, and to Tuwy, who is half-right--he's missed the screaming somehow, but he knows a man on a mission when he hears one, and has called that one just as it is. |
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| Neko Case – Pretty Girls Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I'd agree with Peaches, and add about the TV verse -- I don't know if this is NC's intention, but I think that if there's a cultural culprit, it's the media (TV), and in particular the advertising that is constantly telling young girls they're not enough as they are, that their greatest commodity is their looks, and that being found attractive on the outside is the most important thing. The "blaring and angry" TV reminds them that they're not good enough, "as if [they] don't know" what's missing -- the lesson has been pounded in until it's second nature. And the logical conclusion must be that if you're not a superstar like girl X in the commercial, then it's your own fault and you should feel guilty. Guilt, of course, is the point, because if it's your fault, then you can do something about it, like buy those beauty products and those clothes! But the brains behind those TV jingles and enticing images never show themselves -- instead they hide behind the screen, immune to their own hypnotic spells, refusing to take responsibility for the influence they hold over young minds and emotions. "Those without sin" can then sit above it all, living vicariously, and then judge harshly while their victims suffer the consequences. Anyway, diatribe over, and now I have to work out just who and where is this person that says, "Come chain yourself from my ankles"? Ankles? A girl who died on the abortion table? Or is my imagination just a little too worked up at the moment? |
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| Neko Case – Hold On, Hold On Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Hmm...I think I'll throw caution to the winds and dive into a line-by-line immersion scenario: I think the lines about "in the end I was the mean girl...in-between girl" are about who she can't help being when she's around her "own blood" -- they see her a certain way and so it becomes dangerous for her to stay because they won't let her change and become someone she wants to be, someone she can like -- she can never get past halfway, that "in-between". In the end then, what's are the two sides of "between"? The devil and the deep blue sea, if you want to infer that. Screwed, as the last person said. So she chooses the devil, meaning strangers, superficial and unknowable, because what's unfamiliar to her looks far safer than what she knows, and knows will hurt her. Saddest is that the devil/strangers are preferable to the loneliness of the deep blue sea (which is what we are taught from the blood that we know), even though she knows better. So when she leaves the party alone, she's grateful (to "god", not the devil now, interestingly enough) for having done something less self-destructive this time; BUT the cynicism is still there in the valium from a bride who's wedding day is obviously not the joyous occasion it's cracked up to be if she's handing out the drugs herself. Valium is the drug that blots out sadness, that insulates from pain, keeps you numb. And that's the "happy ending" she was waiting for, right there, the one she's supposed to "hold on" for -- the bride has just thrown a shadow across that light at the end of the tunnel, and what's left, what's real, is only the devil now. That's as funny as "real love", right? And straggling away from the wedding alone, in the middle of the night, the devil seems as real as true love, which is ... nada. nada. nada. The way I'm interpreting it, this song carves into me a desperate longing for something real and true and authentic, but makes it awfully hard to resist the diving board into a whiskey bottle while I'm feeling "her" pain... Man, she has a way with words. |
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