| Steely Dan – Glamour Profession Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I love how Becker and Fagen cast the narrator in such an arrogant and self-important light. After all, the narrator is NOT Hoops McCann, or Jack, or the celluloid bikers, or Jive Miguel...instead, he's just a connection man, the guy who acts as enabler/frontman for the "important people" so that they can follow their drug muse. After all, it's not the narrator that inspires Hollywood's "fabled fools"...instead, it's what he can deliver. But in reality, the guy is just part of the background, easily replaced by anyone. Also, the first stanza's last line should be "We're all stars"...again, the narrator isn't the star, but he helps McCann make calls from his car and supplies him with coke, so he considers himself a star. |
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| Sublime – April 29, 1992 Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| As was said earlier, the title "April 29, 1992" is right, and that was supposed to be the first line. But Bradley goofed when singing the first line...however, the take was strong enough that they didn't go back and change it. | |
| Uncle Tupelo – Chickamauga Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I dunno...to me, this song sounds more like it's about the (at the time) rapidly deteriorating relationship between Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. This song was off the last studio album for UT, and it was obvious by that point that the band was headed for a breakup. | |
| Steely Dan – Pearl of the Quarter Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| One of the few songs about a hooker that features pedal steel. | |
| Neil Young – Ambulance Blues Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Horseman, I believe the "private detection" verse is a reference to Patty Hurst's kidnapping by the SLA, which happened right around the time that the album was being recorded. | |
| The Olivia Tremor Control – NYC-25 Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Last song on the album...although the LSD reference is probably not accidental, I think it's got more to do with where the remaining lead character (Olivia) is, almost 20 years after the earthquake. She's in New York City (the "Big Apple (corps)" now, in 1925, thinking back to everything that transpired before (and after) the earthquake. | |
| The Olivia Tremor Control – Can You Come Down with Us? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Post-earthquake apocalypse. City on fire. Gathering your friends and heading to the edge of town to watch the city burn. Awesome. | |
| Wilco – Venus Stopped the Train Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Do a google search - there's nothing out there at all that equates the phrase "taking christmas trees" to taking pills. And I wish I could comment on the song itself, but I'm unsure what it means. It feels like it's missing a verse, honestly. In its current form, the relationship between the narrator and the girl sounds rather dysfunctional. The defining element of their interaction seems to center around marijuana, the theft of evergreens, and politeness...which does nothing to explain the light striking terror. Or, for that matter, why she would appear on television, broadcasting her feelings. This may be another one of Tweedy's strange channelings of 9-11 before it actually happened. I dunno, though...like I said, it almost feels like he left very crucial elements of the story out. |
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| Wilco – Side With The Seeds Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I love Jeff's vocal delivery on this song...very Otis Redding-like. Probably my favorite song on the album so far. As for the meaning, it seems like a pretty straightforward musing on ambiguity and perspective. I love the lazy imagery of the city street and the playground, and the day/night motif. That last verse line really strikes me..."When the sun comes back/As we all can plainly see." |
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| Neil Young – Tell Me Why Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think you're right, brian...the song is about being able to open up and STAY opened up, despite the pitfalls of finding (and losing) love. Although I also think it has a lot to do with life in general. The chorus has so many interpretations that Neil himself refuses to play it anymore because it confuses even HIM. I've always interpreted it as meaning that it's hard to reconcile your desires when you grow up. You suddenly have the ability to make your own choices and chart your own course, yet you feel like you owe a debt to those who got you there (like, say, your parents), and you feel responsible for trying to repay that debt. |
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| Neil Young – Drive Back Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| One of the ultimate "get lost" songs of all time, written to some woman or another. | |
| Neil Young – Powderfinger Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I honestly don't think who was on the boat is that important. I always felt the song was basically a youth angst anthem...here's a kid whose entire life is in front of him, with his own dreams and ideas, yet he's killed having to defend something he might not even want to protect --- or more accurately, something that others should be protecting instead of him. The closing lines about "Just think of me as one you never figured / would fade away so young" are really powerful stuff. Then again, one of my old bosses was convinced that the song was about gun control. So it's hard to say. Incidentally, I think the people on the boat are actually Treasury officers, coming to forcibly shut down an illegal still. They've got both might and "right" on their side (the white boat, the numbers and the gun), yet this song is from the perspective of the other side. |
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| Neil Young – Song X Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Yes, another abortion song off of Mirror Ball. I count three in total...are there more than that? | |
| Neil Young – Act of Love Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| A song about the pro-life/pro-choice battle which was really at its apex in the mid-90's when the song was written. Sort of a cousin or brother to "Song X" and "I'm the Ocean", both of which cover approximately the same ground. This one looks at abortion and the "holy war" over it from a more humanistic perspective, whereas "Song X" seems to look at it politically and "I'm the Ocean" takes an abstract viewpoint. | |
| Neil Young – On the Beach Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think smallwonderrobot hit it on the head....not the hardest of songs to analyze, per se. The line: "Now I'm living out here on the beach but those seagulls are still out of reach" That just about sums it up. You've reached the pinnacle of things, yet you're still searching for satisfaction. It's a restless feeling. |
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| Neil Young – Down By The River Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| It's not about heroin. It's also not about murder. As Neil himself said, "It's about blowin' your thing with a chick." | |
| Neil Young – Computer Age Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I own every Neil Young album that's been officially released, and have about 60-70 additional songs of his that never were released on various bootleg tapes and CDs. The only reason I mention that is because of all the great songs that Neil Young has given the world, this is probably one of my top 5 favorites of his, and I feel it gets unfairly overlooked simply because it's a "Trans" song with the vocoder. There's such raw emotion in this song. It's obvious that he wrote this completely with his son in mind --- a quadriplegic, non-oral cerebral palsy victim who he couldn't communicate with normally. I see the first three verses as Neil trying to change himself in order to become close to his son --- he slows down time (Cars and trucks fly by me on the corner), exposes himself to unnatural environments (But I'm alright Standing out here in the hot sun), and even attempts to internalize the passage of time in order to approximate his experience to his son's experience. Yet by the last verse, he realizes the fruitlessness of his efforts, and is reduced to simply stating that he needs his son to know that he's alive, but that his son's particular problems makes his presence unnecessary (And you need me / Like ugly needs a mirror). And that just makes the song even more heartbreaking. |
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| Steely Dan – The Boston Rag Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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The guitarwork on this song is far better than the lyrics, I think. As for the lyrics themselves...I read an interview where Becker said that he wrote the verses about a friend of his from his youth. Fagen apparently wrote the chorus. The only other thing I can remember is that Becker made some cryptic comment to the effect of "The nice thing about The Boston Rag is that it's set in New York City." So take that for what it's worth. |
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| Ambulance LTD – Sugar Pill Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think the first stanza is: "Slip into the warmer touch with a photograph of some blonde Once you're gone I came home, but my key didn't like the door" Now, IF those are indeed the lyrics, then I think that casts the song in a slightly different light. I agree with tharper that it's about going into depression after losing someone. But I think the person he lost was the girl in the photograph, and despite having this other girl who's taken her place, he can't get over that original loss...so he's willing to let the new one go because of it. |
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| Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| It's a time travel song. My favorite time travel song ever. | |
| Steely Dan – Chain Lightning Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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There's a demo of this song floating around...on this demo, in between the verses, you hear Fagen whisper the words "Thirty years later..." That pretty much sews it up for me. The first verse is about two German youths attending a fascist rally in late-30's Germany, wanting to meet 'the great man' and shake his hand, while being "part of the brotherhood". The second verse is the same two people going back to the same site thirty years later, and casting their memories back to what they were a part of back then. |
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| Steely Dan – Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I read a note about this song somewhere that said it was written by Becker and Fagen while they were living in New York. It was a simple wish of good luck and hope for the guy who lived in the apartment below them...the "charmer under me". Get it? Eden Roc is a ritzy hotel in Miami, incidentally. |
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| Steely Dan – Dont Take Me Alive Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I read this on a website that's long-since dead, so I'm not taking credit (or blame) for it, but I agree with the interpretation... The song seems to me to be about a cyborg or robot of some sort (think 'The Terminator' here) who has gone crazy and has holed itself up in a warehouse of sorts. The line about "I hear my insides...the mechanized hum of another world" and "I'm a bookkeeper's son" (since AI machines were first designed to do mundane tasks such as accounting) seem to bear this out somewhat. The robot has apparently become self-aware ("I know all at once who I am"), to the point that it thinks of itself as a real person ("A man of my mind can do anything"). |
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| Wilco – Theologians Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I think all the religious connotations in this song make that expanation a bit TOO obvious. This song has been banging around in my head for weeks, and I'm starting to think that it's actually about the music. This may be a bit out of left field, but bear with me... I see the metaphoric "God" in this song as the totality of music...something that everyone knows about and has some sort of opinion on. Both "God" (music) and the "illiterate light" (music in general, unaffected by personal taste or selection) are with us day and night. Tweedy sings about Theologians not knowing anything about his soul. The theologians in this case could very well be music critics, self-appointed fan experts, Jay Bennett...anyone who pass judgement on what's "good" and "bad" music, based solely on their own opinions, and try to impose those opinions on others. Tweedy's heart is thinned "with little things...in so many ways"...his resolve to be himself musically is challenged and has sometimes been changed by these so-called experts, who constantly buffet him with alternating praise and criticism. The "No one's gonna take my life from me...I lay it down" section says to me that his musical 'life' is his to do with as he pleases, and he's choosing to ignore what the critics and fans say and go whatever direction he chooses...leaving nothing but "a cherry ghost" of his past exploits behind. And given the radical directional change he went through on this album, this seems almost like the mission statement. |
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| Wilco – The Late Greats Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Well, I don't know Tweedy personally, but given his relative humility in both his songwriting and his interviews, I find it hard to believe that he'd be anywhere near as snobbish about his love for "the greats" as most of these indie rock kids are. It's funny, because I always made a point to play this song on my college radio show last year, and the programming director (an "indie kid" himself) tried to tell me that I couldn't play Wilco because they were "too commercial". I told him to shove it up his ass. |
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| Wilco – No More Poetry Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I love how he reprises the "God-shaped hole/heart full of soul" line from 'Misunderstood' into this song. A shame it was never officially released. I think this song may be just a not-so-simple love song to one of those girls who is taken more with flowery words and big talk than she is with the actual person she's there with. |
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| Wilco – A Magazine Called Sunset Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| It's curious to see Tweedy's use of otherworldly imagery. In this song, he wants to "erase our phantom". In 'War on War', he admits that whoever he's talking to could "be my demon". And then he ends up as a "cherry ghost" in 'Theologians'. There are other examples that I can't remember at the moment. | |
| Wilco – Spiders (Kidsmoke) Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I'd say this sounds less like Devo and more like Stereolab, but that's just me. | |
| Wilco – Nothing Up My Sleeve Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I love this song. It's like the darker side of "I Will" by Paul McCartney...sort of like if George Harrison had written the lyrics for it. | |
| Wilco – Summer Teeth Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I dunno...I always get the sense from this song that it's about a person who's completely out of touch with reality, who lives in a world of his own construction, filled with thoughts and plans that never come to fruition. He could very well be a writer, who creates his own fantasy world while not being consciously aware that his own life is completely empty. The line about his black shirt and shoes makes me think of someone who never goes out to parties or bars, choosing instead just to stay at home. The lines about his heart "in a bowl behind the bank", the "suidide" and "traveler's guide" all seem like literary ideas to me --- the lead character keeps writing these stories year after year. The last stanza about how he "feels lucky to have you here" is countered by "sometimes he forgets that you're even there"...that to me is just a further indication that he's out of touch with reality, to the point that he enjoys your company but is so engrossed in his fantasy world(s) that he doesn't pay it the attention he should. So I guess I don't see this guy as lonely at all...and that's even sadder to me than if he really was lonely. This guy seems to be just completely lost in worlds of his own creation. |
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| The Black Crowes – She Gave Good Sunflower Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Wonderful, wonderful song. I think the drug references are quite obvious in this one, but at the same time, I think it's deeper than that...it seems to hit at the heart of people using each other as their addictions, and how that can be just as damaging as your 'standard' addiction. | |
| Ambulance LTD – New English Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Yeah, I think the birds line is: "Those birds are only fleas with feathers" As for what it means...I've been listening to this song a lot lately, and it seems to me to be a sort of subtle verbal attack on this girl who frustrates the narrator with her lack of movement or action. It could very well be another drug song, perhaps about a stoner chick who spends her time "counting pairs of cherries falling from the tree" and "pushing up the daisy chains". Hard to say. Love it, though. |
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