| Gillian Welch – Hard Times Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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I tried to edit the lyrics from road to row, couldn't change it but sailinshoes is definitely right. Also I think it's "muley cow", not "mule cow". And on that topic, one minor thing that confuses me about this song is the camptown man's animal. It's referred to as a mule in the second line and again in the last verse, but also as a "muley cow", which means a hornless cow, not a mule. |
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| Jack White – Love Interruption Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I like to think I know how to read, but the meaning eludes me. The verses seem to say the complete opposite of the chorus. What is the juxtaposition supposed to mean? | |
| Buffy Sainte-Marie – The Vampire Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Just a correction -- the third stanza ends "someone came from far away / someone tall and old". | |
| Pearl Jam – Black Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| To the people who said this song is about death or abortion... that's an interesting take, but what about the last line ("I know some day you'll have a beautiful life --> can't it be mine")? Doesn't that seem to be referring to someone who is alive, and dumped eddie or something? Has anyone read any interviews or anything that clear up what eddie meant? | |
| The Tragically Hip – The Dire Wolf Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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StolenShadows- The dire wolf is not actually a mythical creature but a real one, that lived in north america during the ice age. It was similar to a modern grey wolf except bigger and more heavy-set, adapted to hunting the giant animals that existed at the time. Like the animals it hunted, the dire wolf went extinct at the end of the ice age, around 10,000 years ago. I don't know if there's any real connection between that prehistoric wolf and the song's subject matter. I do know that the modern newfoundland wolf, a subspecies of the grey wolf, was hunted to extinction in 1911. I doubt that was intended as a parallel though |
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| Gillian Welch – No One Knows My Name Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| the fourth verse supports that contention. | |
| Moxy Früvous – River Valley Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| (that was supposed to be "connects Bloor St with Danforth Ave", not "carries".) | |
| Moxy Früvous – River Valley Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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in case there are any früvous fans from outside the toronto area: In the specific sense, this song refers to the Don River/Valley, the more industrialized and environmentally degraded of the major river systems in Toronto (restoration efforts: www.toronto.ca/don). When torontonians speak of "the viaduct" they refer to the one that carries Bloor St with Danforth Ave high above the Don Valley. Dippers, Grits and Tories are the nicknames of members of the three major political parties in Ontario (and in Canada, at the time of the release) -- respectively the New Democrats, Liberals, and Progressive Conservatives. |
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| John Anderson – Seminole Wind Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I think the error musicaloddity was referring to was "the alligators in the dark", which yeah, I'm pretty sure isn't what the song says. | |
| The Chicks – Travelin' Soldier Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| haha... I karaoke'd this song at a bar two nights ago, and the karaoke machine had the lyrics written as "a man said folks would you bow your heads / for a list of the local vietnam vets" instead of "dead". are you supposed to make songs less sad for karaoke or something? geez. | |
| The Tragically Hip – At The Hundredth Meridian Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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IvoKent - if you still care - I think the final chorus goes like this: GD: at the hundredth meridian GS: hundredth meridian GD: at the hundredth meridian GS: you're gonna miss me GD: at the hundredth meridian, where the great plains begin GS: at the hundredth meridian GD: at the hundredth meridian GS: at the hundredth meridian GD: at the hundredth meridian GS: you're gonna miss me GD: at the hundredth meridian, where the great plaiiiinnnnnnnnnnnsssssss.... |
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| The Tragically Hip – The Bear Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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I dunno, I think this song is literally about a bear, I don't see any reason to take it metaphorically (of course it presents the bear as thinking like humans). All the details of the lyrics seem to me to point to the narrator being a bear: - "I was first attracted by your scent, your heart must be a carmelized onion" - bears have a sharp sence of scent obviously, and the victim's heart smelled like candy to it. - "by the time I saw your flame, it was all over for you and whats-his-name" - the bear was attracted to a campfire where two campers were sitting around a fire, at this point defenceless - "I think it was Algonquin Park" - lots of people go canoeing and camping in the backcountry in Algonquin Provincial Park, and a few people have been killed by bears there. - "it was so cold and winter-dark" etc - the bear eats the people when it's fattening up for winter hibernation, and then when the lake freezes over it walks across to an island to hibernate. In the spring, park staff hunt it down. I think in real life they'd hunt a bear down a lot quicker than that if it ate people. |
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| Gillian Welch – I Dream A Highway Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| Also, an unrelated note about the lyrics: "My sails in rags with the staggers and the jags" is borrowed from Stan Roger's 1976 east-coast canadian folk song Barrett's Privateers. The sloop on which the narrator enlists to sail as a privateer is described "she'd a list to the port and her sails in rags/and the cook in the scuppers with his staggers and jags". | |
| The Tragically Hip – Montreal Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I've heard that Gord once introduced this one as "a song about the identification process", meaning that it's about the mother of one of the victims of the 1989 Montreal Massacre, identifying her daughter's dead body at the police station. | |
| Gillian Welch – My First Lover Lyrics | 17 years ago |
| I have trouble with this one: is it a song about an emotionally abusive boyfriend, a drunken one-time hookup that cost the narrator her virginity, or is the "lover" a metaphor for alcohol? | |
| Gillian Welch – I Dream A Highway Lyrics | 17 years ago |
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Year-late response to bearhunter: I think the "John" of line 5 has a double meaning -- the verse is definitley a reference to John Henry, the legendary railroad spike driver who pit his own strength with a hammer against the newfangled steam-powered spike driving machine that was going to put him out of work. John Henry won the spike-driving race, but died of exhaustion in the process. I have heard 1940s-era Black work songs about John Henry that have him declaring, "before I let your steam driver beat me down / would die with my hammer in my hand". So the line "Lord let me die with a hammer in my hand" is basically a prayer for the strength to never give up. Also there's a verse about John Henry in Elvis Presley Blues, which is on the same album. |
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