submissions
| Jens Lekman – The Opposite of Hallelujah Lyrics
| 13 years ago
|
|
This song always makes me think of my sister. She's a lot younger than me and it's hard to relate to her because of it - things are a lot easier when you're her age, I guess. So she doesn't understand why I'm depressed but she understands that I am depressed and wants explanations that I can't give, like Jens in the song. On the one hand, I want her to understand, but on the other, I don't want her to grow up and learn about unstoppable sorrow the hard way. |
submissions
| Vampire Weekend – Campus Lyrics
| 14 years ago
|
|
Yeah, honestly, the keffiyah line reminds me of my former roommmate who was always trying to act like she was really into the Middle East/India/wherever she thought was cool that day. |
submissions
| Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof Lyrics
| 14 years ago
|
|
There's a very pretty, somewhat notable building near Columbia (I can see it from my dorm) with a Mansard roof of a sort. It's called the Paterno and it's the big curved one on 116th & Claremont & Riverside. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Autoclave Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
When I saw them in concert before Heretic Pride came out, they played this and John prefaced it by explaining pretty much what's on the press-kit cartoon: that he had read about some types of life that thrive in an autoclave. That context always gave this song a more hopeful message for me than I think is in the lyrics by themselves - the speaker's heart's an autoclave, but, while the lyrics don't make this clear, there are some things (bacteria, emotions) that would call his heart their home.
Anyway, I love this song. I really identify with it. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – The Anglo-Saxons Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
...who transcribed these, lol?
It should be Caesar and, of course, Norman Invasion. Also I think it's "preserving their poetry / by an oral tradition / yeah, an oral tradition was all you'd get / until St. Augustine / brought them the alphabet". |
submissions
| Belle & Sebastian – I'm a Cuckoo (Japanese) Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
Wow, his accent is horrible. He's saying things I would probably understand and I can't even tell!
But this makes me so happy. I wish someone would do a Japanese cover of every song I like. hahaha, panku na kakkou de ! This is so cute! |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Love Love Love Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
The song and Darnielle's quote above reminds me of what Nietzsche says in Beyond Good and Evil: "That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." I think that's the message of the song - love is a force separate from morality that causes people to do things that can be good (as the "legacy of the romantic poets" says love always is) or bad (as most of the examples in the song are, just like, as John says, his stepfather mistreated them but still loved them).
The 1 Corinthians verse - "Now we see things as in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face" - comes towards the end of the very famous chapter on love, the one that's read at wedding ceremonies, with the list - "Love is patient, love is kind..." The chapter describes the qualities of love and talks about how all actions are meaningless if not done with love and love will endure beyond our prophecies, our languages, our knowledge. Verse 12 is about the time after the judgment/second coming when we have "put away childish things (13:11)". The final verse of the chapter is "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love," meaning that those three continue to exist eternally. I've always thought 1 Cor. 13:12 was a powerful statement that one day we will understand why things happen; now we can only interpret the world narrowly, because we can't see the whole, but when we're with God we will be able to understand the meaning behind the tragedy in the world.
John seems to be attacking Corinthians' list of only the positive qualities of love and rejecting the idea that doing an action with love automatically transforms it into a good action, while affirming the epistler's statement that love is a constant. |
submissions
| Mercury Rev – The Dark Is Rising Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
Susan Cooper wrote a young adult fantasy series called "The Dark is Rising" - for a long time, I thought the series and this song sharing a title was just a coincidence, but looking at the lyrics, I think Mercury Rev did take inspiration from the eponymous second book in the series. Some of the images are reminiscent of the book, particularly the farm, the creek rising, the stars, the snow falling, "this song", winding streams. All of these play a major role in the book, which features the power of nature as a theme. The phrase "The Dark is Rising" is an unusual title, both for a song and for a book series, so I think there's probably a connection.
But there's no love story in the book. If Mercury Rev was thinking of a particular relationship in the books and not just using the images, I would say it's about Will, the hero, and his alienation from his large and loving family as he learns of his secret quest and destiny. But I think it's more likely that Mercury Rev used a very beautiful book to write a very beautiful song about a very beautiful love story. |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.
