| Neil Young – Motorcycle Mama Lyrics | 2 months ago |
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It sounds like an admonition to a hard drug user of a "big spike", i.e. needle that he knew but would prefer not to see anymore. The verse about mail is him hoping she'll get the message that that was then and she should move on and give it up. |
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| Lucinda Williams – He Never Got Enough Love Lyrics | 4 months ago |
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This is one of the saddest songs I know. If you meet a boy like this, be kind to him. Her whole 1992 album Sweet Old World is an emotional masterpiece IMO. I have a YouTube playlist titled Tearjerkers and Classic Schmaltz. It currently has 75 items. This, and the album's title track are both on it, this is at No. Four. |
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| Split Enz – Six Months In A Leaky Boat Lyrics | 9 months ago |
| I wouldn't be surprised if this was influenced by Procol Harum's A Salty Dog. | |
| The Donays – Devil In His Heart Lyrics | 10 months ago |
| This is a male fantasy of female blind devotion. It was written by a man. | |
| The Wailin' Jennys – Arlington Lyrics | 11 months ago |
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The song title evokes the cemetery of nearly 400,000 military graves in Texas. The lyrics have a circumspect opening with perhaps the superficial thoughts of a visitor seeing reality and the birds there. The visitor then goes deeper, the sun is introduced, personified as lost in the night, anxious to return at dawn like the birds in spring. Finally, the personified wind is asked if it has no home yet still is the wind, can souls do the same? "If there's no home is there no death" The song is well written in that musically it has a longing feeling to it, but never resolves, rather ends with the punch of the last two lines, where the visitor is left hoping the deaths are somehow not forever. |
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| Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Take a Pebble Lyrics | 11 months ago |
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At the time I heard the lyrics as describing the effects of LSD. The pebble is a metaphor for it, the source of the ripples disturbing the waters of life. "The daybreak is your midnight; the colours have all died." I heard as a reference to the experience of having stayed up all night, when after typically 12 hours or so "the colours have all died" after having "disturbed the waters", as LSD is wont to do. His is not a positive view of the experience, what with the "wornout overcoat" and "rags of your hopes" I got the impression it was a cautionary tale, even while experiencing the song without negativity. |
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| The Beatles – In My Life Lyrics | 11 months ago |
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@[dr4g0sm4ft31:47308] Came looking for this. I just commented elsewhere: - I think Lennon was trying to say how much he loved a woman by comparing her to how valuable all his childhood memories were. He uses his developing songwriting skills to evoke the love we all can feel for our childhood experiences of people and places, but then tells her "In my life, I love you more". |
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| k.d. lang – Miss Chatelaine Lyrics | 11 months ago |
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@[wise111829:47214] The weird thing is, as a straight older male, the video also made me see it as a drag act, given her usual image. Came here having just seen what I initially thought was a very strange video. I have this CD, but got it late, tracking back from All You Can Eat. I never saw the video at the time. It is a very romantic song of fresh love. I admire her sensual romanticism which anyone can relate to. |
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| k.d. lang and the Reclines – Big Boned Gal Lyrics | 11 months ago |
| I think it is a touch autobiographical. | |
| Blind Faith – Sea of Joy Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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At the time I thought "Waiting in a boat to set sail" was about the time between taking LSD and when its effects began. Probably just me. I was well past xtianity and exploring Eastern spirituality then (so original :-) but even though I moved on to atheism and now naturalism, I still value this album as the nearest I get to spirituality. |
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| The Incredible String Band – Air Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| Transcends religion. The wonder of how we are alive and breathing. | |
| David Bowie – Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[ocrow:46018] This is pretty much what I understood of the song back in about 1974 when I explored back from Ziggy Stardust which I had just heard. | |
| Quicksilver Messenger Service – Just for Love Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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The title says it all!. "Just for Love" was my and my soon-to-be wife's "Our Song". Now divorced since '98, hah! I think it expresses beautifully the "right here, right now" feelings of falling in love, the feeling that this is a special, significant part of your life. |
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| Ann Lee – Two Times Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| Anyone who can't hear this is about orgasms is either not human or so far repressed they may as well not be. | |
| Ann Lee – Two Times Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| Anyone who can't hear this is about orgasms is either not human or so far repressed they may as well not be. | |
| Cream – White Room Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| It has just occurred to me after fifty years that the lyrics are a very impressionistic evocation of the Underground rail system, and travel to, from and after an encounter at an event or party. | |
| Danielle Dax – Big Hollow Man Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| A criticism of organised religion. | |
| Gillian Welch – The Way It Goes Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| The lyrics remind me of what happens to your peer group.The "interesting" ones are few and mentioned, the majority "everybody" are not mentioned and just get on with reproduction and "baby clothes". | |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Knife Edge Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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It could be about the perils of fame and the music business. Theatre kings on silver wings Fly beyond reason... Will you still know who you are When you come to who you are... Loaded down with your talents Can you still keep your balance Can you live on a knife-edge |
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| Patti Smith – Birdland Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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I thank the more knowledgeable earlier commenters, and I get what they have interpreted. However, for me, a Sci-Fi fan since the early Sixties, I heard this as a ground-breaking song for having a go at making a Sci-Fi themed expression of what it might feel like if you really did find out you were not human, while also making it a metaphor for alienation. (Pun intended :-) The song makes me cry with its expression of desperate longing to belong, to follow the father, to be "taken up". I am an atheist but I know that is a christian expression, and might resonate with many listeners as well. |
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| The Beatles – She Loves You Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[MamboMan:38182] Timelines do not support this interpretation. | |
| The Beatles – She Loves You Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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This is an incredibly generous song. It is a man speaking to another man, telling him the woman has confessed her love, and forgiveness, and encouraging him to return her sentiments. Not stealing her by exploiting the rift. Not laughing at her for her vulnerable confession. Not berating him for hurting her feelings. Just kind-heartedly trying to heal the rift. |
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| Bob Dylan – Copper Kettle Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| Copperhead Road later treated the same subject differently. | |
| David Bowie – Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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I think the crux of the song is at the point where he sings "Stop, Freecloud They won't think to cut me down" There is so much going on here. "They" are people who are in the process of executing the boy, presumably BAD. The Mountain is "helping" the boy. Presumably GOOD. The boy knows this, but sees the "help" may result in the destruction of the people who are hanging him. Presumably GOOD/BAD. But they are also the very people who have the ability to save him. Presumably BAD. The boy wants to stop the mountain to save the villagers, but for his own selfish reason. Presumably GOOD/BAD. I think this explains why the boy "stumbled to cry among the clouds", not exclaiming his rescue in triumph, but tortured by the way his rescue was so tragic for the villagers. I have always really liked the whole album since I came to it late, around 1975, but it is only tonight that I realised the interpretation above, and this site is the first thing I thought of. |
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| Sheryl Crow – Strong Enough Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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As a man, when this came out I went with its soft sound and thought it a strong woman's wistful wish for a man her equal, sort of romantic without being all girly submisive. Having recently heard it, I thought "Hold up, you got it wrong." This is my go-to site for occasions like this. I was left in tears reading so many women's words about how much they have to hide their fears, and act badly due to that repression, yet want a man to understand what they cannot/will not express, and to have the strength to remain supportive and not react badly or reject them. I find the "lie to me" part hard to understand, maybe a man can't understsnd that bit. |
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| Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| The water is deep with this one. | |
| Traffic – John Barleycorn Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| It interests me that nobody has mentioned the significance of the "three men". Why three? | |
| The B-52's – Hero Worship Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| I always interpreted this song as very sarcastic, but they do it so straight it is scary to believe a woman would be this devoted. | |
| Sara Bareilles – She Used to Be Mine Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| BTW "external forces and personal choices" that is a lyric right there! | |
| Sara Bareilles – She Used to Be Mine Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[noah_sark:29000] As per the commenter previous I initially thought this was a song to another woman, but just rewatched a vid of it and thought I should check the lyrics because I caught a hint of what you have described and I now see. | |
| Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Seems to me a pretty prescient view of what became the current promotion of nothings as worth following. | |
| Culture Club – Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| It is interesting that this song, written by a young man who was gay. took drugs, broke the law, and generally was on the face of it a social misfit should so resonate with so-called "normal" people as to be a worldwide hit. So much for the idea that most people are actually "normal". | |
| k.d. lang – You're OK Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| As a fairly hetero guy, may I say that this song, and the whole "All You Can Eat" album is a masterpiece of sexual expression that transcends gender or sexual identity, and just speaks of pure human emotion. The best soundtrack to engagement in a sexual relationship I have ever heard. | |
| k.d. lang – If I Were You Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| I hear this as a song of total obsession. The vid is a depiction of her attempts to brush herself up from her self-percieved roachy associations to something approaching the wonderful being whose wonderfulness she might achieve "if I were you". | |
| Jethro Tull – We Used To Know Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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On just rereading the lyrics, I thought it might be about the band's career arc and the music industry, with the general theme of being grateful for success, but not expecting it to last, how successful they had been so far, and how hard it was to start with. It used to make me think of Vikings, reminiscing of old raids, I think because of the penultimate verse. |
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| Little Big Town – Girl Crush Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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When I first heard this via the commercial video I was impressed by the quality of the song, and it never occurred to me it was anything but a song about a woman wanting to be like another woman who has some man's attention in the hope of gaining his attention for herself. Then I found there were some who thought it was a lesbian song and I thought they obviously hadn't listened to the lyrics. Then I came here and checked the full text. Strangely, even though it seems obvious, and even though the artists say "This woman is looking at the woman her man left her for.." there is nothing in the lyrics to exclude the idea that it could be about three women. I am not saying it is, and I don't think it is, but the interpretation cannot be excluded. Yep, it could even be sung by a gay man in love with a straight guy he can't have. The conclusion is that it is a genius song because it can be related to in many ways. |
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| Chris Whitley – Poison Girl Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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"Well I'm sitting here burning my money" Is a great line, I have sat in bars "killing time" before today waiting for something or someone, and this describes it perfectly, buying drinks not because you want them, just to be allowed to sit there. |
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| Regina Spektor – Fidelity Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| I think people have got the general idea of the song. I just wanted to add that the second line's "always one foot on the ground" could be a reference to the old Hays code movie guideline to bed scenes, where couples should only be shown with at least one foot on the floor. | |
| Neil Young – Peace of Mind Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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"You love her so and still you know That you will never want to let her go Unless you leave her first Then you come out on top" Makes me laugh, such a cynical twist to lovey-dovey lines, yet has a real bite to it. |
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| Neil Young – Peace of Mind Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I played the old vinyl the other day and thought the same thing. Neil would have been 33 when this came out. I was 27. I remember thinking how mature and adult this album sounded, a long way from say, Blondie's Parallel Lines of the same year. |
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| Gillian Welch – One Monkey Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| My friend says "Sounds to me like 1933" | |
| Gillian Welch – One Monkey Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| This is politics, you can't fight city hall, she is being sarcastic about the power of the established machine, so get on board, or be branded a rebel, like Homs. Are you that monkey? | |
| Amy Winehouse – Back To Black Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Pretty obvious what Back to Black means. She wrote such wonderfully Frank lyrics. I love her wonderful musical legacy, not ashamed to say that I'm over 60, yet she is the best I've heard for a long time, she is original, yet echoes music from before I was born. Just a thought: have you ever considered where Amy got her Look? http://capejeer.com/panel/modestyblaise.gif |
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| Gillian Welch – Everything Is Free Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| @ bluemoonday, thanks for your full and thoughtful post. | |
| Gillian Welch – Everything Is Free Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I have been influenced by this song to think of the "freeware" culture of figuring something out, and giving it away, no quest for glory, just doing it because it can be done. I don't think it is the intent of the song now I have read all the lyrics, but that is what I heard on first impression. She complains, but it is what musicians have also always done, figure it out, give it out, just 'cause they want to. | |
| Amy Winehouse – I Heard Love Is Blind Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Funniest song I've heard in years, she makes it sound so innocent in the song delivery, yet knowing and sarcastic at the same time in the lyrics. Self-justification wrapped up in feigned unconcern. As others have said, many a guy has said similar things, she is making a point that women can be the same, and still plead blue-eyed innocence about the whole thing. | |
| Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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And now my fellow fox lies bleeding red blood into the fleeting snow, ah the pain of life & death! p.s. Foxes are lone animals, I think he is thinking of wolves :- ) |
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| The Kinks – I'm Not Like Everybody Else Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I had this on vinyl 45 when I married; if only she had listened! Now divorced like everybody else, but still feel the same way, only Greener | |
| Lisa Ekdahl – My heart belongs to daddy Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| A man wrote this? | |
| Regina Spektor – Samson Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's a farewell song, "I have to go". The haircutting & loss of power is a metaphore for her realisation that the relationship ha no strength, she uses "We" about the columns. BTW, as a poetic statement of scientific truth, the line "They're just old light" is the best description of stars I have ever seen. |
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