| Kevin Devine – Carnival Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| YES. So I'm not the only one who thinks that. | |
| Death Cab for Cutie – Stable Song Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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'Rows of deserted houses' made me think of army barracks, and I think 'stable mates' refer to young soldiers in training who are like young foals which have just "come of age". Similarly I think the soldiers have come of age and are going to fight in a war, explaining the 'highway bound', which suggests some sort of long journey to something bigger and more important. It also explains 'starting out' - starting out in real war. I think 'measly sum' may refer to the small amount of money soldiers get for serving in the army, and the persona feels resentful because all he gets is some fresh air, but loses his certainty as seen in 'crippling doubt'. ('Crippling' could not just be figurative but also literal, foreboding debilitating war injuries to come.) He feels pessimistic about the war he is about to fight and demands restitution, even if it is in the form of a small, perfunctory amount of money. This pessimism also shows through in his referring to himself and his fellow soldiers as 'stable mates', showing he finds the way they have been treated like animals or beasts for war condescending. 'We'll rest easy justified' is his way of comforting himself, I think. This device of speaking to himself aloud with perhaps some empty optimism comes again in the abrupt 'I won't mind, I won't mind..." at the end. I think the last stanza describes how it is after he has fought the war. He is right - the war has not gone well, since they have 'suffered a swift defeat'. Perhaps he knew they would not win because they were young, fresh soldiers, and using vulnerable young men to fight a war is not the most practical strategy, pointing maybe to the country's desperation to defend itself. This maybe adds to his resentment, since they took advantage of soldiers not fully ready to fight and protect themselves. Continuing about the last stanza, the persona talks about the post-war trauma he experiences, because the 'countless repeats' he experiences are not physical, i.e. actually fighting in some more wars, but mental - living it out again in his 'memory'. His bad memories haunt him more as he grows older. This song is about the exploitation of unprepared soldiers in war to fight a war that cannot be won. The fact that 'suffered a swift defeat' came so quickly after the young men leaving camp, with no description of the war in the middle, suggests there was never any hope of victory. This is what I think, what does everyone else think? |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Follow You Into the Dark Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| That's kind of what I thought too, and to me it was also the reason he rejected mainstream religion, and felt himself an outsider to all its beliefs, like seeing heaven and hell as a classification that didn't include him, explaining the strong imagery of the illuminated 'no's. He kind of sees it as 'the two of us against death', and I think it's interesting how the uncertainty of death is more than a usual humans one, because the religious divide estranged the two of them from other human beings as well. | |
| Switchfoot – The Blues Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I think it means that what we're doing now, settling for just what satisfies us ("is this what they call freedom... discontented fame") will be the downfall of the world. | |
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