| Spoon – The Way We Get By Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I think they've all been identified, but: -"Shake Appeal" -"Some Weird Sin" -"Down On The Street" All Stooges songs. Maybe they should be in quotations in the lyrics? |
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| Titus Andronicus – Ecce Homo Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Okay, I think by now we've established Everything is inherently worthless And there's nothing in the Universe. With any kind of objective purpose And you can scream for a hundred years. Split the sky with a thousand curses To tell the evil that man do. Honey, you wouldn't even scratch the surface. Too many implications Not enough time to make them explicit Too many generalizations Not enough time to make them specific And I spread my vile seed From the atlantic to the pacific Now I'm begging you on my knees Please don't make me get down and sniff it Cause if I got more comfortable Surely, I'm more complicit Fat off the fruit of the tree of ignorance I was born into this now I'm dying because of it Yes it's "us against them" again Smashing the system into the dirt now We gobble brown M |
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| Titus Andronicus – In a Big City Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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RE: the first verse: Patrick Stickles grew up in Glen Rock, New Jersey, [not directly] across the Hudson River from New York City, Stickles moved from New Jersey to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where his beard and Army surplus jacket blend in much better than they did in Jersey. The official lyric video flashes a picture of Norman Mailer, a writer from Long Branch, New Jersey, who later moved to New York. Norman Mailer wrote a famous essay in 1957 called “The White Negro” that (arguably) introduced the idea of the “hipster” into popular culture He opens it by suggesting that subcultures flourish in cities because people need their sense of identity more – even more in the face of post-war atomic threats – essentially that, if a city got nuked, all its residents would be even more anonymous to someone examining the rubble years later “For the first time in civilized history, perhaps for the first time in all of history, we have been forced to live with the suppressed knowledge that the smallest facets of our personality or the most minor projection of our ideas, or indeed the absence of ideas and the absence of personality could mean equally well that we might still be doomed to die as a cipher in some vast statistical operation in which our teeth would he counted, and our hair would be saved, but our death itself would be unknown, unhonored, and unremarked..” |
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| Okkervil River – Unless It's Kicks Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| also, by the way, I walked into an elevator in my hotel during SXSW and suddenly found myself face-to-face with Will. Not wanting to gush all over him in a full elevator, I simply said "Will?" like an old friend, and he treated me like one as we shot the shit for a few minutes about SXSW and the shows he was playing. It was really cool. | |
| Okkervil River – Unless It's Kicks Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Some artists seem to pretend that they don’t care about their fans, whether to give them a certain attitude or an air of authenticity. What Will Sheff addresses here is the fact that the whole give-and-take between a “mid-level band” and their fans is not a concrete economy; it’s an unstable, uneven relationship, but, in truth, neither would exist without the other. And this often goes unrecognized. Will Sheff is an absolute nobody to the bank teller and the checkout clerk. He’s just a guy. He’s his parents’ son. He’s just another one of his landlord’s tenants, and he has to pay rent on time. What he does on stage and on a record doesn’t matter to most people in this world, but it means everything to some people, and that’s what he’ll leave behind when he leaves this earth. and I know it’s a lie but I’ll still give my love hey, my heart’s on the line for your hands to pluck off Sheff understands that art is about making something that resonates with other people, and that’s his legacy. He also understands that these people might be relatively few and scattered, but that only makes it more meaningful. He understands that the people who love his music the most also have plenty of people in their lives who won’t get it. what breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan exploding up from the stands with her heart opened up and I want to tell her, “your love isn’t lost” say, “my heart is still crossed” scream, “you’re so wonderful” what a dream in the dark! about working so hard about glowing, so stoned trying not to turn off trying not to believe in that lie all on your own And it’s a little depressing (and sort of liberating) to think of it that way - the “lie” that all of this music we love is actually important. It’s just faith that these things have some greater consequence. I love the schism that exists here - the sheer amount of commerce we have around something that isn’t tangibly important, something that doesn’t even place in our “hierarchy of human needs.” I love it because it reminds me of faith, or at least in the way that I believe in God. Can I prove empirically the existence of God? Can I make a compelling case as to why music matters so much to me? No. Neither make even a little bit of sense on paper, but I’m trying not to believe in the “lie” all on my own. |
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| Sharon Van Etten – Love More Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Sharon said that "'Epic' was written in the aftermath of a really bad relationship. This guy didn't even let me have a guitar. I don't have any bitterness toward him because he kicked my ass into leaving Tennessee. But the record isn't about him; it's about me getting over that situation." I've met Sharon and she and I have a couple of mutual friends, and I've heard (apocryphally, of course) that this shitty dude that she was in a relationship with was emotionally abusive, and ended up hitting her, which is exactly when she left for Brooklyn, where her songwriting really took off. It does seem like an unusual way to deal with emotional abuse, because it's lacking in bitterness. It's much less "what the fuck was I thinking being with you?!" and much more "I know that I loved you in at least one way" (and hey, everybody, didn't you love the shitty ones in at least one, small way?) "and I'm going to make the time I spent with you not be wasted entirely. I can learn something about love from this, and love more, love better in the future." |
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| The National – Ada Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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"let them all have your neck" MUST be important. on the insert of the album it says in plain white letters "STAY DOWN CHAMPION STAY DOWN" and then "LET THEM ALL HAVE YOUR NECK". I assumed that "Champion" referred to the titular "Boxer"... also in the video for "Mistaken for Strangers" the band is playing with a CD changer with CD-Rs in it with "LET THEM ALL HAVE YOUR NECK" on the disks. I'm really wondering about the significance of this. |
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| Beirut – Nantes Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whxagqnThos&feature=related the scene from the film "La Bete Humaine" |
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| David Bowie – Moonage Daydream Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Of Montreal does a pretty decent cover of this. They say "I'm the motha-fuckah coming for you" instead "I'm a mama-papa coming for you", which kind of fits the threatening-alligator image. So do you think Bowie was censoring himself? Using euphemism? Discuss... |
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| Yeasayer – Wait for the Summer Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| should be one of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads... | |
| Yeasayer – Red Cave Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I heard this for the first time on the Yeasayer take-away show... youtube it: you'll love it instantly... it's much better than the album version, but it made me love the album version... |
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| Paul Simon – The Obvious Child Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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And I accept, too, the obvious, literal storyline about Sonny and the growing up, getting older thing. I picture Sonny as a child in a large, Catholic family, and he's the only one outspoken enough to talk about what he wants- very driven, not selfish. The parents say, "well, he's the only one speaking up... why deny the obvious child?" Then again, I guess someone's mentioned the idea of Sonny being raised Catholic/Christian, looking around at other faiths, looking back at Christ and saying "Well, though that's the most obvious choice, why deny Him?" I think this is valid as well.. |
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| Paul Simon – The Obvious Child Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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There's something totally sublime behind the lyrics that just carries them to this creepy, deep resonance with me. I think that's so cool, what he said about the cross in the ballpark. It's within reach! it's doable... our burden in life, but also faith (the cross) is within reach, which brings me hope as an often dubious Christian. |
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| Paul McCartney – Pipes Of Peace Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Paul McCartney has always been a bum poet, but times like these, a great melody can really take these lyrics to a higher place. Seems like a very earnest hope for peace for future generations.. Also, a peace pipe is usually something you smoke, but paul is asking to be taught how to PLAY them... interesting... | |
| Andrew Bird – Measuring Cups Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's about this very, very false and damaging idea that has consumed American education (can't speak for the rest of the world) that you can QUANTIFY someone's intelligence, like in a measuring cup, and that grades in school are an accurate ledger for success and intelligence. It's one song that really resonates with me personally, as someone who is a very poor student, and as someone who, regardless, values his own intelligence. Oh and the melody is great, too. |
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| Andrew Bird – Banking on a Myth Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I really, REALLY don't think that the political analogy-thing works. It's about the record industry. The MYTH is that people LOVE the overproduced crap that they're being sold by the record execs. It's a self-perpetuating cycle: People get tricked into buying into a certain aesthetic, therefore THAT becomes what sells ("Hey, that guy won star search... well he MUST be good!") Then you can't much blame the exec for making that kind of crap, can you? It's a good idea- makes money! Music IS the "abstract commodity"... when it's treated like a commodity. Execs are always on the lookout for "the next big thing", but are quick to drop an artist when they don't chart (buys them in bulk but sells them short (also by limiting them creatively)) This happened about once a week at Elektra Records in the Nineties... Spoon, Nada Surf, Clipse all signed, showing that "indie promise" but failed to chart and were subsequently dropped by Ronn Lafitte, who spoon wrote an EP for on Saddle Creek (their rebound label). All that to say, yeah... the pop charts today look like a lukewarm liquid diet being forcefed to the American public. |
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| The National – Fake Empire Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I like what people are saying about the duality of this song- personal and political- it's massive and dark. I bought the album on vinyl and find that the album cover really, really compliments the sound of the album well; half of it is solid, shiny baritone black. I like to go into the band room at school and play those 3 piano chords over and over. In this song, as well as "Apartment Story" I feel like Berninger IS sort of mock-glorifying complacency. He's complaining, and bringing attention to it, but realizing that he's more a part of the disease than the cure. So yeah, the "empire" is America, and the song is about how we'd like to numb ourselves, not think about our sometimes low state of affairs and our empirical impositions on other countries. The idiom "as American as apple pie" is referenced in the first verse. We drink and we focus on how great and pure our country is, and when it's time to talk about our faults, we "turn the light out, say goodnight, no thinking for a little while." The song sounds kind of critical on paper, but confessional when you listen to it. |
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| Pixies – Gouge Away Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| was wondering when someone would mention LOST... any relevance to the storyline? is jack going down and taking everyone with him? | |
| Pixies – Vamos Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Don't know how far you can read into this, but there seems to be a reference to "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. "Your Daddy's rich, your momma's a pretty thing" "Your Daddy's rich, and your Momma's good-looking" is a line in Summertime. Anyone familiar with Porgy and Bess? I don't know if that's applicable or what. |
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