| Taylor Swift – All Too Well Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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1. What are "plaid shirt days"? For me, every day is a plaid shirt day. 2. "And I forget about you long enough / To forget why I needed to" is almost exactly the same as a line in "I Saw" by Matt Nathanson. Wonder if this was intentional? 3. She put a lot of great images into this song. The level of detail she uses in her lyrics is probably the thing I like best about her music. |
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| Storyhill – Paradise Lost Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I love the phrase, "...neighborhoods with streets named after what's gone for good." It's an ironic little detail I noticed as a kid growing up in an expanding suburb that used to be farm land: they'd tear down acres of trees to build houses and name the new development "________ Woods." I'm glad someone worked that into a song. | |
| Ani DiFranco – Subdivision Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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On the 2003 live album "Sacramento," Ani says that she wrote this song about her hometown of Buffalo, NY, and all of the details ring so true for me. "The Berlin Wall runs down Main Street" - Buffalo is still unfortunately a very segregated city, and Main Street is the dividing line between Black and White/Asian/Latino communities. (Ethnicity map: http://www.buffalorising.com/2010/09/race-and-ethnicity-buffalo.html) "The ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots" makes me think of a specific parking lot I walk past frequently at the corner of Swan Street and Michigan Ave, where Maria Love's Fitch Creche used to stand. The building next to it is still there and you can see the ghostly outline on the brick where the smaller building used to be. The Fitch Creche was the first daycare in the United States and an important piece of history, but it was torn down in the 90s for a parking lot and now you'd never know what had been there if it weren't for the internet. And I know what you mean about people on the street. When I first moved here from the suburbs, the sight of homeless people really moved me and I remember seriously considering offering to let them stay at my apartment (but I had roommates who would sensibly object, and I was just plain scared). At this point I've become used to it. It's kind of sad the things we can get used to. |
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| Brandi Carlile – Hard Way Home Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This is a fun song to sing in the car. I think it's about taking a kind of twisted path through life, struggling to figure yourself out and not having found where you belong. I have friends who took what might be called the "easy" way home and followed the life path that's traditionally set out for us: college, grad school, marriage, house, kids, career. That's not the way my life is working out (as is probably the case for most of us), and I'm wading through existential angst instead of starting a family. But that's okay, too. We'll all find our place eventually. (Well, maybe not, but we might as well pretend.) | |
| Brandi Carlile – Fall Apart Again Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I feel like it's kind of both... It seems like she's telling someone that they can turn to her if they fall apart because she can relate to their sadness. So it's happy in that she's there for this person, but it's sad because they're both dealing with issues. She also seems to emphasize refusing to focus on the past, and I'm not sure what that's about. | |
| Josh Ritter – Make Me Down Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I thought it was "just before the fall," not "fold." Also, I love that image. | |
| Ryan Adams – Touch, Feel & Lose Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I could see Janis Joplin singing this. | |
| Dar Williams – Calling the Moon Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I love the line "As Tennessee wandered in moth-eaten robes" It's such a specific image, I almost thought it was a reference to something--maybe Tennessee Williams? But I'm not sure how. Or maybe she was in Tennessee when she wrote the song and is personifying the state. Any ideas? |
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| Muse – Feeling Good (Nina Simone cover) Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Dear Michael Bublé, This is how you create a cover of a big band song that builds on the original in a way that's interesting and worth listening to, rather than slathering on the cheese. Please take note. |
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| Matt Nathanson – Curve Of The Earth Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Just wanted to add that I love the line, "But I'm not listening for the right words anymore, I'll take what's left" because of the pun with "right" and "left"... I think the lyrics to this song as a whole are really clever. My favorite song of his as well. |
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| Taylor Swift – Mary's Song (Oh My My My) Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I just listened to this song for the first time and the "She said" at the beginning threw me off--I thought it was a story about a relationship between two women. By the end of the song I figured that it was probably a woman and a man. Then I came to this site to see if anyone else had had the same issue, but apparently not. I like the imagery she uses here and in other songs to describe childhood. |
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| Rod Stewart – Maggie May Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| The mandolin part at the end of this song is among my favorite 60 seconds of any piece of music, ever. | |
| 10,000 Maniacs – Love Among The Ruins Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I'm really not sure what this song means, as it seems to relate only peripherally to the poem. Sometimes I think of it literally, as two people falling in love unexpectedly while experiencing some great tragedy together (like war or some sort of natural disaster), and sometimes I think of it more figuratively, as finding love again among the ruins of failed relationships. Either way, it's a crazy-happy song and I love listening to it :) |
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| 10,000 Maniacs – Love Among The Ruins Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The title of this song is taken from the poem "Love Among the Ruins" by Robert Browning, posted here for your convenience: Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop-- Was the site once of a city great and gay, (So they say) Of our country's very capital, its prince Ages since Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far Peace or war. Now the country does not even boast a tree, As you see, To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills From the hills Intersect and give a name to, (else they run Into one) Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires Up like fires O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall Bounding all Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest Twelve abreast. And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass Never was! Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads And embeds Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, Stock or stone-- Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe Long ago; Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame Struck them tame; And that glory and that shame alike, the gold Bought and sold. Now--the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Through the chinks-- Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time Sprang sublime, And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced As they raced, And the monarch and his minions and his dames Viewed the games. And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey Melt away-- That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair Waits me there In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul For the goal, When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb Till I come. But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' Colonnades, All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then All the men! When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, Either hand On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace Of my face, Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech Each on each. In one year they sent a million fighters forth South and North, And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force-- Gold, of course. O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. |
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| 10,000 Maniacs – All That Never Happens Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This song gives me chills. I have to assume it's about a woman mourning a lover (or would-be lover) who has died ("silent frozen sleep," and "planting some flowers"--on a grave?), but what it reminds me of is mourning the end of a relationship... walking past places that hold certain memories for me, chasing ghosts of the people I miss, and thinking about how wonderful things once were ("The world was safe when she knew him;" "you were the answer to all the questions"). I first remember hearing this song on a cool Fall day while I was walking to work, and I felt like I knew exactly what it was saying. The chorus ("For all that never happens and all that never will be, a candle burning for the love we seldom keep") reminds me of how I feel at the end of every relationship. One of the saddest things for me is the the lost potential, the thought of all of the dreams and plans we had that now will never come to fruition, and the second line seems to bring this experience to a universal level, which is somehow comforting--it's not just my experience, it's part of the experience of being human. I also particularly love the line, "The earth was raw in her fingers, she overturned it." It's a vivid and tactile image--the feel and smell of raw earth. The lyrics are very well written. |
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| 10,000 Maniacs – Green Children Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Pwgabachito--thank you for the lead! The link wasn't working for me so I did a little research and came up with a Wikipedia article on the Green Children of Woolpit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_children_of_Woolpit as well as this forum: http://imaginativeworlds.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6901.html It seems that John Macklin published a book in 1965 called Strange Destinies, where he tells a story based on the Children of Woolpit but moves the setting to the fictional village of Banjos, Spain. I would guess that this is the version the song is based on. |
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| Idlewild – Not Just Sometimes But Always Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I think the last line makes more sense as, "like an elegy in disguise." According to Wikipedia, an elegy is "a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead." This would tie in with the chorus, "If I was born the same day that you died..." I'm not sure what the song means, but I've been thinking of it in terms of carrying on someone's legacy after they've passed away, and reflecting on the new meaning and purpose that their death might bring to a person who survives them. |
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| John & Mary – A Nightfall Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Mary's intro to the song during a show: "Way back when, when people had record albums, before CDs, before tapes, before eight-tracks, the record albums had beautiful big pictures, and John introduced me to Gram Parsons's records, and this song is really a song that I wrote words to based on a just looking at a big picture of him on a record album." | |
| John & Mary – July 6th Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This song alludes to the Hartford Circus Fire of July 6, 1944. The big top caught on fire at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut, killing 168 people as they tried to flee the blaze. Of the little girl the song probably describes, Wikipedia states, "The best-known victim of the circus fire was a young blonde girl wearing a white dress. She is known only as 'Little Miss 1565', named after the number assigned to her body at the city's makeshift morgue. Oddly well preserved even after her death, her face has become arguably the most well-known image of the fire." For more information, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_circus_fire http://www.circusfire1944.com/ |
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| John & Mary – Clare's Scarf Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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From redlami on Youtube: "At the time of writing this song, like Clare, Mary lived in a third floor apartment and overheard many of the conversations of those living around her while never actually being seen by them." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4s-wAlz_CY) |
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| John & Mary – Maid of the Mist Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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From the liner notes: "Centuries ago, for protection and prosperity, the Niagara Indians of western New York and southern Ontario would annually sacrifice the fairest maiden of the tribe to the Great Spirit. The young 'maid of the mist', in a white canoe filled with fruits and flowers, would proudly steer her own course over the mighty Falls. Legend has it that the ghostly apparition of a beautiful Indian princess can still be seen in the mist below the cascading waters." |
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| R.E.M. – Try Not To Breathe Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I agree with Jeema in that I never thought this song was about suicide, just the acceptance of death. "I have seen things that you will never see": I don't interpret this as terrible things, necessarily. To me this just reflects that since the speaker is older than the people she is addressing, she has lived parts of history that they will only read about and has had experiences that are no longer possible for the current generations because things have changed. For some reason I also pictured the speaker as a woman; no idea why. |
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| Carbon Leaf – Changeless Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| I'm about to leave all of my friends for a year, and I relate to this song a lot right now because I'm going to miss them like hell. I'm the one who's going to "fly away and see the world," and while this is what I want and need to do, I'm scared of how much things will change while I'm gone, although I know it's unrealistic to expect anyone to try to keep things "changeless" for me. "What are the odds this ends and we don't meet again..." I don't know what's going to become of anything. The odds "that I will miss your smile," however, are pretty good. | |
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