| Baltimora – Tarzan Boy Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
The general spirit has already been specified, i.e. it's a kind of archetypal "wild man" or "noble savage" image, carefree, natural, associated with the movie series Tarzan. The chorus uses Tarzan's cry from the films. The song also has strong sexual overtones, particularly the slang terms "gimme the other" and "monkey business". "Bit of the other" is British slang for sex (from this era). "Monkey business" in British slang is also sex (not for shady business as in America). Tarzan Boy is calling for a mate. (This is also consistent with the films, where Tarzan is pursuing a "civilised" woman named Jane). The title is Tarzan Boy, but McShane seems to be singing "Tarzan's boy". Strange. |
|
| Nirvana – Come As You Are Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
This is about time and memory... presence is simultaneously past, present and future... arrival is always on time, hurried, unhurried... the present is always contaminated by memory, since otherwise there'd be no continuity of selves etc, so we aren't interacting with the present person but also the old memory... it's some kind of Bergsonian or Buddhist or Taoist deconstruction of ordinary experiences of time, suggesting that time is really fluid, continuous and indistinct. Hence the friend who comes today, always also carries with them (for the self) the person they were (the memories which make them a friend) and the self's desire of what they will become. There's a similar deconstruction of the friend/enemy binary because the two terms are identical (mud/bleach may stand for black/white in perceptions). I think "I don't have a gun" has to do with denying that constitutive antagonism creates difference. It's an invitation to come and fuse without boundaries into a single field of becoming, but it's left unclear whether the invitation is to a real possibility or if, in fact, the antagonism is unavoidable. |
|
| New Order – Blue Monday Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
It's about domination/alienation, including war. The dominant actor is doing the following: 1) interpellation - telling one who one is 2) suture - filling in blanks in meaning - when one is mistaken, they give words 3) historical continuity/project (teleology) - from past until completion 4) subjectification - telling one how to feel 5) demanding obedience. It's a very intelligent song - somebody's been studying critical theories of power before they wrote it I reckon. They subscribe to some kind of post-Situationist theory of power, which is being related to war in particular, but also generally to conformity. It's even clearer with the video as well - it's saying that actual warfare and state brutality are linked to video games and TV - there's an image flashes up which has soldiers causing an explosion then it says "1000 point bonus". Basically we come to desire power by being told who we are and taught how to feel, through means such as the media, computer games, consumerism etc. (And remember this is a band who gave themselves two Nazi-inspired names in a row, and are associated with Factory Records who are pretty explicitly post-situ). "Heavenly person" has a double meaning - dead, or good/innocent. It has the dual overtones of, without you I'd be dead, and without you I wouldn't be guilty (of war crimes, abuse, whatever). Power is portrayed as cold, alienating and guilt-inducing... its heart is cold, it tells us what to feel but leaves us finding it hard to say what the official script makes us say, and it stops us being "heavenly". |
|
| Anthrax – Packaged Rebellion Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
"Packaged rebellion" refers to rebellion as spectacle - people who wear rebellious clothes, listen to rebellious music, wear circle-A's, hang out in countercultures, call themselves anarchists or rebels, and maybe do token symbolic protests, but don't actually fight the system because they're too commercialised and superficial, or too afraid. It's about what "The Coming Insurrection" refers to as the milieu. I think it's addressed to the band's fans, who almost by definition are into rebellious music, but a lot of whom will never take it beyond consumerist gestures. It's saying, "don't just do these gestures, get up and do something". There's three main claims about rebellion here: 1. a real rebel acts as an expression of who they are, of their desire and will, not to impress others or create an image 2. a real rebel acts in decisive ways, not "flaccid" and "friendly" ways, and not through images 3. a real rebel will rebel at any opportunity. The idea of the "act" emerging solely from will reminds me a lot of Stirner, Bakunin, insurrectionism and post-left anarchy, as well as the existentialist tradition and (more recently) Zizek. Also Bookchin's "Lifestyle Anarchism" though it strangely echoes what Bookchin is criticising. Cross-read it with "One Man Stands", "Keep It In the Family" and "Protest and Survive". |
|
| Anthrax – Potters Field Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
There's a place called Potter's Field in H.P. Lovecraft's "Harbert West: Reanimator", which is about a scientist obsessed with bringing life back to corpses. Potter's Field is a graveyard where Herbert West digs up one of the corpses. He manages to "reanimate" the corpse but it turns into an insane, murderous, ape-like thing. It burns down the house, carries out several killings, and is eventually put in an asylum. At the end of the final story, it is freed by another of West's zombies and abducts West, who is dragged down into a zombie netherworld. When I read this story, I instantly thought of the line "should've let me rest in Potter's Field" and thought the song must be about that. The abortion thing makes more sense in many ways. But I can see how it could be about a zombie too. He was "told to burn" (his first act when revived), born to "save" West's career/vocation, he's a one-night nightmare who returns with retribution, and West never takes responsibility for the zombies he's created. |
|
| Megadeth – Dawn Patrol Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
But, what's the "dawn patrol" of the chorus? Is it the people going off to work? People going round monitoring the air pollution levels? Or peopole going around announcing the warnings? - With a name like "Dawn Patrol", it kinda sounds more sinister. Like, if you're out after dawn, the dawn patrol shoot you incase you're polluted. But that doesn't fit with people going to work each morning. Maybe the people driven insane in the first verse are the dawn patrol, and they're preying on everyone or something? Oh... and it's climate change, not nuclear. Greenhouse effect was the usual name for climate change when this was made. "Thermal count" means heat levels (don't confuse with thermonuclear, which means heat + nuclear). Also the idea of people sleepwalking off to work and ignoring the health effects of environmental collapse and the warnings that were ignored, although it's a dystopian future image is clearly saying how peoplle are living today - it's saying that everyday life is insane for ignoring the crisis. Megadeth have done other ecological tracks as well, "Countdown to Extinction" comes to mind. |
|
| Stereophonics – Handbags And Gladrags Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
I find this song annoying because it has the feeling of a parental guilt-trip. Some of it's about materialism, or about living without effort - it sounds like the 50s (or earlier) generation slagging off affluent/consumer society actually. But what's weird is, it doesn't come from this generation, it comes from the affluent society generation and keeps reappearing. I wonder if it has other levels to it. I wonder if it's based on a real situation. There's a few things are unusual - the standard case would be poor old Dad, or today probably both parents. Why is it grandfather who is buying things? Grandparents buying things is usually associated with indulgent gifts rather than with working to provide a standard of living. And why is grandfather sweating to buy? Grandfathers in affluent societies stereotypically live off pensions. If it was a real situation where the parents are dead or out of work or something, it would make more sense, but there's no clues here. First verse - blind man crossing the road, old(er) woman looking for a partner - could have several meanings. Having to put in effort to get what one wants (work ethic); putting in effort and still not getting what one wants (futility); being disabled by something (blindness, age) to make things more difficult. Hence three possible readings of the following situation: as lack of effort due to relative privilege (in contrast to the examples); as futility of pursuing status through fashion or materialism; as being disabled by shallowness and stupidity. First chorus: the impetus is obvious - worry about the girl's future. "when they have finally stripped you of..." - when WHO have? The grandad is maybe worrying to himself (rather than lecturing) about what will happen when someone else strips away the innocence he is trying to preserve by buying gifts. Second verse and second chorus are unambiguously about materialism and defining oneself by looks and style. "Once you think you're in, you're out" could mean that fashions change quickly, or that pursuit of fashion is alienating and unsatisfying. The "get by with a smile" line - it's not clear if this is a contrast (he gets by with a smile, she tries to buy her way to popularity) or a similarity (he used to be as unconcerned for the future as she is). Third verse - why a nursery rhyme? Actually reminds me of use of proverbs, sayings and traditions by elderly people, sometimes mangled slightly. The singing of a nursery rhyme in such a melancholy tone might be meant to be a bit jarring, a sense of doomed or lost childhood (the grandfather still remembers when he could sing nursery rhymes but has lost the impetus behind them, or the girl is wasting her childhood). BTW "Sing a Song of Sixpence" was originally a song for recruiting pirates for Blackbeard's crew. Rather strangely, the "rye" in the original, as in this song (but not necessarily the intervening nursery rhyme) refers to alcohol. If this is evidence of derivation from the original, then "blackbirds in a pie" probably means "in for a nasty surprise" - pray for the future and drown your sorrows because you're in for a nasty surprise. Third chorus would seem to be punitive, but what goes before makes the suggestion seem very harsh: we're told the girl defines herself by her dress, that her innocence is being shielded by what her grandad buys - would he want to take away her identity and innocence, which he has sweated to preserve, over missing school on one day? It would make sense if the point is that he thinks she needs to learn responsibility and put in effort, and to define herself less materialistically - but I'm not sure this is the general jist. What's more, he is suggesting, not taking away himself, and not refusing to provide more - a punitive statement would either be "I will come and take away..." or "You'll not be getting any more from me". Missing school might be a symptom of the breakdown of the fragile construction of identity - she has missed school because she is depressed about keeping up appearances, or is being bullied for no longer being fashionable. Another possibility: the girl missed school because she is pregnant. She will no longer be able to define herself through her clothes and so might as well throw them away since that's what they're for (and they won't fit her anyway - perhaps the reason for the emphasis on clothes). Her life as a young parent would then resemble the blind man and old maid of the first verse. "Pie in the oven" can also mean "pregnant". |
|
| Suzanne Vega – Marlene On The Wall Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
It's about loss of virginity. Possibly also in a taboo relationship. I don't think the relationship is abusive, I can see where this comes from though. On one occasion she sings "my destiny, AND I am changing" so it's her destiny to change (grow up, lose virginity). The blood is from loss of virginity, rose tattoo is a love bite/hickie, reference to evidence is fear of being discovered. "Reminded me of the night we kissed" = exciting like the first kiss, "why I should be leaving" = if she stays (which she did) they'll have sex, "tried to resist" succumbing to temptation. "Don't give away the goods too soon". The relationship is either taboo or insecure and she doesn't know what it means to the other person, if he/she is in love too (what's it to you?), whether he views her as meat (a conquest) and she's given him sex too soon (the butcher's shop - sawdust would be strewn in a butcher's to cover/clean blood; giving away goods too soon). She has been compelled by desire (the "handsome fist") to act in a way she thinks is unwise. Marlene's perspective is the perspective of the knowing other who has seen it all and for whom all of this which seems contingent and important, seems predictable and trivial. I assumed Marlene was a historic portrait which had seen much history, but since it refers to Marlene Dietrich the soldiers might refer to her popularity as a WW2 pinup. Hence the emotional turmoil as analogous to the emotional impact of combat. The relationship is covert, carried on around a "danger zone" (risk of being caught), not talked about, she's frightened of evidence being exposed, the couple are alone. It could be covert for all kinds of reasons (class or ethnic or other differences, underage, disapproved of, adulterous), but one possibility is that it's a lesbian relationship - hence "held in handsome fist" and "fingerprints" could be a reference to fisting, and "changing" could be a reference to realising one's sexuality (changing from assumed heterosexuality to knowing oneself to be gay). |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.