| Cake – Satan Is My Motor Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Arn't the lyrics "internal combustion POWER"? | |
| Cake – Satan Is My Motor Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I like your interpretation. | |
| Cake – Satan Is My Motor Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Satan is my motor-Cake This song is so subtle with its use of one thing meaning another. On the surface it appears the singer is singing about a car and its utility which is seen in the following verses: “i've got wheels of polished steel i've got tires that grab the road i've got seats that selflessly hold my friends and a trunk that can carry the heaviest of loads But then in the second verse we get a new metaphor. Its no longer his car he is referring to, but himself. The first half of the second verse make this clear: "i've got a mind that can steer me to your house and a heart that can bring you red flowers my intentions are good and earnest and true" Then, it gets to the interesting and difficult part. Is he talking about himself or his car when he sings: “but under my hood is internal combustion satan is my motor hear my motor purr satan is my motor hear my motor purr satan is the only one who seems to understand satan is my motor”? Some will say “car” and some “himself” or “both”. A case for all three can be made and its fun to make each. I won’t do that as I’ll leave that to you all. But, if explored, they all lead to a realization that you just can’t be sure what John was actually going for, but only that he is, as we know by now, a very clever fella. What I really want to do is go on a completely different tangent and tell you what this song means to me. God is real, but I believe Satan is my motor. That is, I believe that I get my get up and go from something different than God. This something isn’t an opposing force to God (there is no such thing), but only a belief in something that is an opposing force to God. I believe it and in this world we can call it Satan if we want, that “old serpent” and the “devil”. All are personifications of an ancient truth. And that is that it is simply man’s belief that he is separate from God that leads to all his suffering, pain, disease and death. These, of course, are simply illusions of his mortal mind and are not real in any way. So, we all, I’m afraid, have it written in our human DNA that we get our get our get up and go from “Satan” (which I prefer to call the “ego” as it doesn’t have all those nasty connotations and images associated with it). My belief as an “ego” (a belief that I am separate from everything else in the entire universe) is the sole reason I suffer. This subscription to the “ego” over God (more concretely His Spirit, called “Holy” by Christians) is a belief that, to return to the songs metaphor, is the belief that I am no longer getting my get up and go from God, but from something else. As personified by “Satan”, this motor leads to only one thing-suffering and death. In our mind, the ego speaks to us and the Holy Spirit speaks to us. The one tells me I’m an individual, separate and distinct from everything else. The second voice (the Voice of God) tells me that I am connected to and, in fact, one with everything I see. In fact, what I see, this Voice says is that everything I see is really a projection of my own mind. If I am seeing separation, sin, disease and death it is because I believe in those things in my mind. This part of my mind is the egoic mind that I have referred to above. So, what we see is that our “mind” is split into two distinct camps. One is unreal and a lie. The other is real and an eternal truth. The first is loud and distinct. The second is quiet and hard to hear. Through seeking after the truth, the second voice becomes louder and louder. For a more familiar term, the second voice can be likened to our conscience. “Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto thee. Ask and it shall be given thee.”, said the Christ. Let this speak to you today through His Voice, the mystical body of Christ that connects us all. Believe and it shall be so for you-either good or bad. |
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| Nirvana – All Apologies Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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All Apologies by Nirvana: When I hear this song start, everything seems to come into focus for me. This song has always made me believe Kurt had tapped something less personal, more spiritual and very universal. From my perspective, he's first apologizing for himself being an imperfect role model/artist/human being. Then the song makes me think this song represents an apology to Life, for all of us, for failing it many time in our lives. Yet, with the “in the sun, I feel as one” and “all in all is all we are” he is showing me his personal faith that he feels that ultimately we are all connected and share something special. |
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| The Beatles – You've Got to Hide Your Love Away Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song is so haunting, so profound and sad that, I'm sorry to say, it creeps me out. The way John sings it makes me feel so bad for whatever it is that would cause one to have to feel so much like a loser and outcast. People laughing at you like he's described? Tragic and mean. It really makes me feel sorry for who he's singing about. Does this person really have to hide their love away? Why is he being laughed at? Is this imagined or real laughter? Should he be embarrassed or mad? It just goes on and on. Gather round all you clowns? Really? This guy is in bad shape for sure. It hurts bad. Wow, what a song! I've always had mixed feeling about this song. I've taken it personally and felt like that somewhere inside me, I’m the person he’s singing about or could be. It makes me feel like crap. Too depressing for me. But on the other hand, I love the way its sung and how it sounds, but when I read the words and really think about it, its too much for me. | |
| The Beatles – All Things Must Pass Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This song means to me that no matter how good or bad things are, they will pass. It tells me to not take things too seriously. Don't wrap myself up and identify with anything to the point that I lose myself in them. Nothing is solid and nothing remains for too long and if I identify with things, I may lose myself. | |
| The Beatles – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| When I first heard this song as a very young man of say 12, I didn't have a clue what this song meant. But what it meant to me was that songs can sound like fairy tales. That somewhere someone could write music and lyrics that transported me to places only The Beatles could take me. It meant that I didn't have to take things too seriously. That my imagination was important. That someone knew a girl named Lucy who had priceless gems and must have been an angel who lived in the sky. Maybe she was real or just make believe. It didn’t matter. It meant that sometimes lyrics don’t have to make sense and I could enjoy them for their sound alone and not necessarily have to understand them. | |
| The Beatles – Girl Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Girl-Great song by a great band. Drugs? Even if true, I don’t care. The song can’t possibly mean that to me even if the writer himself said that is exactly what he meant. This site asks, “What does the song mean to you?” Not what do you think the song really means… so the words are taken literally by me and that’s all they mean to me. They are self explanatory. Most of us guys have met one of the girls or all 3 depicted in this song. The first girl is unattainable, beautiful and out of our league. The second is clingy, the third is conceited. The 4th girl is all three as they all grow up, get married, settle down age and come to realize that life slips away before you know it its gone. | |
| The Beatles – A Day in the Life Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| A Day in the Life-This song makes me think…that both John (the first half of the song) and Paul (the second half of the song) couldn’t let the other one have this song as their own. The first half to me is definitely John. The “Woke up. Got out of bed.” Part, to me, is Paul’s influence. It’s really like two songs in one. The music is ominous for the first half (more John like) and then it’s more mundane (more Paul like). It’s cool and mysterious and then it’s more straight forward and down to earth. This songs meaning is one in which both men are experiencing a day in their lives and those they are reading about, then its about a day in their lives in which they smoke something or drop something doing some drugs which was popular for them at this time. No big deal. Some strong emotions from both mixed with the mundane. The two songs in one is not unique, but it is rare. I can’t quite tell, but do the two also sing the first part (John singing) and then the second part (Paul singing)? Without a recent listen, my mind says so, but I don’t know maybe that’s just me. | |
| The Beatles – Back in the U.S.S.R. Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Back in the USSR-This song means to me…that Paul is a cheeky fella. That The Beatles were wise-acres and that they borrowed from the Beach Boys, most likely satirically. Every time I hear this song I think about Great Britain’s proximity to Russia and the trips the Boys used to make to Hamburg and other musical destinations when they were trying to make it. I wonder if they went to Russia and saw some things that made them create a song about what they saw. As for the meaning of the song itself, the lyrics don’t leave much to the imagination and I take them at face value-even if John & Paul were being satirical. This song grows old quick for me. | |
| The Beatles – Yellow Submarine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Yellow Submarine-I read the first page of the 2002 entries (from what I've seen of the dates, this appears to be when this website came into existence). Someone said that this song means to them that The Beatles can get away with making a silly song and it will be a hit. Others said it’s about drugs and some said it means childhood and growing up. For me, the song means, that is, what I think of when I hear it is that The Beatles can get away with a silly song (esp., having Ringo sing it gives it that silly, we don't take ourselves too serious attitude) and it will somehow make a lasting impression on their listening public. Personally, I think the song itself is awful. But what’s so amazing is that somehow the Beatles are so damn charming, so damn clever and inventive and creative and just so damn good that a song as bad as this becomes one instantly recognizable. It goes from bad and forgettable to a curiosity that is almost listenable. It brings forth quite a bizarre imagery set and I’m taken somewhere even if I don’t know where. For some it’s to a place in which they want to impale things. But for most of us, it’s a better place—childhood, the sea and its mystery, an adventure or to thoughts about what in the hell were they actually thinking with this one? And to boot, they make a movie with its title. Drugs? Indubitably! The English were so conservative, “prim and proper” I think they call it. The Beatles (esp., John) were so irreverent, so cheeky, so New Britain, that they challenged everything holding them back. This creative and unbounded energy created songs/movies Help!, A Hard Day’s Night, and Yellow Submarine. The last of which was helped in no small part by the psychedelic drug culture of the 60’s. This creativity (with and without drugs) didn’t come out all that great in their movies, but their songs trump all. And this song represents for me all of these disparate elements coming together into a silly but poignant sign of where The Beatles came from and played a fundamental and integral part in shaping music both silly and profound. | |
| Cake – Cool Blue Reason Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I second DaiOs' comment 6/4/07 | |
| Cake – The Distance Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I'll even go as far as to say that an affair is implied in the line, He's haunted by something he cannot define Bowel shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse Assail him and bail him with monster truck force In his mind he's still driving, still making the grade She's hoping in time that her memories will fade" |
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| Cake – The Distance Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The Distance: An aging circuit driver with his team and away from the family who can't travel with him because Mom/Wife stayed home during the children’s school years and they grew apart. He doesn't win much but it’s a living and pays the bills. He keeps at it to earn a meager living as a race car driver because that’s all he knows and loves. The wife is alone through the early years and they grow apart. Even when he’s home he’s out at the track practicing and practicing or in the garage fiddling with the horsepower ratios to get that little edge. Thus, her personal needs are not being met. He loves his wife but remembers (fantasizes) about a lost love who got away in his youth. | |
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