| Badfinger – Come and Get It Lyrics | 8 months ago |
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Basically, this is a generic pitchman's song. While it made an excellent theme song for the British film The Magic Christian (1969) and might have some subtler "in-joke" meanings for the writers and singers involved, the meaning for the general public is right there on the surface: the narrator is giving something of considerable value away for free, and insists there's no catch and no hidden cost. Everybody likes free stuff, and the self-deprecating pitchman depicts himself as "a fool and his money" (which, as nearly every native English speaker knows from the old saying so often repeated as to be a cliche, "are soon parted") to encourage his listeners to come get their handout; but as with all such offers, supplies and time are limited, so his listeners need to come and get their handout now or else not at all. ¶ On a personal note, this pitch has been a personal theme for me recently while volunteering at a food pantry. On slow days, and when there's considerable lag time between our receiving an order from headquarters and the client who applied for the handout actually arriving to pick up everything we've assembled, I'll often be quietly humming or singing this song to myself while waiting. It's my way of saying (oh-so-subtly) "Our donors have supplied us with money and groceries, and we've given our time to assemble them for your benefit; so why the delay? We're ready when you are, people." |
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| Tracy Chapman – Give Me One Reason Lyrics | 8 months ago |
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The way I hear it, this song is not about an established romantic relationship, but rather about some long-established personal relationship the narrator *can* upgrade into a romantic one—if the other is willing. Given the rather gentle and soulful tone of the entire song, the singer narrating it isn't exactly being pushy with her request, but some new circumstance—maybe e.g. she's been offered a job that pays better than her current one, but she'll have to relocate somewhere far away from her love interest if she takes it—is forcing her to fish or cut bait on him. Being rather ambivalent about their relationship and uncertain whether her prospective partner feels the same way about her, she's willing to sacrifice whatever opportunity is on offer in exchange for this romantic upgrade, but insists that her love interest has to make the first move; if he doesn't, she'll assume he's not into her that way, and will move on accordingly. ¶ Important note: while the song's narrator need not necessarily be female just because the singer herself is, I presume the narrator and singer both to be female specifically because—for all the innovations of our time—tradition still holds considerable sway over most people's romances, and in a traditional romance, the woman typically wants the man to pursue her rather than the other way around. What Tracy Chapman is saying—more eloquently and poetically—is "If you want me, you can have me, but you have to come get me; I'm not going to risk my heart on someone too wimpy to take the initiative." |
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| The Cardigans – Erase/Rewind Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| The place where I first heard this song was at the end of the movie The Thirteenth Floor and in a music video which immediately followed it on the tape. Considering that in the movie, one really could quite literally "erase and rewind" situations in the virtual world the protagonists were building, the song's meaning gets downright menacing when you think about it. Also, the story is a murder mystery in which the prime suspect is retracing the steps of one of his murdered colleagues through the virtual world ("Where did you see me go?") to determine what he's been doing and whether that might have motivated the murder. As his investigation proceeds, his discoveries rapidly cause his own situation to escalate out of control: "I just don't want it to grow" indeed! He also comes to see the simulated characters in the virtual world as real people, and to change his point of view ("I've changed my mind; I take it back") about the ethics of messing with their lives for one's personal amusement. If you watch the movie, you'll pretty much understand what every line of the song means, as they all fit in that context in one way or another. | |
| Gary Puckett & The Union Gap – Young Girl Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Yes, it's a pretty straightforward jail-bait song, though all couched in rather family-friendly terms. I mean, when he gets to talking about her "charms" and being "old enough to give me love" he's obviously got something more in mind for her than a friendly autograph. Then too, "that come on look" she's giving him suggests that if anything, she's the aggressor! By the end he's practically yelling at her to clear out before any of his unwholesome urges can get the better of him so that, whatever may happen next, we have to admit at the very least he's given her fair warning. | |
| Peter, Paul and Mary – 500 Miles Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song is done in the style of many old negro spirituals, many of which had a double meaning in aiding the escape of slaves. This one sounds more like a marching tune for escaped slaves to be singing on the road, though, since the meaning would be difficult to mistake. (My interpretations are in parentheses.) If you miss the train I'm on (the Underground Railroad), you will know that I am gone (I've run away from Master) You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles (That's how far the local slave-catchers will chase me) ... Lord I'm one, Lord I'm two, Lord I'm three, Lord I'm four, Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home (That's roughly how far it is to the Free States/Canada) ... Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name (This is a grueling journey) Lord, I can't go home this-a-way (because if I do, Master will beat me to death) |
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| The Beatles – Taxman Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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This song is basically a complaint about the taxation. "One for you, nineteen for me" is a slam against Britain's highest tax bracket, which could claim 95% of the wealthy payer's income. The taxman is consistently portrayed as a cruel and greedy thief, looking to deprive people of their earnings even in death. (He even demands that you "Declare the pennies on your eyes" as taxable income.) It's as perfect a slam against rapacious taxation as I've ever heard. Some might question the moral consistency of the Beatles for this song, but it wasn't George Harrison who wrote that atonal "Imagine" commie crap. That was John Lennon, with his typical hypocrisy (what we'd call a "limousine liberal" these days). You'll notice he wasn't exactly giving up all his possessions that he wanted the rest of us to imagine doing without, though he certainly took leave of his reason, faith, and sanity with that evil song. On the whole, the Beatles were always very capitalistic and into making money on their songs. It's nothing to be ashamed of: what they were selling is what people wanted to buy, so the profit motive can't have done any damage to the quality of their singing. As Paul McCartney once said in an interview: "Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'" I'd say this song earned them at least a jacuzzi. |
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| Corky and the Juice Pigs – I'm The Only Gay Eskimo Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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There is indeed a live version of this song in which the singers try out the styles of various other singers at the end, but there's also a studio version on a Doctor Demento CD in which they just sing it straight (to turn a phrase ironically). Each version has its own merits, as the live version allows them to yuck it up with the audience, but the studio version is sung much more mournfully, making its theme that much more ludicrous. The humor of this song comes from the bizarre juxtaposition of things that don't usually go together, in this case gayness and Eskimos. Not too many people think of Eskimo culture as being particularly homoerotic in any way, and the rather ascetic lifestyle we tend to imagine Eskimos living doesn't leave much room for the kind of flamboyancy we usually attribute to gay subcultures. Hence the jokes about the whaleskin tights and the rubber fetish: where could an Eskimo possibly develop extravagant fetishes like that? Likewise, the North Pole is the only even vaguely phallic concept that one can associate with Eskimo culture, so it's funny to hear anyone claiming that this tenuous connection of the North Pole to homoeroticism somehow allows him to "see" it even though it's a purely abstract object. How any of this is possible is thus left entirely to our imagination, where the explanation is bound to be far more hilarious than any account the singer can give of it. |
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| UB40 – Red Red Wine (Neil Diamond cover) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'd have to say this is probably one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard that's meant to inspire nothing but hopeless grief. Not only is the singer inconsolable about losing his woman, but now he sings an ode to his wine, imploring it to take him down into drunken oblivion. It very promptly does so, reducing the rest of the song to increasingly incoherent babbling. The whole situation portrayed is about as close as anyone can come to committing suicide without actually dying. | |
| Go West – King of Wishful Thinking Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This song's a masterpiece in the art of inducing grief in the listener via cognitive dissonance. The singer announces his intent to deceive himself about how much his breakup is hurting him, and the accompanying musicians play an upbeat tune in collaboration with this plan, but the clever symbolism in the words reveals the carnival atmosphere of the music to be an empty show and leaves us with a bleak appreciation for how very deeply in despair the singer really is. Realizing the madness of his attempts to pretend otherwise thus inspires us to pity him in his miserable condition. The music video captures this effect very well in showing the singer against a blank white background (a common way of depicting madness in comic books), and then throwing together a purely random collage of many different people engaged in various unrelated--and therefore seemingly pointless--activities behind him. This is something like getting a view directly into his mind, and its desperate attempts to distract him from his loneliness and heartbreak by thinking of anything else at all. Even then, the words break through all the visuals to remind us that it's hopeless. The refrain that he's "The King of Wishful Thinking" is the singer's way of admitting everything else he says is a lie and he's NOT going to "get over" this breakup any time soon. |
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| Stevie Wonder – Part-Time Lover Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The interesting thing about this song is that in spite of the upbeat music, the whole adultery theme gets a very menacing treatment. There's a strong "it takes one to know one" message in the last part's description of how the adulterous man comes to realize his wife is cheating on him just as he's cheating on her. He knows he's doing wrong, as he acknowledges several times, but only now does the price he's going to pay for his infidelity make itself evident to him. ¶ His line "I have something that I must tell" also strongly hints that he's kicking himself because he really should have seen this coming, but was too focused on keeping his wife unsuspecting to harbor any suspicion of her. Thus, his discovery proves to be the punchline to a very macabre joke: his infidelity has both blinded him and opened his eyes. ¶ Of course, the humor in such irony is a lot easier to appreciate when somebody else is the butt of the joke. In the music video, Stevie Wonder merely provides the narration; four others act the parts of the cheating spouses and their partners in adultery, and in the end they're shown turning up at the concert where he's playing this song. |
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| Wes King – Move To The Moon Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| As explained in the liner for "The Robe" Wes King had a whimsical notion as a kid about where helium balloons went when he lost them. Later, when he was afraid he'd lose his gal, he combined this idea with this tearjerker about wanting to leave the planet to escape all the pain and embarrassment of a breakup. | |
| New Edition – Mr. Telephone Man Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Actually, this being by a boy band, I'd say the singer must have done something to tick off his girlfriend's father; he's almost certainly the strange man who keeps answering the phone and telling him the girl isn't there. He's also probably getting very annoyed with the repeated calling by now. | |
| Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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While there may be some satirical intent in some of the tone and wording, the song seems to be mainly a straightforward proposal of business partnership. In a theme particularly common to the 1980s, however, the singer doesn't hesitate to mix business with pleasure and money with love. The potential partner is evidently a beautiful and strong-minded woman ("you've got the looks" and "you've got the brawn") and the singer boasts about his intellectual and financial prowess to her. (He's a graduate from a very prestigious college, he can work a computer, etc.) He wants her to be his "partner in crime" for some kind of get-rich-quick scheme ("If you've got the inclination, I have got the crime"), but this may also be a marriage proposal. The satirical element lies in the possibility that this is a love song; if so, it's about the very unique kind of love that might exist between two ruthless corporate people seeking financial success together. |
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| Melissa Etheridge – This War Is Over Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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As demonstrated in the movie for which this song played in the credits (The Devil's Own, starring Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt), this is a funeral dirge composed from the dying words of an Irish warrior. The war to which it refers is not only the physical battles he was fighting ("Carry my sword"), but his internal war against all the sin and misery in which his soul was entangled ("Take off my shame"). As is typical with Irish dirges, the song is tragic and yet celebratory: the death is sad, but the warrior is relieved that his war has ended and he may be finding his final resting place in Heaven ("I'm coming home"). |
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| Deep Blue Something – Breakfast At Tiffany's Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The meaning of the verses is fairly easy to determine; the singer's relationship with his girlfriend is coming to an end, possibly a very bitter one. (His tone on "Still I know you just don't care" sounds almost like he's accusing her something.) The meaning of the refrain about Breakfast at Tiffany's is a bit more obscure, as we don't have any back story on the particular significance of this movie to the couple in question. If one tries understanding this refrain emotionally instead of intellectually, however, the reason for his repeated digression into so seemingly unrelated a subject becomes clear: he's absolutely heartbroken over losing his girlfriend, and he's obsessing over some small but significant detail of that relationship in an effort to distract himself from the agony of that loss. |
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| The Beach Boys – Catch A Wave Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| This is definitely a ringing endorsement of surfing. Ironically, the Beach Boys weren't much into surfing; only the drummer Dennis Wilson was a surfer. | |
| Wes King – Life is Precious Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The meaning's pretty straightforward: our lives is sacred because we're made in God's image. The music video accompanying this particular song also portrayed a talent show for children with various handicaps, which suggests that this is also generally advocating a strong pro-life stance (i.e. no killing those kids for their disabilities the way Hitler did; their lives are sacred too). | |
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