| Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Wooden Ships Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| David was into the sort of culture critiques of the mid-century existentialists like Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Ron Laing, Terry Southern and Jules Henry. The song reflects their notions that popular culture is a manipulation to keep the masses working and buying. Almost any interview with David in those days got to this sooner or later. Stephen was similarly inclined as his own lyrics repeatedly demonstrate. | |
| Alanis Morissette – Surrendering Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Well said, Ian-sama. Al's a meditating Buddhist. She's always looking for the "middle path." Likewise this reads like another one of her multi-level objectifications. Sounds like it's every bit as much notes to herself as to a former lover or anyone who just stumbles across it. Ever the delightful little professor who's class I'd =never= miss. | |
| Alanis Morissette – Gorgeous Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Ever aware of her own culturally conditioned false self vs. her consuming need to stay in the way things are and not the way we want (soooooo badly) for them to appear to be, Al takes off in yet another trip into what is for her the essential conflict: "I have to be this to play the game out there with the robots, but I am =not= a robot, and it drives me nuts when I act like one." How many of Al's tunes are rants about her momentary -- okay; maybe they last a few hours -- lapses of the awareness / consciousness / mindfulness she clearly prizes so highly? "20/20," "Bent for You," "Death of Cinderella," "Everything," "Fear of Bliss," "Flinch," "No Pressure...," "Out is Through," "Purgatorying," "So Unsexy," "Thank U," etc., etc. Either Al is =very= hard on herself, just self-aware and self-accepting, or maybe even =both= (at different times). In whatever event, she's said numerous times that her writing is her process of revelation and separating the chicken salad from the chicken s**t. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Are You Still Mad? Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The only Tim I can think of is Tim Thorney, a guy she spent a lot of time writing with in Canada in about '92 or '93. Why he would be the object of this sort of finger-pointing (at "him," as well as herself; Al =never= points one way only) is beyond me, though they got along pretty well before she came to California. I think the problem for most people in our all-bad-vs.-all-good cultural paradigm is that Al does not (usually; or for very long) see people as all one way or all another. If she's being interpersonally directive towards someone in particular (which is always open to speculation in her work), her jabs at the "other" could be seen as classic psychodynamic confrontations. Over and over again, I get the feeling that Al is one of those people who have confronted their own demons to such an extent that intimacy with most of the people to whom they are attracted is very difficult. Because most people have not confronted their own demons to anywhere near the extent she pretty clearly has. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Citizen of the Planet Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| If Buddha (or Jesus) came back as a sometimes geeky, sometimes hyper-mature Canadian girl, how many would recognize him? Evidently, very few. "Patriotism expanded... By callings from beyond." "My laws are all of attraction. My punishments are consequences." Read Krishnamurti and Ram Dass, I guess. (Who would get =her= if they didn't understand where she =came= from?) | |
| Alanis Morissette – Death Of Cinderella Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| An afterthaught (heh): Al's repertoire is full of indications of her ability to contain her internal diversities, but perhaps nowhere else in all those tunes is her flapdoodle, exploration-obsessed inner three-year-old dancing so well with her present state of perspective. At 35 (as of '09), this combination of discovery-bent rug rat and muted sex-bomb sophisticate is utterly disarming when observed from five or ten feet away. | |
| Alanis Morissette – One Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al's capacity to illuminate the struggle between the overly narcissistic contaminations of her histrionic (attention-needing, chaotic, dramatic) early life and her more mature awareness of it along with her powerful need to inform the few who can understand her never ceases to amaze. She was 24 when she wrote this. =24=. One person in tens of thousands will ever get close to this level of self-grasp, and only one in a thousand or so will be able to understand it. But she soldiers on for the sake of those who can. This stuff sails right over the heads of most who worship this 20th Century incarnation of Parvati, of course. But I have seen audiences (like those in San Francisco) filled with an unusually large number of people who =do= seem to "get" her. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Precious Illusions Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I swear that little mega-wit kangaroo (you had to see her on stage in '95 and '96) is tearing my head off. I watched a film called "Coraline" then re-read the lyrics above. Yikes. The parentally ignored / neglected / abandoned / unsupported little kid turns to the "invisible best friends" who didn't let her down when she "was defensless." But in adulthood, "it won't work the way it once did" if we stay in our precious illusions, invisible best friends, and histrionic approval-seeking. Do "Alice in Wonderland" (it's coming next year... with Johnny Depp in the saddle) long enough as a child to try to deal with being left to drift... and go "mildly psychotic" (or, technically, "borderline") because you're =addicted= to the defense mechanism by the time you're ten or so. Lord, I hope that little girl finds some peace some day. I'm a lot older than she is, writing about the same stuff (in very different fashion), and I'm still not "there" yet. Sigh. |
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| Alanis Morissette – So-Called Chaos Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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One of the things that endears her most to me (maybe even =the= thing, really) is that Al can tolerate ambiguity and conflict -- and then =talk= about it -- like almost no one else I've ever encountered. I've seen people who can =do= this as well as people who can =describe= the capacity (conceptually) as a (probably unattainable) life goal. Those who can do it are usually CEOs, presidents, big-time talent managers and "leaders of the free world." Those who can describe it are usually poets or psychology professors. But someone who can do it =and= describe it? For me, at least, that's rare. Alanis may or may not be addicted to both perfection and stimulation after 23 years at her trade, but regardless of whether she is or isn't, she does a pretty fair job of racing along on the tips of the pickets without falling off (for long). Yeah; she gains 30 lbs. here and blows it off in two months there (probably =not= a great idea), but the persona she manages to present to the world on stage or across the table in an interview is so =conscious= and "on top of it" that whatever chaos there is in her (200-mile-per-hour?) life =seems= under control. The woman journals and meditates a lot. So do I since I started paying attention to her 13 years ago. =I= can handle a lot more ambiguity, conflict and chaos as a result. Maybe that's how =she= does it. |
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| Alanis Morissette – On the Tequila Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Oh, boy; =here's= one to throw all those who "care about her state of mental health" (and such) in the wake of her (what? three-year?) =thang= with Ryan. "The ever-so-self-control-oriented (ask her) Alanis Morissette getting snockered on worm juice?" (!!!!!) BUT... Al does know about debauchery (ask her), and she knows about booze (it was Bailey's Irish Cream way back when). This may be a =very= disciplined young woman, but think "collegiate athlete" when you think Al + discipline. Some of the so-called "Alanis Comedy Hour" videos on YouTube make it clear she likes fun. This is =not= a dull girl. Should we take all the "journalism" here as gospel? Al says she contacts pretty much everybody she writes about to tell them they're gonna be in a song she's releasing, so maybe so. In whatever event, "OTT" shows how well she can describe what it's like to be disinhibited in her particular fashion. (IQ of 140+. It's =always= right there.) |
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| Alanis Morissette – 20/20 Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al has done numerous tunes examining "codependent enmeshment" (Google Pia Mellody) from different perspectives, including "Not the Doctor," "Precious Illusions," "You Owe Me Nothing in Return," "Fear of Bliss" and "Bent 4 U." Dominance and submission (a.k.a. "control") issues are regular fair in her journal work. All of the mentioned tunes (and this one) smack of directly targeted messages to various intimates along the way, though "20/20" positively aches with regret for having expressed insecurity as perfectionistic insistence. Al has shown herself to be =very= perfectionistically insistent =intra=personally, so it's probably no surprise that she may find herself to be thus =inter=personally. Or, of course, she may simply be writing a commentary about what she sees others do. It wouldn't be the first time her work has been misunderstood to be autobiographical when it actually isn't. Coming on the heels of the Ryan Reynolds heartbreaker, however... |
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| Alanis Morissette – It's A Bitch To Grow Up Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Odd to me that this is here, but "Tapes" and "Moratorium" are not, even though one gets a message that they =are= if one tries to post those lyrics. In whatever event, the theme of "IABTGU" is similar. Al has been consciously struggling (at least lyrically) with her relentless perfectionism since she was 12 or so. In that, she's like a lot of performing artists. The dif -- and the payoff for all of us -- of course, is that she presents her neuroses in public, many of us see ourselves in the mirror, and we all love her for holding the mirror up. There are parts of Al's mind that do not see growing up as anything other than a process we all have to go through with a shrug. But there are other parts that she loves to shine the light of her hugely educated self-awareness upon. I don't think she could write the sort of stuff she does -- and then record it for millions to hear (and speculate about) -- if they she was all that sensitive or shame-saturated. She has told us a number of times (lyrically and in interviews) that she sees herself as a clueless nerd at times, then makes it pretty evident that she's anything but... and owns that, as well. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Giggling Again For No Reason Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I caught the same juxtaposition that murlough23 observed. Up and down the Central Coast to process those emotional memories. Does "Giggling Again..." represent a sudden and =complete= processing of them. I expect not, but it does display that same rebound effect we've seen in her work before (e.g.: "Hand in My Pocket," "You Learn," "Thank U," "So Pure"). As self-aware as she is, it's hard for me to think Al doesn't see her polarizations, but I also know that most people =don't= see them, so it is possible. "I can see the meltings of inhibition." Given her numerous expressions of interpersonal guardedness and boundary-setting (e.g.: "Right Through You," "Wake Up," "Baba," "Unsent," "Precious Illusions"), I'm not surprised to see her flip (as this culture =normally= does) from pain-soaked despondance to pleasure-seeking again. She's done it before, and like most of us, she'll do it again. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Torch Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Some believe her infatuation and boundary abandonment with Ryan was the expectable result of one set of wildly conflicted values she had revealed in her songs in previous albums, and that she was not "walking as she had been talking" in that relationship. I dunno. But it's clear from far more than the lyrics in several of the songs on "FOE" that she was pretty dis-integrated from the supposedly "emotionally bulletproof" position some have ascribed to her over the years. In fact, she may have never been so emotionally committed to someone else in her entire life. Here, she =trudges=. (Look =that= word up.) "These are the days of raw despondence." Committed processor of her experience that she has shown hereself to be since 1994, should we expect anything much =other= than songs like this and "Not as We" in the year or so after she has lost what, at the time at least, was the "love of her life?" |
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| Alanis Morissette – In Praise of The Vulnerable Man Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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In a culture that is still primitive, paranoid, competitive, and survivalistic, vulnerability isn't something one arrives at by accident. People have to work very hard to get there... and =stay= there. "Flavors" may well be Al's most vulnerable album (especially in the bonus tracks), even though she herself set the standards for lyric vulnerability years ago and has kept raising the bar since then. In "IPOTVM," she's simply giving to kudos to males who've put their boats out against the cultural currents as she has done, even if if we will never see all the chicken scratch in those journals she's filled over the years. At least we get the =flavor= of them. For those who really want to dig into this, try Pia Mellody's three books on codependence, romance addiction and intimacy. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Thank U Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Continuing... "Thank you providence." Like everyone, Al has moments of resistence to "what is." But she works her (cute) (currently little) butt off to see what it is each day and then do what it takes to deal with it. She may =have= fears, but she is fear- =less= about looking her fears right in the face and processing them. ("Sit still and feel what you feel. Okay; here we go.") "Thank you nothingness." Again, she's into the Eastern approach to sanity, which sometimes means recognizing that =everything= is really whatever (sometimes "precious") "illusion" we have made of it. Stripped of all our e-VALUE-ations, however, whatever it is that's jerking us around is just something the next guy may not care about at all. This =is= just about the way she thinks. "Thank you clarity." Well, duh. It's the result one gets from doing her daily self-monitering and meditation disciplines. I was the co-manager of the Alanis Morissette Mailing List back in '96 and '97. I introduced myself to the 900 others on that thing by asserting somewhat obtusely that, "If you want to be =like= her, you will have to do what she =does=." Some bristled. Most said nothing but didn't get it. Many of the other performing artists figured it out immediately. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Thank U Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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In what is for me one of her most =monumental= efforts, Al had to have dredged up the memories of the awful months of mid '94. "Thank you India." Where the lyric ideas ever since '97 have come from to a great extent. "Thank you terror." What '94 (and '07?) was like for her. (Not mere fear; Al has had some =nasty= bouts with autonomic nervous system powerdives into =severe= -- though not "classic" -- post-traumatic stress disorder. This is sometimes what happens when people runs their brains a little too hard for a little too long.) "Thank you disillusionment." Al will stick her face right into the emotional blast furnace to process out her inner child's romantic (and other) disappointments. For her, disillusionment is a class she attends because she knows she'd "better." "Thank you frailty." Strong as she often appears, it is =because= she confronts her normal, human weakness (almost daily in her journal work) that she does =appear= to be, as one of my friends who built a guitar for her suggested, "emotionally bullet-proof." She isn't, however, and she knows it. "Thank you consequence." "Reward or ignore; never punish (yourself =or= others)." But we will have to face the consequences or results of what we believe that leads us to behave as we do. (She has said as much several times that I know of.) "Thank you, thank you silence." Al meditates. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Spineless Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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THIS is the most direct lyrical address of co-dependence (look up Pia Mellody, Ann Wilson Schaef, Melody Beattie and James Rapson, as well as Timmen Cermak) in a romantic framework in her library. (Did she read Mellody's =Facing Love Addiction= or Schaef's =Escape from Initimacy?= Maybe.) Al's been down this road before ("Not the Doctor," "Precious Illusions"), but never so bluntly. Perhaps she's, err, frustrated with her own (or others) apathy? |
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| Alanis Morissette – So Unsexy Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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dunnomuch may have hit the nail on the head here, but not quite squarely. Al =knows= she has a big blank spot in her developmental process that extends from about age ten to (maybe) age eighteen. She is =very= aware of her beliefs that she must be "flawless" (which drives her plain bonkers at times) and "perfect." Clearly, she has worked this theme in previous released material. Moreover, the lyrics make it evident here (as elsewhere) that she has a conscious grasp of the conflict between "not good enough" and "how much people obviously like me." I will now, however, =speculate=: The big blank spot in her identity development (look up Erik Erikson) is literally the chasm between "I am a needy, nerdy, over-intellectual spaz guys run away from" (=ask= her) and "I am the epitomy of what really together, socially competent guys are dying for." (Watch her sing "Everything" about five times and tell me I'm full of poo-poo.) Al has an =immensely= powerful and blisteringly =fast= intellect. She can "reel it in and spit it out" like no one else I've ever seen. That's really useful when people are well-rested, grounded and realistic. But (further speculation) Al regularly works, plays and exercises like a fiend, so... she gets the same result any of us do when we do that too much and too often: Insecure uncertainty. At least she can make a million bucks or so every time she writes a song about it. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Sister Blister Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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While there may well have been an external object in Al's mind when she wrote this, she's working on a more internal level here primarily. Al understands internal conflicts and something called "borderline personality organization." She has gone down this road before (see "Mary Jane" and "Break," for example). Al is =very= aware of her internal conflicts and uses her writing to try to work through them so that she is less (unconsciously) "split in two" and more (consciously) "integrated." Authors like Pia Mellody and Claudia Black, as well as Marsha Linehan and Glenn Schiraldi (the latter two at a more technical level), have written a lot about this topic. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Right Through You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Dave C. is =not= who this song is about; Al has said that several times in public. The song is about a "blend" of several smarmy people Al met during the months when she Scott and Glenn were carrying the JLP masters around in the fall of '94, as well as others in the music biz (and probably beyond). Al regularly uses memories of more than one person to develop a target persona for her tunes (including, =far= more often than most people realize, herself). She is far less interested in heaping invective on any one individual than she is in pounding the lessons home into her own conscious, operational memory. If the rest of us "get it;" great. But that's, as she has said repeatedly, not under her control. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Precious Illusions Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Though the concrete metaphor here is romantic relationships, Al is exploring the whole business of unrealistic beliefs, ideas, values, thoughts, assumptions, convictions and/or attitudes bandied about unconsciously in our culture and how we act (and feel) as a result of failing to identify, question and revise them. The big names in print on this stuff are Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, Wayne Dyer (who actually just ripped it off from the first two guys), Donald Meichenbaum, Jeffrey Young and Richard Wessler. The most modern therapy I know of for curing people of it is "SIQR." I actually did that therapy using the ideas Al laid out in the choruses in "Joining You." Quite an adventure. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Out Is Through Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al studied in India. And =what= she studied (at least in part) is being consciously aware of what she feels about what's going on in her life. The theme of "conscious processing" pops up again and again in her lyrics (see "Break," "Everything," "Fear of Bliss," "Flinch," "Joining You," etc., none of which could have been written without the use of "process"). Al adds to that her conceptual awareness of the mistaken beliefs our culture has and that we adopt from it via our parents, our playmates, or teachers, our team mates, our coaches, our leaders, the media, even song lyrics. Here, she's actually directly adressing the process itself, using language I recall from the human potential movements literature of the '60s and '70s. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Not The Doctor Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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cazzmo gets the prize here: Al knows as much as most mental health professionals about "co-dependence," "enmeshment," and "boundary diffusion." (In fact, she knows a lot more than many of them, but that's another topic.) Anyone familiar with pop psych authors like Pia Mellody, Melody Beattie, Jim Rapson, Claudia Black or Janet Woititz will easily recognize that Al is reasoning with a would-be lover who's co-dependent, enmeshed and boundary-diffused. Her metaphors =all= fit to a tee. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Not As We Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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It's probably useful to note that Al didn't have anything remotely like a "normal" adolescence. She was (reportedly) working like a fiend through most of it, and most of her dating was confined to chaste "intellectual intercourse" with much (and I mean =much=) older men who probably loved her deeply but weren't dumb enough to cross the sexual line with her (this according to both her =and= them, btw). Her first real =acted out= infatuations came pretty late -- and very much "on the fly" -- compared to most girls. The indications continue to suggest that she intellectualizes romance really well (like 65 million CDs worth), but flip-flops back and forth between very hopeful fantasy and sour reality. I know that's rude, and it may even "cost" me, but I also expect my assertion would be no real news to her at all, at least not "intellectually." Alanis may well be one of the very best interpersonal psychology professors alive, but how could she be wholly integrated in this part of her life having lived the =very= unusual life she has lived since she was ten? She's only 35, and that may not yet be enough time, even for =her= astonishingly capable little processor, to work through. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Not As We Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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One of the opinions here was that "NAW" is about "addiction and recovery." Don't be too quick to dismiss that just because the ghost of Ryan Reynolds is lurking about. Al has written about tossing her boundaries out the window before (see "Precious Illusions" written =before= she met and went plain batso for this guy) (well; that's what she does). A friend who built a guitar for her told me he thought she was "emotionally bullet-proof," but I'm not sure =that's= the case. "NAW" sounds pretty "emotional" to me, anyway. The inside-the-industry yack-yack at the time that Al and Ryan were seeing each other was =not= "nice" (about him). "He's =using= her," was the basic theme. When he went off chasing Nordic blondes, there was a lot of "I told you so" going around. What intrigues me is that Alanis produced a =startling= video for her cover of Seal's "Crazy" during that period in which she rides in a taxi with a guy who looks somewhat like Ryan and a girl who looks a =lot= like Scarlet. They all go to a club where she's playing but is also a patron. See the video for yourself to see what happens. Tell =me= Alanis is emotionally bullet proof. Think again. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Crazy (Seal cover) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al and Seal are managed by the same people and have known each other for years. I don't know if any politics were involved, but her cover of a song about human potential (if we'll just grab hold of the opportunity) is entirely consistent with her personal views, both in her lyrics and elsewhere. Believe me, this woman does =not= need to look for material elsewhere. She bangs out tunes like major leaguers use fungo bats. If she does somebody else's work, she's =into= it. |
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| Alanis Morissette – My Humps (The Black Eyed Peas cover) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The video (available all over the place online; just Google for it) is a scream. Fergie's original =way= slowed down so you can actually tell what the lyircs are about. I've no idea what Stacy's original PoV was about the topic, but she's =not= Lady Gaga, so... maybe =she= was poking at the... pokers. In whatever event, Al has a field day with it. (And Stacy evidently liked it enough to send Al a cake in the shape of a white girl's naked backside.) Alanis's treatment =is= wholly consistent with her post-modern, "pragmatic feminism." If you know her other work, "MH" fits as well with it all as her spif (if slick) adult contemporary cover of Seal's "Crazy." |
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| Alanis Morissette – Mary Jane Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I may be the one percent of Als' male fans who aren't gay. JK; I was the co-administrator of her online fan club ("AMML") in '96 and '97. She had =gobs= of straight male fans then, and having seen her recently in LA, it's clear she has even =more= of them now that she's gone for this "drop-dead gorgeous sophisticate" look she's put together since she dropped 25 pounds in a few weeks. (Al: Please, baby. Be careful with those crash diets.) Al is the thinking man's sex bomb now, and the boys are lining =up=. (Shrug.) "You're the sweet crusader... And you're on your way [written in '94 when she knew she was, as well as right on the heels of a frightening emotional lock-up]... You're the last great innocent... And that's why... I love you." Al knows about both punishing and nurturing inner parents. Think the concept is in play here? |
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| Alanis Morissette – Joining You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| BTW, "JY" may have been written for the same very close friend from childhood "Mary Jane" was written for, at least at one level. (Alanis =stated= that she wrote "MJ" for her friend, but also wrote "MJ" to herself to chill. Al has experienced several periods of extreme anxious depression (1994 and 2007 that I know of for sure). She says many of her tunes are "self-instruction pieces;" this may also be one of them. Regardless, =I= will happily take the instruction in it after a pair wake-ups in the ICU years ago. | |
| Alanis Morissette – Joining You Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I took every one of the "if we were our... " lines and ran them through the new belief system reconstruction therapy technique called "SIQR." (State the belief, turn it into a question, answer it positively, answer it negatively, then write a brief essay on what came up during the typing or non-dominant handwriting of the four sentences.) I put it on my blog at "Feel free to call a little more often." Indeed. (Will someone =puh-leeze= give this woman an honorary Psy.D. before I have to set myself on fire in front of some dean's office?) |
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| Alanis Morissette – Forgiven Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"Religious brainwashing" is the tip of the iceberg here. Al's work markes it clear she's no friend of =any= sort of "cutural dictation" and believes people would be better off if they forgot everything they ever learned that way and went back to being "like a three-year-old would do; you're going to have to eventually, anyway." This woman has read a =lot= of Eastern philosophy and agrees with the Brahmins that "pure, unadulterated perception" and "conceptual discovery" are much better ways to develop oneself than relying on someone else's opinions. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Can't Not Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al had a really nasty time of it in junior high and high school (yes; she went to public schools) where she ran into a lot of catty b******t from her classmates about being the Canadian Debbie Gibson. She's also taken a lot of guff from airheads in the media who accused her of being yet another "devised product" in her 1994-95 "reincarnation." On another level (and this is not unusual; Alanis often writes at two or more levels of allegory), she's remonstrating with her own "critical inner parent" here. "why do you affect me? why do you affect me still? why do you hinder me? why do you hinder me still? why do you unnerve me? why do you unnerve me still? why do you trigger me? why do you trigger me still?" Straight out of any good psychodynamic psychology text. (Does she =read= a lot? She's a =fiend= with a psychology book. Ask her.) |
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| Alanis Morissette – Break Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Al is =supremely= aware of her own impulsivities, especially those to try to fix a world full of culturally induced mental illness. Al can think about her own thinking (the pshrinks call this "metacognition"). She knows her attachment-seeking inner child wants to rescue anyone who'll listen to her try to explain how to stop pressing the bogus reward levers and get out of our electrified-floor Skinner Boxes (look it up). In "Break," she's trying to work through this (again). She may never get "all the way there," of course, but that's fine with me. I learn more every time she goes to bat again on pretty much any of her favorite "interpersonal dynamics" topics, and I'd hate to see her lose her motivation. |
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| Alanis Morissette – Fate Stay With Me Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| "I wanna be, wanna be, wanna be free." Alanis Nadine Morissette. 1984. 1994. 2004. Probably 2014. One her most consistent themes has been the freedom to perceive the world as it actually is rather than as culture dictates. (Somebody =please= give this woman an honorary Ph.D. before I =explode=.) | |
| Alanis Morissette – All I Really Want Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I co-managed the Alanis Morissette Mailing List online fanclub in '96 and '97. Most (of the over 900 members) saw AIRW as a straight-up an expression of Al's hope to find intimates who can communicate at her stratospheric level of both consciousness and conceptualization. It's consistent with the later "21 Things I Want in a Lover." Al started seeing (much) older men when she was =ten=, after all. Most people do not have 140+ IQs and find developmental and interpersonal psychology all that fascinating. She does. Al was aware that she actually "got hot" when she got "deeply into it" with other people as truth-telling as she is. "I don't want to dissect everything today... I don't mean to pick you apart, you see... But I ca-ya-ah-ah-ahn't =help= it." It's clear from many of her other tunes that she understands her obsession with communication. It's =really= important to her. (Or was then, anyway.) |
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| Alanis Morissette – 21 Things I Want in a Lover Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I don't know if Al =invented= "off-kilter syllabic emphasis," but she's certainly done it a lot. 21T =is= consistent with the values expressed in virtually everything else she's written since '94, so I don't think it's a send-up. The current boyfriend certainly fits many of the "qualifications." | |
| Alanis Morissette – Death Of Cinderella Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Alanis writes a lot of her lyrics from two conflicting perspectives. As in later song called "Precious Illusions," she is both the dizzy, lovestruck, culturally brainwashed, romance addict and (then) the (in this case, somewhat ruthless) commentator. The lyrics here are as somewhat inaccurate as they are everywhere else, btw. She wrote DoC for Jagged Little Pill but cut it from the master; she often did it in concert in the mid '90s. |
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| Eric Clapton – Layla Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Layla is only superficially about Patti. Layla is about finding a powerful obsession to mask off intense emotional pain. The word "co-dependence" and the concept of "romance addiction" hadn't been invented in 1970, but it applies now. | |
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