| Toto – Africa Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[Allears12:26216] | |
| Jason Isbell – Flying Over Water Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I get goosebumps just READING these lyrics. | |
| CeeLo Green – Forget You Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This is simply one of those "perfect" songs. It is uplifting, a little bit bitter, a great dance song, what is there NOT to like? | |
| They Might Be Giants – You Don't Like Me Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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My take on this song: The narrator is a guy with low self esteem, he sees/kind-of-knows a woman. He may only know her from social media/Facebook, yet he is intrigued anyway. She is his "crush". His self-esteem is so low that he never bothers speaking to her, because he figures she will never like him. The laundry list of her "likes" fits in beautifully with Facebook. The following can be gleaned from Facebook: Bollywood, snow machines, daguerreotypes, Beauty contests, Terminator II, and William Tell, Woody Harrelson, and Nirvana The following can be gleaned from observation/interaction: cigarettes, swimming laps, potato chips, cruise control, booster rockets, cutting with a fork, the morning, William Tell, shadow puppets, Reading in the bath, baseball caps. It's a weird, beautiful song, and this is why I'm a Super Fan of TMBG. So beautiful. |
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| They Might Be Giants – Old Pine Box Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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I think this song is about someone who is drinking and/or drugging, and they refuse to get help and seek treatment. As a result this person is losing his sanity, and losing his family and friends. "Old Pine Box" is usually equated with a cheap coffin, but in this song it is used to tell the listener that he is a shell of his former self. The substance abuse and crazy thinking has left him like an empty box, and not long until he ends up dead, inside a pine box. This song reminds me of a former friend who quit his $90K/year job, took early retirement, now he just smokes pot in his fully paid off house, thinking that the world is working against him, that Bush did 9/11, and that girls don't like him because he's not rich. The ugly truth is that his constant drinking and pot smoking have left his brain screwed up, obviously nuts, he was better off than most people but he is too comfortable in his thinking that it's society's fault that his life is a mess. Breaking down the lyrics: They tried the handcuffs but they won't lock (was arrested, but thinks the laws are unjust) Electrical courses but they won't shock (now archaic electroshock therapy, or forced AA meetings) You pulled the fire alarm (some crazy ass behavior/incident) You tried punching a cop (self explanatory) You're just too tired to stop (comfortable with his level of drinking, quitting is too much work) You old pine box. You old pine box With your head full of rocks (stupid thoughts, etc) Sharp like a cracked flowerpot (kind of smart, but now just a crazy drug addled loon) Your old paper hat On your skull full of bats There's no percentage in bats They called relations but they declined (family has given up on him) They called the fanclub but they resigned (old friends have given up on him) Left your car in a field (drunk driving, went off the road, walked home) And some questions behind Your mom thinks you're out of your mind (self explanatory) |
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| The Gaslight Anthem – Great Expectations Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I love this song, but I bristle when TGA is described as a "punk band." They're not punk, are they? I also love The Hold Steady, which seem to overlap TGA a little bit, my TGA friends all hate THS. Why is that? |
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| They Might Be Giants – Contrecoup Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I agree with anakoluthon: it's "synonym", not 'sentiment'. (For a while I thought it was cinnamon) |
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| They Might Be Giants – The Mesopotamians Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Neither Paul McCartney nor any of the rest of Beatles died of a car crash, right? Sorry, just saw TMBG in Fairfield, CT, and I'm overanalyzing everything |
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| Tenacious D – Kyle Quit The Band Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Who/what are Kato and Nash? | |
| R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Hyperbully: see? you're doing what the song warns against. I brought up "racism" as the new McCarthyism, and in your mind, that is the same as Obamacare. Your "us versus them" attitude needs some adjustment. "Have no sense of decency sir?" Also, McCarthy was a democrat, who later became a Republican. |
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| R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| * by jingo (stupid iPhone) | |
| R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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The message of this song can be reversed from the earlier interpretations, with McCarthy playing the P.C. Police, jumping to conclusions based on little evidence, with "racism" being the new witch hunt. Obama has already shot himself in the foot with the Cambridge police flap, and now Shirley Sherrod. Sharpton would be the new McCarthy, sharpening stones. And all those who voted for Obama and "change", "Look who bought the myth! By gong, buy America" |
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| The Doors – Riders On The Storm Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The Doors annoy me to no end. All those self indulgent keyboard solos.. Enough already! This song makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and not in a good way. The "squirming like a toad" line is so amateurish. While there WAS some talent there, I firmly believe that Jim Morrison is as famous as he is due to the fact that he was good looking and that he died young. We just go crazy for a good looking corpse, imbuing them with qualities that they may or may not have had. |
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| The Hold Steady – Sequestered in Memphis Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I just picked up on that as well. The chick could be nervous about the car, because she stole it. Also, the place where she cat sits could have just been some place she broke into. I need to sit down with the lyrics to ALL of the THS songs to figure out the Holly/Hoodrat/Hallelujah story, with Charlemagne and Gideon. Does THIS song fit into that story arc? Are the cops asking about Holly? And is it Charlemagne, or Gideon, or somebody else who is being interviewed in this song? |
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| Elton John – Levon Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Flenderson nailed it. Exactly what I was thinking. Levon and Jesus are both good people, just of different generations. "Levon" is my dad, and I am "Jesus"; family business and everything. |
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| The Hold Steady – Barfruit Blues Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| The first appearance of Holly/Hallelujah? Craig Finn is either a genius or a genius... | |
| The Beach Boys – I Get Around Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"I'm a real cool head, I'm making real good bread." Brilliant! |
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| The Hold Steady – Magazines Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The girl clearly drinks too much, but no one cares. At "the building dedications", everyone loves her, despite the fact that she's drunk. I love that chick. Her name is "Kathryn", in my life at least. |
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| The Hold Steady – Slapped Actress Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| Absolute brilliance. The swan song band of Generation X..... I dost love thee, Craig Finn.... | |
| The Hold Steady – Barfruit Blues Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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" systems are all dripping wet with gristle piss and swizzlesticks. mary's got a bloody nose from sniffing margarita mix. she licked her lower lip and then she kissed that halleluiah chick. she came off kind of spicy but she tasted like those pickle chips. we thought she was a dancer but her steps they made the records skip. " Great rhyme scheme. Relentless. Cole Porter-esque. Very clever. Very wordy. I love it. |
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| The Hold Steady – First Night Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I get goosebumps just READING the lyrics. | |
| The Hold Steady – Sequestered in Memphis Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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It sounds to me like he is being questioned for a serious felony, like murder (or rape, but I think murder). He admits to having sex with her. (DNA evidence) The cops what to know "exactly what bathroom". (possible crime scene site) He has to keep repeating his story. (to see if he changes his story) He's getting pretty sick of this interview. (interrogations are long, drawn-out ordeals) He describes her car, a Mustang, might be a rental, satellite radio. (all details the cops would want to know, cross reference, and enter into evidence/use to eliminate the suspect.) He is innocent, the song is too cheery for him to have killed her.... I just figured this out right now. I've always loved this song, but didn't understand. Kind of strange... |
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| Cake – Short Skirt/Long Jacket Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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My spin on it: He starts out with generalizations, like he's looking for a girl with certain characteristics. "Mind like a diamond", "knows what's best", etc. These traits could apply to any number of women. However, the give away is in the second verse, when he mentions a specific girl he has ACTUALLY MET: "At CitiBank we will meet accidentally, we start to talk when she borrows my pen." This isn't some girl he's dreamed up in his mind, it is a girl he met in person at some point, at CitiBank. He saw her at the bank, with her fingernails, and of course her "short skirt and long jacket". He was thiking: "Wow, what an amazing looking chick." Then she walks up to him, and borrows his pen, and he is flabbergasted. Maybe they talk about her name, or her car, or both, and then that's it. It was just a brief encounter, nothing more than a 1 minute conversation. However, that chick really made an impression, and he can't stop thinking about her. Hence he dreams up all of the other stuff, like her prosperity, her ball busting ability, etc. For example, I was once on the NYC subway, and I notice an amazing looking chick get on the train, I was thinking "Wow, SO out of my league, I wonder what her story is." She sees that I'm carrying all these ridiculous shopping bags, and she walks over, sits next to me, and asks me a bunch of funny, flirty questions. She flirted with me, teased me a little bit, and then she got off the train, and I never saw her again. Now, that little 3-minute encounter was so serendipitous, so delicious, so freaking awesome, even though I really didn't know anything about her. To "prolong the magic" of that brief encounter, I could dream up things about her, like how she "uses a machete to cut through red tape", or her dreamt up talent for "touring the facility, and picking up slack." Just my two cents. |
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| Cake – Hem of Your Garment Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Kind of a long explanation, so bear with me: "The Man of LaMancha", is the musical version of Don Quixote. Quixote is insane, and he thinks of himself as a knight. He sees a windmill, mistaking it for a four armed monster. He tilts (jousts) against the windmill, and gets his ass kicked. He thinks he lost because he was not properly knighted. He determines that he needs to be knighted by royalty/nobility, and he sees Aldonza, (a prostitute) as royalty. He has his 'squire' Sancho deliver a message to Aldonza: "I beg thee grant that I may kiss The nethermost hem of thy garment..." OK, that said, it still leaves the meaning of the song up for debate. At first I thought this song was railing against actors/celebrities, how they are superficial, there is no soul beneath, possibly insane. But then I got a bit Shakespearean, EVERYONE is an actor: (from "As You Like It") "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts," So, the author feels like he is faking his way through life, that his soul is rotten, despite outward appearances. Another view is that the author views himself as insane, detached from reality, sociopathic as others have theorized, however, I go with my Shakespearean interpretation, because crazy people usually don't realize they're crazy, especially, if you're crazy like Don Quixote. |
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| Cake – She'll Hang the Baskets Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I interpret this song quite literally. There's a relationship between a man and a woman, and the author knows that it is doomed, from his own experience, because the guy can only see the world through his own eyes. Sort of like "Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus" (trite reference, I know): Women tend to be "home-makers", performing little decorative things such as hanging baskets on the walls. Men are almost incapable of appreciating such things. Smart men will act interested; stupid men will not. It's inevitable that the relationship will fail, the guy doesn't appreciate the things she does, like hanging baskets on the wall. The guy makes half-assed efforts, such as buying Turtle Wax, but it is still doomed. Girl leaves, guy goes back to being a bachelor slob, the baskets end up on the floor. Literally. (I've lived through similar stuff. My ex-wife literally hung baskets on the wall. I have given my married friends' simple advice; simple things, like to compliment their wives when they change their hair styles. They never do it. I once complimented a friend's wife on her new hairstyle, and she kissed me on the lips, right in front of her husband. He didn't get it.) |
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| Cake – Palm Of Your Hand Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I view the house as a relationship. The chick leaves, thus destroying the house. Happened to me, she was seemingly 100% in love with me, then she was gone, and there wasn't a god damned thing I could do about it. I felt very betrayed, "How can you say..." I realize my personal experience has colored my interpretation of this song, but that's how I see it. I love the line: "Where you stand now were tools in the basement." Side note: My ex-wife hung the baskets on the wall. Literally. |
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