| Bright Eyes – Tereza and Tomas Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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The song is NOT just about leaving material possessions behind, or leaving the hustle of life with a lover. To me, it seems to be about death. I think Conner is trying to persuade his lover into a suicide pact. I see every line as a metaphor for death. Some of the more obvious metaphors are: - “Let’s sail away to where the water goes, some endless open space” - “Don’t be afraid of where we’ll go, my love I promise you will be fine” - “Let’s sail away like a photograph, fading to all white It’s finally all right” - “Let’s sail away disappearing in a mist” - “Or vanish from a road somewhere, like Tereza and Tomas Suspended in this bliss” I think this song more accurately represents desperation to hold on to the love the singer has. I believe Conner is suggesting suicide, because, as he sees it, they will be “suspended” eternally in the bliss they have at the moment. When, if they continue to live, the world would certainly slowly erode the bliss they share. I also think it’s more romantic/poetic when looked at from this angle. |
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| Bright Eyes – Waste of Paint Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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If you notice, while the first three verses talk about other people, the last three are autobiographical. He also uses the conjunction “so”. This tells me that the first three verses are independent stories, but the last three are a continuing story. In them, he notices his roommates perfect love; he goes and hangs out at the train depot (I think it may be to get away from the perfect love, which must be aggravating to see but not be able to attain (but that’s speculation)); while there, he loses his convictions; he tries to find peace of mind through religion but cannot; thus he intensely spews his anguish in the last few lines. While I think the majority of the comments here are accurate, I think a lot of people are overlooking the fact that the last three verses are connected. I think this song is about love being a promise that isn’t always awarded, but I think he extends it to say that other than love, there is nothing. He expresses the pointlessness of idealistic convictions, and he can’t rationally accept that he has an eternal soul. I personally noticed that both of these things are things that people tend to find meaning from, but for him now, they only hide the truth. In this song, love is the only thing that generates meaning for life. The tragedy is that he can’t find love either. So he sees life as pointless. |
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| Bright Eyes – Waste of Paint Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I don't think he would try so hard to give imagery to the cathedral (which is obviously a church) or the choir practice in the assumed church, or use angels and heaven as adjectives to describe his desires, if he was not talking about religion specifically. It’s cool if you have your own opinion of the meaning of a song, but you really shouldn’t overlook something that the artist is smacking you in the face with; even if you really wished it wasn’t the meaning. I mean he says “absent god”... how is that not religious? | |
| Ben Howard – Keep Your Head Up Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| It’s about a guy that is in a relationship that consumes him, and when he gets out of it he notices how far away from himself he had become. | |
| Bright Eyes – Hot Knives Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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The first verse is about infidelity, the second is about sexual promiscuity, and the third is about drug use. Like a lot of Conner’s songs, the verses are independent stories but have a common thread. In this song, the common thread is people’s need to escape the grind of life through some kind of vice. That’s what I think anyway. |
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| Bright Eyes – Bad Blood Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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“No news that's good news, Someone's gonna break. See things change, I've been changing everything. It's peaceful, The pitch black, When the last light on goes out.” “I'm stranded in my bed, So I think about the bad luck, The bad blood, That may have come between two good souls. That's one hell of an offering” I think this is an answer to someone asking how you are, after a break up. “So take these gifts that have been given, yes And ended up with an alphabet But some words are too wrong to define Now the whole world is waking up A ribbon cut for the opening Yeah, we all knew that day would arrive” I think he is saying, take these gifts, including the “offering” described in the earlier stanzas, and you will have everything. Just as the alphabet is every word that exists, he had given his ex everything that he cared about. Then, I think he says that even though I gave you everything–sometimes giving everything isn’t enough. I think the lines about the world waking, and the ribbon cutting, are about being single again, maybe? And he says “we all knew this day would arrive”, which I took to mean that, whatever it was that made them break up, was noticed long before the breakup happened. “Up all night, all upset, outside's growing light No breakfast, just not much of an appetite So be cool and believe in the things you haven't learned 'Cause you've lost and it's gone but it will return” Now, I think this may be the other side of the breakup, maybe? I think it sounds like the person is obviously upset with the breakup, but they seem more optimistic. “So be cool and believe in the things you haven't learned,”–it is my favorite btw. I think it’s related to a bad breakup because, when you just had a bad break up, you have to continually believe that things will get better, even though your logic at the time is trying to convince you that it won’t. Now it's all laid out in front of you And maps have murdered the mystery Are you still too shy to describe? Now the whole world is waking up A ribbon cut for the opening Yes, finally the day has arrived” This seems to me to just continue the optimistic view of the breakup. I think the first two lines are saying that now that the person is single they have all these options for happiness, and hopefully the maps they had made in earlier relationships will get rid of any uncertainty there may be when deciding which option to choose. Then, I think the third line re-introduces uncertainty. “So receive (the good news) and rejoice (yeah, let's sing) Fill your hands with something tangible And fly your love like a flag And destroy the desire for that which is impossible and accept what you get with a smile” This is the motto of the song I think.("Fill your hands with something tangible" is pretty cool. I think he means occupy yourself with someone you can love, instead of occupying yourself with things like desire or lust or something) The last bit is kinda like a, get back up on the horse, and be happy about it, because it’s the only option we have, type of thing. |
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| Bright Eyes – It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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"I guess your kind of truth is just the ghost of your lies" This line is the best in the song. It is so poetic. I think he is saying that, for her, truth comes from lies. In other words, she lied to him a lot, but he can see the truth when the lies are dead. Perhaps it takes some time, or perhaps the lies are transparent from the beginning. Either way he gets truth from the lies. (which can obviously be very cruel) |
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| Bright Eyes – Approximate Sunlight Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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As for the verse about the drive by, I believe he is discussing the unnatural state of humanity. I think he is paralleling the Quinceañera, which I take to be modern human’s delusion of what the universe is, with the primal fear of being killed. Such opulence, such misery Unwinding, unwinding The opulence is what we want the world to be and the misery is the true world. Oberst is saying, although society controls the two, in this instance they are “unwinding” and returning to the disorder they would naturally be in, and in that instance “you are how you were when you were real” |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – A Lack of Color Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I always assumed the songs basic meaning was summed up in the phrase "this is fact not fiction". The first couple stanzas about vision and color are just lesser known facts helping to support the idea that the rest of the songs statements are facts Whatever it means it sounds great and and begs the question, how does he come up with this stuff? |
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