| Joanna Newsom – Be a Woman Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
think shes singin about the natural order of things, life/death. the limp blossom reminds her of dying. like the old woman who swallowed the bird to catch the spider to catch the fly. If she kills the spider she kills the bird. The tone makes it seem like shes sorrowful about the unnecessary death she imposes, like shes saying be a woman about these things, grow up, its only a wee harmless spider! but also the bird is lower in the pecking order to man so could be 'blessing' them for sustaining her. I dont know, such a heart wrenching song though |
|
| Joanna Newsom – Kingfisher Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
This song is definitely an elegy lamenting the dead who suffered the eruption of Vesuvius, Pompeii in AD 79...worshiping volcanoes...being immobilized...obsidian and all the other volcanic references! In the first stanza her awareness of the tragedy seems to have prompted existential questioning, she goes on to direct the questions to the victims that lay buried still, almost writing from the perspective of witnessing the tragedy first hand....using the collective 'our' when asking... "...preparing for when the bombs hit..." "..I had a dream.." Here is the personification of the volcano who has the dream. Mother earth who see's it as this harmful canker, takes her knife/wave-earthquake and rid's herself of the blister. "spreading in a circle like an atom bomb" equates with the amount of destruction caused by the blood/lava. The imaginary of the blood having no bounds soaking and felling everything in its path is really beautiful in its symmetry to the lava flowing in the same manner. The last stanza is the realization of just how imminent life is, every second is bringing us closer to our last hour and we have no say in our fate, nature will do as it pleases, regardless. I guess it also fits that in ancient Greece the body of a Kingfisher could ward of thunderbolts and storms so perhaps thats why she chose this particular bird. And where the Kingfisher gets mentioned she seems to be asking something of it. "Kingfisher ..sound the alarm....Kingfisher...cast your fly" Lastly, I love the ending line "Kingfisher, lie with the lion" I think this represents a golden age, where everything is finally at peace. its similar to some part in the bible about the wolf laying with the lamb. the natural order of things ceases and a type of symbiosis occurs that dictates a harmonious co-existence between all living things. There are other parts which I don't think are too cryptic and were probably just a natural progression of telling the story. |
|
| Andrew Bird – Nomenclature Lyrics | 13 years ago |
|
This could just be a projection because of my own thoughts and views on the world. Anyshoo.. I think Bird is talking about a disdain he has for modern society and the decadence and destruction thats synonymous with it. The first line is considering all the other alternatives there are. Instead of selling the coats like we do in our consumerist world, we could be making our own (this encompassing all the other things we could do ourselves also and referring to other cultures who still do or a time when we did, while living more harmoniously with nature) and yet we don't because its not 'the easy way' Its much easier now for us to 'pay to play' as it were. Then he is telling us its time we collectively asked for this to be changed. He cleverly referenced See'n'say here, asking them to bring us an alternative vernacular to what we have and know. Our scientific taxonomy is not the only naming system there is. Other groups of peoples have their own taxonomy, which again I believe he's referring to other cultures and how their ways of living are in a lot of respects superior to our superfluous occident ones. Appealing for a different nomenclature is appealing for a different way of viewing and interacting with the world. Colours bleeding to grey to 'ones that don't exist in nature' i took to mean our monotonous man-made colours that we've painted over nature with. 'A Nomenclature is washing away' is referring to the 'things' that we've given whole naming systems to, slowly becoming extinct ironically because of us which thus renders our catalogues redundant and our efforts worthless.'its washing us all away' then could loosely be talking about global warming effects and our impending doom! ...perhaps? |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.