submissions
| Okkervil River – The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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This reminds me of the short story "The Conversion" by Saul Bellow. The title is obvious, but the story too. It's about a kid in Hebrew school struggling with his beliefs and his oppressive rabbi. This is also a story that deals with confusion and depression, like jdubs brought up. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Piece Of Dirt Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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Fairly obvious one, unless I'm missing something. Somebody, a sailor, yearns to be at sea again but can't be for some reason. Oddly enough, I can see this song as a prequel to the frame narrative of the Decemberists' "Mariner's Revenge Song", with the latter song's speaker's mother being the woman mentioned in this one. I'm certain that's purely incidental, but I thought it was a fun coincidence. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Particle Man Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I like namingway's idea about science, religion, fate and the common man - religion shits on whoever it can but nothing messes with fate. I have my own interpretation though. Triangle Man represents literary devices (like the "love triangle"). And sort of like in the movie "Stranger Than Fiction", it looks at how people within the literature (Person Man) are affected by that. Triangle Man does start a sort of love triangle himself, although, of course, it's based on fighting and not romantic attraction. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – I Palindrome I Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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The song is about a son who is very open about his desire for his mother to die. The bullet proof dress is what it's saying she needs to wear to protect herself, and when the speaker mentions the medical zig-zag that he has control over, he's thinking about sabotaging her while she's in the hospital. It's sort of like a palindrome, them going back and forth, and of course the song is filled with palindromes. An interesting line is when the mother says "Son, I am able." Abel was another character who was killed by a member of his own family. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – The World's Address Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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I think that's right. The song hints to that a few times pretty explicitly. They say "a sad pun" - this certainly is a pun. And when he says "I'll repeat it for those who may not have already guessed" he's saying that there is one thing for people to guess that will make them realize what it's about, and hopefully saying the title - or saying "the world's a dress" - one more time will make it all clear. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – Kiss Me, Son Of God Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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It's a critique of corporatism and greed. I just saw a TMBG show and John Flansburgh said he was a bit of communist, and that makes sense here. The speaker of this song dismisses the "exploited working class" which Communists are wont to dwell on. It's not about a religious figure per se, but it is a satire about society's religious-like devotion to successful corporations. |
submissions
| They Might Be Giants – James K. Polk Lyrics
| 12 years ago
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A lot of TMBG's songs do, I think, have deep meanings, but I also like that a few times (definitely with this and "Istanbul") they seem to just take some event that interests them and write a song about it. Very straightforward and entertaining. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Damn These Vampires Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I never thought of the heroin idea, but now that I think of it, it makes a lot of sense. The imagery of a needle as vampire's teeth is pretty interesting, and that's just what the song sounds like to me. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Rox in the Box Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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This song is about mining and, more generally, the working class and its dangers. It's also, after first listen of the new album, my favorite song on it. |
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| The Decemberists – Rise to Me Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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It seems like somebody is talking to natural features like they're people and warning them about environmental destruction. That would seem to fit with the theme of the album. But I could certainly be wrong. I'm used to taking ideas from other people to form my own, so being the first comment is new ground for me. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Shanty for the Arethusa Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I really have to read Under Milk Wood. Apparently several Decemberists songs are based directly on it.
One more thing. I'm not sure if this means anything, but HMS, the prefix for all British ships, stands for Her/His Majesty's Ship/Submarine, and the name of the album is "Her Majesty the Decemberists". So maybe that's connected. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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The song is about priorities shifting. Each of these dreams represents a different stage in life where there are different prioritoes. In the firs one, we have a young man, a soldier. Like somebody said earlier, Birkenai was a festive town before the Nazis turned it into a death camp. The guy is reminiscing about that - starting with "I recall in spring", and what he recalls is everything below, including laying with his girl. And while he'd love to have all that stuff back, his job as a soldier is more important to him at the moment.
The next part has a middle-aged builder. This guy has a happy medium, using his job for the benefit of the girl by building her a nice balustrade. I think that the song was named after this part because it seems like the most odeal circimstance, one of a good compromise.
So now we get to the tired old man. What this guy really wants to do is just die, and be buried with his marionettes, all of the loves of his earlier life. But he forgoes all that to be with his "soiled teenage girlfriend", seemingly because they're on the run from some crime (somewhat irrelevant but interesting idea: maybe someone's trying to prosecute him for war crimes from back in the good old days as a Nazi soldier?). But this time he totally gives up on what he wants to do to satisfy his love. The symbolism with the marinettes is also important. He wants to be with this girl rather than with them, who represent all of his other pastbloves including, presumably, the two already mentioned.
Wrote this on an iPhone, so sorry for any typos. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – The Island: Come and See; The Landlord's Daughter; You'll Not Feel the Drowning Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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One more thing. I don't think the Japanese theme really does carry through "The Crane Wife". "Shankill Butchers", for example, is about murderers in Northern Ireland. And this one, it's about exploration and, without knowing too many specifics of Japanese history, that could be plausible. But the giveaway is the mention of "bayonets". The Japanese lived a lot of their history without the use of firearms, so bayonets would have been an irrelevant concept to them. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – The Island: Come and See; The Landlord's Daughter; You'll Not Feel the Drowning Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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"The Tempest" popped out to me as soon as I saw Sycorax's name. I didn't think of the Caliban rape, but that does make sense. This is an incredibly scary song - towards the end of "Come and See" you get this intense feeling of foreboding. I'd like to figure out the Patagon reference - the Patagons were mythical 9-feet tall men supposedly seen by early European explorers in Chile, in the region which is now Patagonia. Creeps me out to be honest, but I don't know how it fits. A previous commenter said that Colin referred to a book called "In Patagonia". That was about a totally different part of the song, but maybe it carries. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Eli, the Barrow Boy Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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This song is all about regret. Eli feels that he let down his lover somehow, by not treating her well enough while she was alive and by letting her die. The thing about wanting to buy a fine gown, that's all about regret. And then when he kills himself (which I think he did), he's showing regret for everything he thinks he did badly. But he comes back as a ghost because he regrets the suicide and he has come to realize after the fact that he could have served his lover better by continuing to be on Earth. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Sixteen Military Wives Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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This song doesn't fit in "Picaresque" at all. I'm not a huge fan of it. It seems to be just an anti-war song to me. Maybe there's more to it, but I don't think it's by any means one of the Decemberists' deeper songs. |
submissions
| Bright Eyes – Shell Games Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I think the album cover thing has to be true. I wouldn't have noticed it myself, but that's too uncanny to be a coincidence. So to me, that, along with a lot of other things in this song, suggest that it is about his music career.
According to Wikipedia, the shell game is a game that is supposed to appear as a gambling game but it actually a fraud. Maybe he feels like he's being frauded? This would go along with the verse about when he was a teenager, where he talks about having lost his innocence to the music industry.
I don't know what the "heavy love" part is about, but I don't think it's about his fans. I certainly could be wrong, but that seems a little corny for something written by Conor Oberst. |
submissions
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Today's Lesson Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I agree with the prostitute-pimp suggestion. It's about a young girl who's learning all her lessons the hard way, like the one about the exploitation of the working class. This Sandman guy is obviously corrupting her. I also think there are drugs involved here, all the references to sleep and dreaming (like the guy being called Mr. Sandman in the first place) could easily be drug haze. That whole verse about Mr. Sandman lustily entering Janie's dreams? Could definitely be a druggy haze that she thought was a dream. |
submissions
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – We Call Upon the Author Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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I also think there's some particular meaning in referring to God as "the author". The whole song is sort of tinted towards literature, which goes along with Cave's father's profession and passion. Cave particularly mentions literary figures like Berryman and Hemingway who were depressed, and I think he's saying that God was a depressed author who put all of his depression into his work like those other writers would have. Just my two cents... |
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