| My Chemical Romance – The Kids From Yesterday Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| To me, this is their farewell song. It was released as their final single a year after Planetary was for a reason. That reason has only become clear now that they have broken up--that is, I only really heard the music when my heart begun to break. | |
| The Killers – Spaceman Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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I could be way off here, but I've always interpreted this song as Brandon kind of lamenting his fame as an entertainer and what it's done to his life, not liking the sort of otherworldly position of being an icon instead of an average person, but explaining how he's sort of come to appreciate it. Here's a little play-by-play: "It started with a low light, Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed, And then they took my blood type, It left a strange impression in my head." ---> At first the possibility of being famous was just kind of an appealing mirage, but once he got successful right away with Hot Fuss and became an instant celebrity, he was immediately "ripped from his bed" - torn away from what was comfortable and familiar to him, and he had the eyes of the world probing at him and looking into his personal life (taking his blood type). And obviously, as is the point of this song, all of this left a strange impression in his head.. fame feels incredibly disconcerting and unusual. "You know that I was hoping, That I could leave this star-crossed world behind, But when they cut me open, I guess that changed my mind." --->First two lines are self-explanatory, the stars referring to other media "stars." He wasn't comfortable with this world and wanted to go back to his regular life. But he eventually got relatively used to fame, having his mind changed when he was "cut open" - again, metaphor for people looking into him as a person more than he's comfortable with. "And you know I might Have just flown too far from the floor this time, Cause they calling me by my name" --->Self-explanatory under this interpretation. He's nervous that he's too far-removed from what he was used to for so much of his life, and an example of that is hearing people calling him by his name - hearing people, like me, who he has never met or heard of talk about Brandon Flowers as if they're familiar with him. I imagine it'd be a really strange feeling to have tons of people you've never even heard of constantly examining and looking at you. Pretty creepy. "And the zipping white light beams Disregards the bombs and satellites" --->What I view the "light" as meaning, here and in the very opening line, is the luster and appeal of fame - the way it seems like a perfect life to have everybody looking at you and recognizing you and your work. The glamour and glitz of the celebrity life are what the "light beams" are - but that perfect portrait of fame disregard the fact that it bombs your old life, taking away what's familiar, and the satellites that are people constantly orbiting and watching you. "That was the turning point, That was one lonely night" --->I don't know what the "night" he refers to is specifically, but it's clearly some point at which he stepped over the line and couldn't go back to his old life, whether it's when he signed a record deal, or first heard a crowd calling his name and realized how creepy it was, or when his first album got successful, or whatever. It's some "lonely night" when he first realizes that fame is actually a pretty crappy, /lonely/ thing where nobody knows you anymore or can separate the man from the image. And that night was the turning point, when he realized he couldn't go back to his old, preferable, relaxed life. "The star maker says, "It ain't so bad"" --->The "star maker" would be agents and record companies and whatnot that just want to gain profit off of other people's work at the expense of others. This is the line that really sold me on this interpretation. The star maker says it ain't so bad.. that's a total descriptor for a "star maker", someone who make a living creating celebrities, telling those prospective stars that it's not so bad, that it's a great thing to be a star. "The dream maker's going make you mad The spaceman says, "Everybody look down Its all in your mind"" --->The "dream maker" is the same person at the "star maker" - the person who you think is going to give you your wildest dreams by making you famous is really going to "make you mad" by putting you into a pretty shitty life. Brandon, obviously, is the spaceman - the one who has been subdued by the "white light" of fame's appeal and sucked in by the star maker, and ripped from his familiar world, cast into a mysterious space among the other stars who have experienced the same. He's warning listeners who want to be famous to look down - look down at the regular world they're used to, because that's where they'll be really happy, because the idea of fame being a noble pursuit is "all in their mind." "Well now I'm back at home, and, I'm looking forward to this life I live," --->After the initial tours and interviews and everything when the Killers are first launched into the mainstream with "Hot Fuss," Brandon returns home as the initial explosion of popularity dies out and plans to go back to his ordinary life.. "You know its gonna haunt me, So hesitation to this life I give." --->..but the fame he has still haunts him, people still know him as the guy from the Killers wherever he goes, and he can never shake that label, so he's giving, once again, advice to listeners to hesitate if they're going to pursue the kind of life he has. Which goes into the next line. "You think you might cross over, You're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, You better look it over, Before you make that leap" --->If you think you want to "cross over" into fame, torn between the "devil" that is the evils of fame and the "deep blue sea" of being just another face in the crowd, well.. you better look it over before you make that leap. Think long and hard, because you can't go back. "And you know I'm fine, But I hear those voices at night sometimes, They justify my claim" --->He's mostly accustomed to the fame he's gotten over the past years. He's adjusted to it and it's become normal - he's fine. But sometimes at night, the old feelings of disconcertion at his stardom come back to him - he still hears those voices at night - and they justify the claims he's making in this song that you should look it over before you make that leap, the claims that the dream maker's gonna make you mad. "And the public don't dwell my transmission Cause it wasn't televised" --->Because he doesn't openly broadcast all of this about his fame, people don't understand it. The public doesn't dwell on the meaning he's trying to transmit to them in a song like this, because it isn't televised, it isn't openly broadcast. Obviously the world of TV where stardom is the ultimate pursuit isn't going to talk about things like the message he is sending here. "My global position systems are vocally addressed; They say the Nile used to run from east to west, They say the Nile used to run, from east to west." --->Skipping past the chorus, we get the bridge, and I have to say that I don't understand the Nile lines. I think in the first line, "vocally addressed" just refers to him singing and talking publicly - what everyone hears from him, and his "global position systems" just refer to his personality, the things that make him what he is, the things that position and guide him in his life. So that line is referring to him singing, in fame, about what guides him as a normal person. I have no idea what those enigmatic Nile lines are talking about, though. ~~~~ Then the song closes with him reminding us once more that he's fine and okay with his fame, but that he still gets nervous when he hears the voices of doubt at night sometimes, and it closes with the repetition of the line "It's all in my mind" - reminding people one last time that the perception of fame as an inherently good thing is totally a mental construct that they should evaluate. That's how I've always taken this song to mean. I think every line really points to this song being about Brandon initially hating his fame, growing to reluctantly accept it, but still warning people to "look it over before they make that leap." The idea of being abducted by aliens and cast amongst the ~stars~ as a metaphor for being ripped out of his normal life by fame and thrust into another world is actually pretty clever, and in terms of the lyrics, this is my favorite Killers song as a result. Really subtle and clever song here, but I think the meaning is clear. Of course, the beauty is that we can interpret songs any way we want.. this is just my perspective :) |
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| Bruce Springsteen – Lost In The Flood Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Testing whether I can comment on songs. It doesn't let me do so a lot of the time. | |
| Blue October – The End Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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That last comment was supposed to be a reply to someone on the first page, no idea why it posted here. Anyways this song is good but disturbing. Most disturbing is some of the comments here and in the YouTube videos for it, though... |
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| Blue October – The End Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I always assumed that he blindfolded the guy, and made the girl watch as he shot the guy | |
| Soul Asylum – Black Gold Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I always interpreted it as being about the Gulf War. Seemed obvious to me. While bombast's interpretation is interesting, and I always enjoy looking at songs in a new light, I definitely don't look at the song as being about that. | |
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