submissions
| Vampire Weekend – Diplomat's Son Lyrics
| 6 months ago
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@[sam71191:48846] No, I'm pretty sure Ezra isn't singing from a girl's pov. It's a gay love song. From the point of view of a gay man and his hetero best friend. The best friend gives signs he wouldn't mind being seduced, and the singer's character takes the opportunity. But as ever it's only a one-off, and the diplomat's son buggers off and is never seen again. |
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| Momus – A Dull Documentary Lyrics
| 6 months ago
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Anyone know the classical tune this is based on? I mean I know the TUNE, but what's it CALLED?!
Really good song actually, up there in Mome's top 100 songs that are explicitly and unambiguously about sex. |
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| Little Richard – Tutti Frutti Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[jld_slick:45623] It calms the horses down and it makes an old man feel useful in his twilight years, stop being so picky.
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[OpinionHead:45591] "four-year old acid-dropping demographic."
I think that might be the market Primus were chasing after all along. Very loyal, those four year olds, especially the acid heads.
The rest of us just take enough drugs til we feel that way.
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[OpinionHead:45590] "four-year old acid-dropping demographic."
I think that might be the market Primus were chasing after all along. Very loyal, those four year olds, especially the acid heads.
The rest of us just take enough drugs til we feel that way.
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[codeman6:45589] I hope it wouldn't smell like tacos, but it takes all sorts I suppose. Various kinds of taco are used in vagina references though, cos with all the folds and stuff it kind of looks like one. Not the full seven layers, but maybe a bit of lettuce sticking out. Also see "hamburger".
Rex getting grabbed by the kiwis and not being able to piss for a week (the uncensored version) doesn't sound like he got his nuts sucked. Others have said he might've got gonorrhoea or something, but maybe,,, I dunno maybe it's supposed to be a real beaver for that line, and it hurt his nuts.
There's a few lines where it makes more sense to imagine a real beaver, it's not a song that's completely clear all the way, and all the better for it! You can go too far with innuendo, but this song doesn't.
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[itstrue:45588] There's the "taco" reference too. Maybe her beaver didn't have seven layers but at least a couple.
Some of the "crabs" stuff might be a stretch but you can't really say for certain, some of the double-meanings aren't exactly spelled out, it's all just a load of jokes in a song that also fuggin' rocks!
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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The song works perfectly well about a woman and her semi-wild pet tree-felling rodent, but there's like a dozen references in there that it's not, that it's about her "beaver". It's just a naughty, silly, surreal song, cos it's Primus.
And yeah the video is legendary, you should see the "making of". Cos of the heavy suits, a lot of it was filmed at half-speed, including the song being played on a boom box at half-speed so the band could mime to it slowly. Then they zipped it back to normal speed and it all looked pretty good, worked really well.
You've seen the video, do you think Rex really "candied up his nose" with a candy cane? |
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| Primus – Wynona's Big Brown Beaver Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[gr8mate:45587] I disagree. Many beavers have brown fur, and some beavers can range in colour from pink to orangey to pale or even mid-brown. And by "beaver" I mean women's vaginas. Sometimes they're darker than her ordinary skin. Same with dicks and nutbags sometimes too. Even white women can have dark coloured beavers.
Besides, if her lover was black, that wouldn't be her beaver, would it?
MUSIC FACT! Shirley Manson out of garbage got an orange-y guitar cos it was "the same colour as my fanny". I paraphrase a little, but that's the point.
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| Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[Lici:42697] There's an interview, an absolutely terrible one, with a simpering Michael Aspel, from when Kate was 20. Kate was charming but Aspel was wooden and slightly creepy as is his MO. She mentioned the voice not being her natural range, but sang that way because Cathy is (spoiler!) a ghost, so she's breathy and high-pitched. |
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| Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[robcbishop:42696] Yes, I think it is. Or perhaps, that Kate looked up her birthday in one of those "Famous things that happened on certain dates" where every day of the year has it's historical events noted. So young Kate, perhaps being a bit gothic, read that she shared a birthday with Emily Bronte and decided to read Wuthering Heights, which inspired her to adapt it into song.
Or else she's the reincarnation / possessed by Bronte's ghost. It's 50:50, both possibilities are pretty strong.
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| Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[robcbishop:42695] Yes, I think it is. Or perhaps, that Kate looked up her birthday in one of those "Famous things that happened on certain dates" where every day of the year has it's historical events noted. So young Kate, perhaps being a bit gothic, read that she shared a birthday with Emily Bronte and decided to read Wuthering Heights, which inspired her to adapt it into song.
Or else she's the reincarnation / possessed by Bronte's ghost. It's 50:50, both possibilities are pretty strong.
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| The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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The thing about heads is tails and sinners being saints (leaving aside all the cops who actually are criminals) is because Lucifer means "light bringer", which is not a name that suits his character (unless you're a Gnostic or a Satanist).
"Lucifer" is the Prince of Darkness! There's your extra irony!
It's a shame there's so much fairly stupid speculation about that point, and none about laying traps for troubadours and the rest. The bit about we all killing the Kennedy brothers is a theme a comic, Shade, once pondered on. As a shamanic thing or all sorts of other ways.
It's a song with lots of hidden meaning that would benefit from knowledgeable analysis, but there isn't any in the comments I've read so far. |
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| The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[DorianMode:32903] So... You don't think the whole opposite thing could be because his name "Lucifer" means "light bringer"? And he's the Prince of Darkness?
Lucifer is his birth name, it was changed to "Satan" (or "Shaitan") meaning "adversary", which is more suitable and less ironic than "Lucifer".
Rather than all this clueless theology?
The name of the Christian god btw is either "Yahweh" / "Jehovah" or "El" / "Elohim".
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Today Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Wow, I think you've got it entirely backwards! Particularly the lines after "Can't wait for tomorrow" both times imply he's not looking forward to a long future!
Life may or may not be preferable to not being dead, but just not being dead isn't much of a high water mark, is it? Not much to aspire to!
Remember that bit in the Simpsons, where Homer resolves to live as though every day is the last day of his life? And immediately starts crying!
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Today Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Great interpretation!
I think "bored by the chore of saving face" is because he's not really suicidal. He's rock-star suicidal. Everyone in the early '90s rock scene had to pretend to be depressed, if they weren't anyway.
As you point out, people who are ready to kill themselves don't complain about things. They're above and beyond all that. Problems are seen as something that can't be helped or solved, just escaped. Anyone who ever threatened to kill themselves "because" something, isn't really suicidal. Real suicides don't threaten. As you say, suddenly cheering up is one of the bad signs!
Poor ol' Billy might have been a bit worn out and tired after all the drugs and sex he was having as a touring rock star, singing songs to people who adored him every night. It's hard work, but so is emptying bins for a living, or cleaning toilets. And toilet cleaners aren't lucky enough to be able to put their unhappiness into a form that cleans even more toilets, unlike a songwriter.
Let's all go out and buy fur coats!
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| The Smashing Pumpkins – Today Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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If things are so bad that they literally can't get worse, that would be the worst day, by definition.
I think it's the greatest day cos he's feeling happy, free, and light-hearted, because he's going to kill himself later on today, so he hasn't got any worries. Must be a nice relief.
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| OutKast – Hey Ya! Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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It seems to be about being in a pretty crap relationship, where the feelings aren't really there, but they're carrying on just because it's easier. It's more convenient not to split up, even if they ought to. He doesn't care about meeting her parents, just wants to bang her in his Caddy. Hey, he's just being honest, about the pretty low regard he has for this woman.
It's actually pretty clever. The lyrics could be a recipe for black pudding, and it'd still be a very catchy, great song, as long as they kept the bit about Polaroid picture.
nb, do NOT shake a Polaroid picture. It has no effect, except possibly making the picture blurry.
[submitting this again, because the formatting went weird previously, sorry about the multiple!] |
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| Snow – Informer Lyrics
| 8 years ago
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@[Shayno54:5259] There's white Jamaicans but they actually come from Jamaica, not Canada, eh. |
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| The Beatles – All Together Now Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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@[DeathCabbie:2394] I think the football one is a different "All together now". There's been a number of songs with the same name. Are you saying terraces of fans would gladly belt out "Pink, brown, yelloworange and BLUE I love you!" as the game was playing? Would that usually before "The ref's a wanker" or after?
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| The Beatles – All Together Now Lyrics
| 9 years ago
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I can understand after he takes his friend to bed, a bit of "pink" and "brown", but WTF are yellow, orange, and blue!?
Even if yellow is a bit of a kink, and it should really be a golden submarine, still leaves the others. Unless they're just there cos they rhymed, and Paul McCartney doesn't have any talent beyond hiding vaguely smutty gestures in his songs. |
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| UB40 – Kingston Town Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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Black people have done stuff besides being slaves for the last couple of centuries... Even besides complaining about it. Indeed apart from in certain countries, that really ought to get their culture together, slavery hasn't been an issue since a while after 1833.
This is just a song about any ordinary guy, who might be black, though there are lots of white Jamaicans, who longs for his hometown. People have been writing songs about that since the beginning. |
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| Althea & Donna – Uptown Top Ranking Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Except Bass, the beer, rhymes with er, ass, or class. Bass the sound rhymes with "ace!" or place.
Not sure a lass of such class would be seen drinking Bass.
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| Infected Mushroom – Converting Vegetarians Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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They might be vegetables but they're not plants... At a cellular level they're more like animals. And they don't have leaves, absorb sunlight, or produce their own energy. |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I wonder if that's the same Gypsy Davey out of the Tombstone Blues. The one with the blowtorch and the nice stamp collection. Possibly not. |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Also it's struck me... Hep C is not transmitted sexually. About the only way to get it is through a needle, sharing needles or injecting equipment. Donovan never, AFAIK, took heroin or used needles. He was too into pot and being herbal and organic. One of his album covers rambles on about "drugs" being bad, and "herbs" being natural and good.
And in the 1960s it would've been unlikely to be cured from Hep C. It's only possible now with a horrible year-or-more long course of Interferon, which makes one feel ill, constantly, for the whole duration. Some people quit because the cure is so painful. Even then it doesn't always work.
Hepatitis isn't like Flu, it isn't something to shake off. By the time you've got jaundice, your liver is borked beyond repair and you're hoping for a transplant. Donovan is currently 66 and looking healthy! |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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It was "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", not "tests". They weren't a series of tests in a laboratory! It was a book about the Merry Pranksters (a bunch of hippies) touring round America in a bus while taking loads and loads of drugs, especially acid.
"Mellow Yellow" was never slang for LSD. It *might* have become one, after the song, but I've never heard of it anywhere online, in print, or in person, and it's something I'm interested in. Drugs and 1960s culture, I mean.
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Saffron, as well as the extremely very very expensive yellow spice / colouring, is a girls' name. Who knows which one Donovan's so mad about?
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| Alex Winston – Velvet Elvis Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The Pixies' song was referring to "Un Chien Andalou", the film by Salvador Dali (you prob knew that right?). So it could be a reference to the film or the Pixies song. Or of course neither, or unlikelyly both.
It's great tho how Doolittle still stands out as one of the best albums ever. Every single song on it is amazing! There are a few B+s in among the A-grades, but no poor or mediocre songs on the thing!
If The Pixies were gonna write a song about falling in love with inanimate objects / song about velvet Elvis paintings, they'd make a better one than this. Be wierder too. Still, her voice and the music are nice in this song. |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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1: the song mentions bananas. 2: who the hell would write a happy, bouncy song about cirrhosis of the liver? Or hepatitis!? |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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We know that now! But teenagers are gullible! Particularly potheads! It was a rumour that went round, and people really tried it. But I think people know now that it was silly. Nobody's suggested doing it, it's just a song, dude! |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Bill Wyman went out with Mandy Smith in the 80s when she was just 13! Apparently with her mother's permission, the old slut! Mandy told a newspaper (actually it was the Daily Mail, not a newspaper) she started having sex with him at 14. He remains unimprisoned.
Up til the 1990s underage sex wasn't the huge deal it is today, underage sex was seen as "a bit naughty", there were jokes about it. Right or wrong (wrong, I think!), standards were different up til recently. Though it was seen as different from someone who only had sex with children, or prepubescent children. |
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| Donovan – Mellow Yellow Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Thing is, amphetamines aren't very "mellow". They are yellow, but I don't think that's what the song's about. If his autobiography says a vibrator, then I'd go with that. I used to think it was about the smoking bananas thing. That started with a joke piece in the Berkeley Barb, apparently.
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| Donovan – There Is A Mountain Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The Wikipedia article points out that "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is." is an old Buddhist koan to ponder. AFAIK it isn't at all to do with the underground railroad. I don't think there's such a thing as the snail-gate season!
There were a few underground railroad songs, and I think that, when one first hears about their hidden meaning, one sometimes feels compelled to "discover" hidden meaning in other songs when it's not there.
Donovan wrote the song himself, in the 1960s. He's Scottish. So he doesn't have a big connection to American slavery. It would also be his style, I think, if he were going to write a song about slavery, he would make it more obvious.
I like to imagine Donovan in his country cottage, looking out across his garden, past the gate, which has a carved wooden snail on the handle of the bolt, out to the mountain, which keeps appearing then not appearing. Donovan is quite pleased with this, as he drinks his tea. |
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| The Divine Comedy – Songs Of Love Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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The line with "masturbate" / "hibernate" used the first one in some versions of the song. I think it's Mr Hannon in his youth as a Morrissey-listening artistic teen, crippled by his sensitivity, quite wishing he was out chasing girls round bus-stops instead of writing poems about imaginary ones. Makes more sense with "masturbate" in there.
The Smiths / Morrissey did a couple of songs on that theme. |
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