| Belle & Sebastian – I Love My Car Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I hope and am pretty sure that the title is a play on "I Love My Jean", a song by Robert Burns (who lived close to where Stuart grew up). I love the line about the rat making his bed out of novelettes. | |
| Alessi's Ark – Over the Hill Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I think this might be my favourite Alessi song, at least lyrically. "I'm English, so bear with me..." As for my interpretation - jetting off to America or Canada (across the Atlantic, 'the water between us') and falling for somebody who's perfect, but taken. She knows she can't have him, but she'd still follow him everywhere with this unspoken, unspeakable adoration. |
|
| Tired Pony – The Good Book Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I like that you can read the "half-full glass" as either alcoholism or a flicker of optimism, considering the rest of this song is pretty bleak. Can anybody shed some light on it? It's awfully, fantastically vague. I feel like it's two people, not necessarily a couple, being reunited after ten years and realising that everything they knew has sort of dissipated and closed down. They wish they could return to that, there's that 'dangerous hope', but they know that they're just going to crash and burn. Also, I think "screening" should be "screaming". |
|
| Belle & Sebastian – White Collar Boy Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I also think it's "spit in your gin". It definitely sounds like "in", not "on", hence gin and not chin. Gin goes with the whole white-collar thing, too. | |
| God Help the Girl – Howard Jones Is My Mozart Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Kind of straight-forward - it's all about getting out and living. Eve's realised that she needs to go out and do more, but she's not yet at terms with how she has control, and the relationships she's building. She wants a job, but she misses being a patient with a routine. At the same time, she knows she can't get stuck. "I thought for a while that the flat was going to be enough, but I have to keep moving." I always thought the boy in the shop was James, but I came across a casting call for a character called Anton here: https://letitcast.com/en/castings/2099676305-god-help-the-girl/parts/980951227-anton It looks like right now James is in the friend zone and Eve's trying to work out what she actually wants with Anton; she's scared to actually take things any further. I can relate to this whole musical a lot, seriously can't wait to see how it turns out. |
|
| Alessi's Ark – Hummingbird Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I'm not exactly sure about it, but what I get is that this guy is miserable and this sweet, innocent girl (hummingbird/dove) sticks by his side and cares for him. He loves her, but he doesn't show it. She isn't really happy, she wants to be free, but she doesn't have a choice. He realises that and they go down to the river to calm her down. At first they have fun, maybe sitting on the bank with their legs in the water (since they're dressed in their Sunday Best) but at some point she sinks into the water and starts to drown. He's determined not to be lose her, whether it's by saving her or drowning with her ('well I'll be right behind you'). He watches her die (she has 'algae clouds' in her eyes, while he has 'clear blue spheres' - I love that part) and she's set free. He presumably drowns himself too. I agree, this is a really beautiful song. It feels so fragile and melancholy, and the imagery's amazing. There are a couple of lines I don't fully understand, though - like "old Goodness anchor". I feel like that part's pretty important. |
|
| Belle & Sebastian – White Collar Boy Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Stuart writes about this one in The Celestial Café: "It's the story of a boy who falls slightly on the wrong side of the law. He gets caught fiddling the books where he works. He needs the extra cash to try to keep up with the lifestyle of his friends, but instead he ends up in court. He narrowly avoids going to prison, the judge handing him a fine and community service instead. The following weekend he reports to the city docks for some manual labour. They lock him up for the day and chain him by the ankle! Even more unlikely, they lock him up to a girl who's doing her service as well..." Then (to put it shortly, since the text that follows is dialogue and a paraphrase of verse two) the girl proposes they make a run for it - she has a date and doesn't want to waste the rest of her Saturday, so instead of finishing her work she knocks out the police warden who's watching them, then jumps from the docks onto a barge passing underneath... and of course, since the white collar boy's chained to her, he falls too. I love the extra insight you get from that - this wussy boy's doing some creative accounting to keep up financially with something that doesn't really fit him (the 'white collar' scene with his friends), then he meets this brassy working class girl who isn't afraid to drag him along against his will. He says she's a pain, but he has to swallow his pride and go along with it, and deep down he probably wants to. Wonder what happened with the girl's date, though? |
|
| CocoRosie – Lemonade Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| And now I've watched the KEXP recording where Bianca says, "Oh, Simon" after the first verse - I get the feeling it's first about their brother, then the disintegration of their family. | |
| CocoRosie – Lemonade Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I have to admit the first verse throws me off completely, I can't tell if it's metaphor or not, but it sounds like the 'death' of a family member. I take it to symbolise the 'passing' of their father from their family, he left and there was a commotion, but the 'we seven kids, we almost died' later makes me wonder if it's another kid who suffocated. I wonder if this song's purposefully blurring the lines between their own lives and a story (in the same way that Stuart Murdoch likes to write with characters, but sometimes throws in his own memories or people he knew). |
|
| CocoRosie – Lemonade Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I couldn't agree more, I think you nailed it here. :) | |
| Camera Obscura – Away with Murder Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I think it's about Carey too - it sounds like they've been touring together, and it's clearly written to a girl. | |
| Belle & Sebastian – Another Sunny Day Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I'm 6 years late with this comment but I presumed it was Glasgow's west end, since Stuart sings that he's "living there still" - I reckon they took a ferry on the River Clyde from the Glasgow docks and went to Kintyre or somewhere like that. Liverpool has a peninsular ferry too, so I've never had the Stockholm association myself. :) | |
| Belle & Sebastian – Another Sunny Day Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
Sounds like a film-y summer romance to me, even the rainy day part - they meet and grow closer, he thinks she's The One, and then it's over, but the memories are beautiful and bittersweet to look back on. They met in a garden, he liked her instantly, and then one day she comes to watch his match, they drive all night until they get back to his house and then that beautiful midge verse! I get a really American feeling from this, it's a combination of the guitar and the Hollywood romance, and yet there are all these great little bits like the train set that bring it back. You can really imagine this typical 90s British terrace house with carpet, awful curtains and a Hornby set (the backdrop to my childhood!), cosy but totally unglamorous among the midnight drive and the sunshine. I never really paid attention to this one until I read the lyrics, and I've fallen in love with it. Highlights have to be "You were digging plants, I dug you - beg your pardon" and the midge verse - they never fail to bring a smile. :) |
|
| Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I'm Ready to Be Heartbroken Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| I agree, "You can't strike out while holding a boy's hand" is a pretty logical line too. | |
| Belle & Sebastian – Stay Loose Lyrics | 12 years ago |
|
I think 'stay loose' refers to the girl's whole demeanour, not just their relationship. When they speak she offers solutions which are blunt and skirt around the problems at hand instead of solving them - e.g. going to bed, not asking what's been keeping him up. The she's content with her humdrum life, which makes her happy (playing Mother Hen, following the news, watching TV) while he's searching for something more. At first he's OK with this detached relationship, he thinks he can make it work ('my faith is like a bolt') but he grows tired of trying to squeeze more out of it ('asking for more') when she's so apathetic - 'everything is flat and dreary'. He knows that she won't understand his discontent (the 'echo') or his ambitions - 'she will in me doubt confide'. To an extent the 'echo' could be a Greek reference, he feels like he doesn't have a voice in the relationship since she dismisses what he has to say - he just has to echo her and wish they were something more. I'm not sure I understand the blanket/wilting grass part. I think maybe it means she's there and alright to have around, but not ideal (e.g. a blanket isn't as good as a duvet when you're cold, and wilting grass isn't half as nice and living grass). Or maybe it means she's like a furnishing - you can't interact with her, she's just there and part of the environment. Either way it sounds like she isn't flourishing either, she's wilting - both of them are just being hindered by the relationship. I love this song. Even the music sounds detached and disjointed, like the couple - acknowledging each other, but not seeing eye to eye. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.