submissions
| The Jam – Tales From The Riverbank Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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A water-meadow is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. |
submissions
| Joe Strummer – Gansterville Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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"The television is always thinking about /real people, especially when it's hungry" Joe clearly foresaw the rise of "reality TV." |
submissions
| The Clash – Groovy Times Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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The "King of early evening ITV" being referenced is Bill Gundy, who was on Thames Television's Today show. Thames was a licensee of ITV. He famously interviewed the Sex Pistols, and the outrage over that interview shoved the Pistols into the public eye and kicked off the punk era as a major thing. It ruined his career |
submissions
| The Clash – Ghetto Defendant Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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It's an allegory, which would be more clear if Ginsberg's poem wasn't interspersed with Strummer's lyrics, but set off on their own like on the album sleeve. ostensibly, the song is about a graffiti artist/street poet who eventually becomes famous in the white art community and dies
(His words like flamethrowers
Burnt the ghettos in their chests
His face was painted whiter
And he was laid to rest)
The deeper story is that of black music and other art forms being "cleaned up" for the dominant culture, "painted whiter" as the song says. The originators of that art form move on, and it is "laid to rest." Ginsberg's poem effectively ties that to mainstream culture absorbing the counterculture into itself. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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Dylan is never to be trusted to actually say what his songs mean. He is known too just throw out a line that pops into his head. The song is a kiss-off, but a generalized one. There is a bitterness to the lyrics that can not be denied. At the time he wrote it, he was getting annoyed with being portrayed as the "voice of a generation." Blue, as Dylan put it, was "the color of dissent" (see the 60s Playboy interview). it was also at this time that he was photographed with blue eyes (earlier and later 60s photos show him with brown eyes, and since the 70s, they've been blue). Many in his circle were vocal about not approving of where he was going, trying to distance himself from the political voice many saw him as. This is at once him telling them to buzz off and accept change, and him steeling himself to make the changes he wanted to. A person I know who worked for Albert Grossman thinks "Baby Blue" might have been used as a derogatory comment about Dylan from John Hammond, the Columbia exec who signed Dylan. (Grossman was an incredibly intimidating man, but Dylan was the goose that laid the golden egg. he was also one of those odd things - a manager his clients could trust |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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Dylan is never to be trusted to actually say what his songs mean. He is known too just throw out a line that pops into his head. The song is a kiss-off, but a generalized one. There is a bitterness to the lyrics that can not be denied. At the time he wrote it, he was getting annoyed with being portrayed as the "voice of a generation." Blue, as Dylan put it, was "the color of dissent" (see the 60s Playboy interview). it was also at this time that he was photographed with blue eyes (earlier and later 60s photos show him with brown eyes, and since the 70s, they've been blue). Many in his circle were vocal about not approving of where he was going, trying to distance himself from the political voice many saw him as. This is at once him telling them to buzz off and accept change, and him steeling himself to make the changes he wanted to. A person I know who worked for Albert Grossman thinks "Baby Blue" might have been used as a derogatory comment about Dylan from John Hammond, the Columbia exec who signed Dylan. (Grossman was an incredibly intimidating man, but Dylan was the goose that laid the golden egg. he was also one of those odd things - a manager his clients could trust |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Lyrics
| 10 years ago
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Reindeer army is not the correct lyric. Seriously, how can anyone here that? just listen to Dylan's original. Oddly enough for Dylan, he enunciates the lyrics better than most covers (Them's version plays pretty fast and loose with some of the lyrics) |
submissions
| The Clash – Look Here Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This song, and The Monkees' Goin' Down (they wrote it after riffing on Parchman Farm), introduced me to Mose Alison |
submissions
| The Clash – Look Here Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This song, and The Monkees' Goin' Down (they wrote it after riffing on Parchman Farm), introduced me to Mose Alison |
submissions
| The Clash – Look Here Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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This song, and The Monkees' Goin' Down (they wrote it after riffing on Parchman Farm), introduced me to Mose Alison |
submissions
| The Clash – Gates of the West Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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I'd put money on it that the lyrics were, at least, tweaked significantly by Joe. Mick has stated many times that the lyrics were almost always Joe's |
submissions
| The Clash – Spanish Bombs Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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Don't make anything out of the time differentials - no DC-10s or Disco Casinos. the song is not meant to be taken literally. It is a hypocatastasis for the Irish situation |
submissions
| The Clash – London Calling Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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According to Joe, the song was written about global warming - back when it was just starting to get noticed. The melting polar ice caps would flood the Thames estuary and London, and causing a meltdown @ Bradwell Nuclear station. Meanwhile, it killed the gulf stream's moderating effect, plunging Europe into an ice age. |
submissions
| The Clash – Clampdown Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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It's succumbing to the pressure to be a good little worker and playing the games required to get ahead - including stepping on everyone in your way |
submissions
| The Clash – Clampdown Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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It's succumbing to the pressure to be a good little worker and playing the games required to get ahead - including stepping on everyone in your way |
submissions
| The Clash – Tommy Gun Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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No, not a Palestinian lighting a fuse. The song is about Anglo-American foreign policy. WE are the ones lighting the fuse |
submissions
| The Clash – Tommy Gun Lyrics
| 11 years ago
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No, not a Palestinian lighting a fuse. The song is about Anglo-American foreign policy. WE are the ones lighting the fuse |
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