| Harry Chapin – Sequel Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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The follow up to the story of Harry & Sue introduced in Chapin's first hit song "Taxi", finds the two characters in somewhat of a role reversal, Harry, who in Taxi is a down on his luck cab driver is now a successful entertainer, and Sue, the supposed wealthy married actress, is now single, living alone, and working a regular job in relative obscurity. Harry seeks her out in "Sequel". armed with confidence from his success that he clearly lacked when he last saw her in Taxi, and is surprised to find Sue living so quietly in obscurity (the way he used to). He eventually questions her as to why she seems OK with her now more modest lot in life... "So I asked why she looked so happy now and she said I Finally Like Myself, At Last I Like Myself" In essence, Sue didn't need the fame or the "footlights" which are referenced here but originally are part of Taxi's lyrics to be happy in life, Harry however needed the confidence boast provided by the character's new found success, which he clearly lacked in Taxi. HC leaves the final verse of the song somewhat open, as if there might be another installment in the story, which there never was. If you are familiar with the original song Taxi then you notice several references to the original story such as Sue's old address 16 Parkside Lane, the reference to Harry taking a taxi to Sue's home ("10 years ago it was the front seat, driving stoned & feeling no pain, now Im straight & sitting in the back....") which harks back not only to Harry;s old job from the first song but the closing verse ("I go flying so high when Im stoned..."), as well as the footlights reference in the final verse, which here refers to Harry's character's new career but in Taxi was a repeated verse referencing the end of the original relationship ("She took off to find the footlights, and I took off to find the sky"). The song was HC last hit single, just missing the US Top 20 in late 1980. |
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| Harry Chapin – Poor Damned Fool Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Chapin would state in his concerts, as well as some of his TV appearances such as "The Tonight Show" that this song is about his relationship with his wife, specifically her ex husband letting her go and the two of them getting together (thus her ex is the "Poor, Damn Fool"). Chapin would joke that songs about your "old lady's ex old man" were surprisingly absent from the singer-songwriter movement of the time, which he was correcting with this song. |
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| Harry Chapin – Taxi Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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According to interviews Chapin & his wife gave separately over the years, HC had taken a year off from his work as a documentary film maker to focus on growing his music career. A year later his career was non exsitant, he was now marred, raising his wife's 3 kids from her 1st marriage and she was pregnant with their 1st child, and he was having a hard time finding film work to make money, so applied for a cab drivers license, even though he didn't want to drive a cab (basically he needed to start making money again). He was depressed about the whole situation (his wife leaves a wealthy lawyer to marry him and he's an out of work film maker with a going nowhere music career who's broke, and they're about to have four kids!). Around this time HC heard that an Ex of his had married and was doing quite well, and thus the background for "Taxi" was born. According to an interview his wife did with a songwriiters website a few years ago, "Sue" was based on an old college girlfriend, they never were in SF though and in fact other than one brief period before they married HC never worked outside the NY area. She stated she didn't know why SF was chosen as the site of the song and speculated it may have been simply because it fit the lyric better , it sounded better. It made sense from a storytelling standpoint to continue the storyline in SF when he wrote "Sequel", the song that catches the two characters 10 years removed from this chance encounter, right before he passed away. |
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| Harry Chapin – Flowers Are Red Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Chapin often said in interviews that the basis was the comments from a teacher on the report card for his secretary's son...."your son marches to the beat of a different drummer but no worries, we'll have him marching in the parade in no time"....an attitude that HC wasn't pleased with. This in effect is his version of that boy and the teacher and what he feels would happen to an otherwise thoughtful and expressive young student if stifled in this way by the teacher. Note in the end of the song the new teacher is clearly more willingly to engage the kids and encourage their creativity. | |
| Harry Chapin – Tangled Up Puppet Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| The basis for this song was HC's oldest daughter, and in fact on the single release and in his introductions on TV and in concert he would call it "Song For Jaime" - Inspired by Jaime's real life move from kid to teenager and the more adult behavior and changes in relationship that naturally come with that, which HC & his wife were dealing with when the song was written. | |
| Harry Chapin – Shooting Star Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Others have said the song was about HC relationship with his wife Sandy, he was the out of touch male character and she was the grounded support he could always depend on ..."he could not make things possible but she could make them holy". That also holds true with the middle verse reference to their family life..."She gave him a daughter and she gave him a son..." as this song was written around the time his two youngest children were born (Jen & Josh - their first 3 children were actually Sandy's from her first marriage, which HC adopted and raised after their marriage). I the end the male finally sees that the one thing that isn't a dream or a adventure that in fact is real is her love for him, and he stays with her. |
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| Harry Chapin – Story of a Life Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| A retrospective song in which HC looks at his life, his work, and his family and concludes that his music nor his activism or his true "Story Of A Life" but its actually his wife and family, particularly how much they support him. | |
| Tom Jones – She's a Lady Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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According to Jones, he was so impressed with Anka's work penning "MY Way" for Sinata he asked him to do a song for him, Anka insisted that Jones needed a more rock oriented number, not a somber retrospective ballad like "My Way" and this song was born. As an ode to Anka, Jones covered "My Way" as the B-Side for the original single release (probably helped Anka make more $$). |
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| Tom Jones – Delilah Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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Basically a song about stalking and murder. It's pretty clear from the lyrics that "Delilah" is the male character's "woman", that she cheats on him which he views from outside her home "I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind" which drives the male into a jealous rage "....as she deceived me I watched & went out of my mind". The stalking aspect becomes more clear in the second verse "At break of day as that man drove away I was waiting"....clearly Delilah's new beau spent the night and the jealous boyfriend waited outside her home all night waiting to see him leave. After that comes the inevitable confrontation between the male character & Delilah, during which she taunts him "She stood there laughing..." and he reacts with violence "I felt the knife in my hand, and she laughed no more". Based around the unusual musical arrangement of a 2-2 time signature like a classic waltz, speed up considerably, with opening parts that imitate the background music for the shower stabbing scene in the movie "Psycho", this had to be one of the more different sounding songs on the pop charts in 1968 when it was released, also one of the darkest since it's dominating themes are infidelity, stalking, & murder. Jones has stated in interviews that when the single was first released he was booked on The Ed Sullivan Show, a huge coups at the time. Before they would let him sing the song however he had to change the lyric in the 2nd verse about the new man leaving the Delilah's home because it implied he spent the entire night there. According to Jones he questioned why it upset the censors that the cheating male spends the entire night at Deliliah's when it's OK for the original boyfriend to wait outside all night stalking Delilah, who clearly is portrayed as engaging some sort of sexual activity aka "flickering shadows of love on her blind", not too mention the whole stabbing her to death part, and basically got little answer except the other male character couldn't spend the entire night. Crazy as that sounds, in order to get a prime spot on the show Jones changed that random line to something llke "At break of day as the night went away I was waiting", which eliminated the other man from his overnight visit but still implies the stalking aspect. Even more odd, Jones was not asked to edit the song lyrics when he sang it on his own TV show a year later, although that was on a different network (Sullivan was on CBS, This Is Tom Jones was on ABC) |
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| Robert Palmer – I Didn't Mean To Turn You On Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Palmer stated in interviews when the song came out as a single that he heard the original, by a young female R&B singer Cherrelle, and initially liked it until he realized she was under age at the time of the recording, 16 or 17 I believe, a fact that combined with the lyrics was distasteful for him. He decided to record the song himself in part as a joke, thinking it would be very tongue in cheek, almost sarcastic, for near 40 year old man to sing it (he was 38 at the time). He never expected Island records to issue it as a single and was more surpised when it became a Top 10 Hit in both the US & UK. | |
| Robert Palmer – Addicted To Love Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Palmer stated in interviews in 1986 that the song was originally intended to be about drugs, it may have been in People Magazine when they interviewed him, based on his experiences while living in the Bahamas. He changed to "Love" because a song about drug addiction was too dark and because he felt that the overwhelming feeling of new love has some of the same attributes as drug addiction. | |
| Harry Chapin – There Only Was One Choice Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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To my knowledge HC never did specify what this song is about in any interviews I ever saw or read, just a quick reference to it's epic length while appearing on "Tonight Show" (he didn't sing it). As best I can tell, this is HC dealing with aging and questioning whether his charity work and activism or worth the trouble and making a positive difference while contemplating the politics of the music Industry, which he never liked. It seems as if HC is looking a younger version of himself in the song's beginning, the "There's a kid out on my corner, hear him strumming like a fool Shivering in his dungerees, but still he's going to school His cheeks are made of peach fuzz -- his hopes may be the same But he's signed up as a soldier out to play the music game " intro seems like a reference to himself early in his career, with HC as the older, wiser guy attempting to give the younger him advice on whether he should get into music and if so what he can expect, good & bad. Then the song veers into HC looking back on why he got into music in the 1st place, his passion for "telling" America's story, which leads to his critique of country's politics and state of being heading into the Bi Centenial Celebraton, which could have been looked at as hypocritical given the problems facing the country, people largely ignoring them in favor of the "Feel Good" moment of the celebration. This leads into HC pondering whether his career and later his activism are worth it as he deals with getting older and seemingly not having accomplished what he wanted. Finally, in the song's finale, HC decides that in fact the activism and the music, for all of the trouble, are in fact worth it, thanks in part to his son, who's youthfull innocence seems to reinvigorate him ... " ...evaporated nightmares that had boiled the night before With every new day's dawning my kid climbs in my bed And tells the cynics of the board room your language is dead And as I wander with my music through the jungles of despair My kid will learn guitar and find his street corner somewhere There he'll make the silence listen to the dream behind the voice And show his minstrel Hamlet daddy that there only was one choice " In this vein the song returns to the original form where it's the vet HC looking at the young kid or younger version of himself and tells to go for it.... "Strum your guitar -- sing it kid Just write about your feelings -- not the things you never did Inexperience -- it once had cursed me But your youth is no handicap -- it's what makes you thirsty, hey kid Strum your guitar -- sing it kid " If anybody out there knows different please correct me, as I stated Ive never seen a HC interview where he discussed the song's origins or meaning so this is the best I can interpret. |
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