submissions
| El-P – Poisenville Kids No Wins (Reprise) Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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The final statement of 'I'll sleep when you're dead', El's most complete album.
Starts with the theme of silent self destructive delusion with a reprise the same words used to introduce it in the first album track, Tasmanian Pain Coaster.
First verse sets the scene for one of El's moments of clarity, sitting smoking in the street alone early in the morning, presumably after being up doing drugs all night.
Second verse explains what brought him there, the disillusionment and nihilism that caused him to become suicidal and express that death wish through drug abuse. Basically, sounds like depression plus environment made El see self destruction as better than being destroyed from without.
Last two verses become internal dialogue, with El's conscious brain unloading all the anger on his whiny, self*destructive side, showing himself tough love.
Worth noting that a listen to his lyrics after this album implies that he kept doing thew same drugs, and just got used to them.
Chan Marshall is perfect on this. |
submissions
| El-P – Deep Space 9mm Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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A lot of different versions of that one key line . . . I think its 'Criminal now. A lot of things I thought beautiful, under my power.' Which makes it a reference to him adopting a lawless lifestyle, and being successful with music, women, etc. Thus (notice the past tense) making them less beautiful now that he has them instead of wanting them. |
submissions
| Run the Jewels – A Christmas Fucking Miracle Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[kirs10:26794] No, Camu is right. As in deceased Def Jux artist Camu Tau, a personal friend of EL-P, who was also the guy '4 dollar Vic' on Cancer 4 Cure was dedicated to. Pimp C is also a dead rapper (presumably a friend of Mıke's), so that's clear. |
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| The Mountain Goats – Dance Music Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[TheSamPrior:26757] To go by the WTF podcast interview, age 17 was the first blush of John's drug years, a path he was led down by a girlfriend. Alcoholism makes sense too, but this album is autobiographical, so its more likely the heroin etc that he said was part of their lives then. |
submissions
| Leonard Cohen – The Law Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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There is no arm. There is a Law, twice, then a Hand. This is not a drug song. It is a song about morality and judgement, both of oneself and by a higher power. The narrator's guilt is ambiguous, but only because he is still committing the crime of being alive. |
submissions
| Songs: Ohia – The Big Game Is Every Night Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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No comments till 2018?
What an amazing song. The big game is a metaphor for rock and roll, the battle against depression, the battle to survive. The players are the writers , performers, and characters who perfectly expressed this struggle 'to be me working, to be me helping, to be me honestly . . '
The first verse gives a sense of incredible silence and distance, a beautiful haunting sense of dislocation with which to view the great metaphor.
Mark Twain and Thomas Jefferson ground the American literary tradition - both also were strong on not sugar-coating the truth in their own way. Luke the Drifter was Hank Williams' spiritual alias, and Zımmerman is, of course, Dylan. That's the American songwriting tradition. Johnny Unitas was a famous quarterback (the game apparently has the same rules and play as US football), I forget for which team. Berry is probably Chuck Berry, but there might also be a famous athlete by that name. All heroes who 'brought the first down again', or proved the power of their words and actions to uplift the human spirit against the darkness.
I'm not sure which Possums he's referring to - maybe a team, or maybe those who sleep and hide from the light? The line about the Man in Black seems to ask for mercy for the (recently departed, when this was recorded) Johnny Cash, to let him 'adjust his eyes to the light'.
The end is beautiful, but odd. 'I wouldn't want to disappoint them' seems to suggest that he's doing something evil and snake-like. But I think its clear which side of the big game Jason is on, and that the other team is Death.
Unfortunately for all of us, Death beat Jason one night in 2013. But he helped us win all the others - and still does. Every night. |
submissions
| Songs: Ohia – Cross the Road, Molina Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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No comments for this, even years after Jason's death? This song was so personal, he put his own name in the title, and definitely spared none of his gift for imagery or penetrating lyrics.
I think this song is him confronting his own alcoholic self destruction, about a decade before he gave into it completely. He has many songs like that on the later Songs:Ohia and Magnolia albums, but this is the key to them all.
Jason stated several times that he believed in magic, and many of his lyrics use hermetic or ritual imagery. The 'Wolf headed conjurer' is a sprit guide guarding a choice Jason (the title of the song makes the narrator explicit, like the 'L. Cohen' line in Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat) must make, represented by the classic blues crossroads.
Jason is trying to make that choice, channel his disease and his sorrow positively. To do this, he has to synchronize his entire being with the blues, and his Chicago environment. He must combine them and channel them through himself in order to redeem his history of (self-perceived) failure and heartbreak, which he just got a reminder of ('those black sad eyes . .').
The most intense part is when he dares the moon to bring down the blade, drawing strength from the certainty of his depression and failure. All success vanishes ('show me how fast I'm gonna lose it ...') and the dark nights far outnumber the good ones ('how bad I am outnumbered . . .'). It is Jason's challenge to himself to use the pain. We should all be thankful he managed for another ten years after he wrote this.
This song goes after 'Ring the Bell' on the Trials and Errors live set, which is no accident. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Cotton Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[neenz:26646] Good point, but many would say that when you objectify an experience by writing and performing a song about it, you are letting it go. You still have the song, but the pain that was required to make it has been transformed into a thing of beauty. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Damn These Vampires Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[doortodoor:26639] Then you don't know much about heroin - or blood circulation. Heroin is injected in veins, and only veins, because veins soak up oxygen to carry to the heart. As soon as you puncture an artery, blood shoots everywhere. Actual or metaphorical vampires would go for arteries, and get the oxygen rich blood. Junkies go for veins every time, because they're putting stuff in. It's about vampires. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Feed This End Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Apparently, power in its purest form is the ability to transfigure moments. Which makes a lot of sense, and fits in nicely with the detail-oriented Mountain Goats style of songwriting. I really like this song, partly because of the love-slave jocularity in the beginning, and partly because I first heard it while on a desperate adventure up and down the East Coast of the USA with a junkie I was in love with back in 2013. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Going to Georgia Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Worth noting that the gun makes another appearance in the verse JD drops in Aesop Rock's song "Coffee", something like 15 years later:
"1967 Colt .45, holding back the vampires, keeping me alive . . .".
The gun may have become a symbol of his own art? |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Letter from Belgium Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Worth noting that, Your Belgian Things later in the album refers to the components of a meth lab that blows up, causing the events in Mole. Therefore, in addition to trading electrical equipment for meth, or electrical equipment being a code for the drug in this song, or just something to do tweeking - it could actually be part of the lab. The creams and powders might contain necessary ingredients for their recipe. Of course, crushed crystal meth is powder too. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Orange Ball of Peace Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Not sure about the TVTropes thing, don't know if this is an Alpha song. But, like the other 'Orange Ball' songs its about finding the key word in an unlikely place. Peace of mind in a raging inferno, which gives you an important role to play, works wel enough. The inferno could also be inside, as WearingaWire suggests |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Orange Ball of Pain Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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I see the 'Orange Ball' songs as complementary to the 'Pure' songs. The 'pure' songs are ironic, the opposite of the other word in the title. The orange ball (sun) songs express the word in a pure form, even if the circumstances would dictate the opposite.
In this case, the sweet, delicious pastry highlights the agony this guy feels. We don't know why he feels this agony - perhaps a lost lover, the 'you' who should try some - if she were there. But the pain part is clear enough. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Orange Ball of Love Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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I see the 'Orange Ball' songs as complementary to the 'Pure' songs. The 'pure' songs are ironic, the opposite of the other word in the title. The orange ball (sun) songs express the word in a pure form, even if the circumstances would dictate the opposite.
So, this is real love: knowing someone is going to betray you to the police, and loving them anyway. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Prana Ferox Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[freddy:26558] All depends on your perspective, I suppose. Making bootleg whiskey is considerably more rewarding than some relationships. At least you get something of value, however dubious. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Prowl Great Cain Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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If not for JDs concert song intros, there would be nothing here at all to connect this song to Cambodia. Which is why I'm grateful for those who post them, and why reading Mountain Goats pages is slightly less of a waste of time then reading other pages where the meaning is all there in the lyrics - however open to interpreatation they may be. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – Song for Dennis Brown Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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The end of this song is a beautiful moment of pure nihilism, starting with the 'when the birds come home to roost' line. The whole subtext seems to be: this is the way it has to be, and damn the consequences. The final line kills me every time, as it was meant to. I love this song. |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – The Coroner's Gambit Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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All comments make sense, but the title remains a little mysterious to me. What was the coroner's gambit? Is the coroner the guy who commits suicide, doing a metaphorical autopsy and gambling that death is release rather than a ticket to some eternal punishment or other? Or is the guy gambling that the coroner won't figure out its suicide or what? |
submissions
| The Mountain Goats – The Hot Garden Stomp Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Since no one has commented on this one, I feel that I should. Buried beneath one of the most lo-fi of the early TMG recordings is a great song with some very powerful lines. The narrator has walled himself away from the outside world, possibly both physically and metaphorically (via drugs or just a a mental state that makes the world hum). His world is invaded by a friend or other person who comes to check on him - '3 weeks of newspapers' tells you how long its been. The narrator doesn't mind the visit, but wants no interaction at all. And uses music to avoid conversation/interrogation.
The specific line "I have no answers to those particular questions" has been very useful to me more than once. |
submissions
| The Pogues – Sunny Side of the Street Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Fair enough, but it's Shane's song, and a matter of record that he certainly didn't play it safe by any ordinary standard after the Hell's Ditch album it opened. Whether his music suffered as the result of his long term debauchery is another question, but there's no question that the debauchery continued. Perhaps alcohol and drug abuse is playing it safe for him, but usually not the rest of us. |
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| The Pogues – Sunny Side of the Street Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[epiwoosh:26481] nice way to get the opposite meaning, but I'm pretty sure that Shane's 'Sunny side of the street' is the opposite of not rocking the boat. Because that's usually what you do when you have a heart full of hate and a lust for vomit. |
submissions
| The Pogues – Lullaby Of London Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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The lyrics are right, but it always had an emotional effect on me when I misheard 'And the North Wind shall decide' instead of ' . . .gently sighed'. As in, our fate lies at the whim of the winds. |
submissions
| The Old 97's – House That Used To Be Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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I always heard 'goods' instead of 'girls'. Which makes more sense to me. Classic wordplay and vocal melodies. Old 97s at their best - definitely a band whose songs range from slightly above mediocre to great, and this one counts as great. |
submissions
| Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – Nitcomb Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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'Love buys a six pack and gives it to the bums'
This beautiful song needed a comment, and that line needed to be highlighted. I'm also a fan of the 'shoes of bankrupt men' bit. But this is a song about hope and compassion. |
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| Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – Mega Bottle Ride Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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These might help: Banchoff-Klein mega bottle ride? Did n't know Joe was so into math, but Im not surprised.
Thomas Francis Banchoff (born 1938) is an American mathematician specializing in geometry. He is a professor at Brown University, where he has taught since 1967. He is known for his research in differential geometry in three and four dimensions, for his efforts to develop methods of computer graphics in the early 1990s, and most recently for his pioneering work in methods of undergraduate education utilizing online resources
In topology, a branch of mathematics, the Klein bottle /ˈklaɪn/ is an example of a non-orientable surface; it is a two-dimensional manifold against which a system for determining a normal vector cannot be consistently defined. Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down. Other related non-orientable objects include the Möbius strip and the real projective plane. Whereas a Möbius strip is a surface with boundary, a Klein bottle has no boundary (for comparison, a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary).
-Wikipedia
Oh, and 'khazi' is Polari slang for toilet |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Murder in the Red Barn Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Suprisingly few comments on this work of genius. I can sympathise with those who don't want to analyse the story, or every line, but a line like "...for some, murder is the only door through which they enter life" has serious Waitsian depth. I agree that it was likely Cal, killing for love of the lady drinking alone in her room. The question becomes, who is Cal? A jealous husband? A farmhand turned man of the house? There's not enough info on him to tell. And Tom must have wanted it that way. Tom can do anything, and in a way nobody else ever could. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Lucinda Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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My commentary, just as unnecessary as anybody else's, but it makes a lot of sense:
William was obviously a smuggler from an earlier era, an "old tin can sailor". And he started in Texas, made it as far as the UK and India (possibly transporting his product list between the two). Lucinda (assuming she has a flesh and blood narrative presence) also came from Texas and left first. He followed her, as the song says, and found his profession in the process of finding her. We don't know what she really wanted, but "the devil dances inside empty pockets", so he needed money - or thought he did - even if she wanted something more sinister.
Could be she wanted someone ( a rich husband, possibly : " a smear of gold at the window again"?) dead at a place called the White Horse, and he arranged it for her even if he was not normally in that line of work. Or he was supposed to help her kill this person, but backed out : "I was afraid to go in". It was done by someone else instead, who may or may not be Lucinda herself, and the Pleaser was set up by Lucinda to take the fall She "wanted the bell in my soul", but it never says she got it, just that he fell from grace -freedom and the moral high ground. And he was the "jewel on her sin" means that she compounded the sin of murder with setting a man who loved her up to take the fall for the murder. he never talked to the cops, and thus was condemned to die. This song is him remembering his life of experiences, revolving around and ending in Lucinda.
And it's fucking brilliant. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Just the Right Bullets Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[BarnabyHughes:26190] Tom and William S. Burroughs, who conceived the Black Rider together, were both masters of multı-layer storytelling. Tom obviously wrote the songs, so it makes sense that Burroughs conceived a good part of the story. Burroughs was a gun nut, and just about everything he wrote related in some way to his opiate habit. It makes sense that they would write something that functions on both levels. The 'spoon' references definitely support this. So do the other songs on the album. The magic bullets could easily be doses of a drug that fixes you. |
submissions
| Tom Waits – Black Wings Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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I hear an incarnation of Justice, with strong Biblical overtones. The first stanza is pure instant karma and vengeance - take an eye for an eye. The second shows inevitability, and resurrection - he cannot be stopped, held, or destroyed, he has risen.. The third shows omnipresence, and balances vengeance with mercy ('he once saved a baby . . .'). The last verse distinguishes him from Jesus and shows his relentlessness.
I do think the chorus is 'steals his promise'. The key is the fear that retribution inspires in the guilty, and the moral effect of fear of guilt. We pretend that there is no judge and no absolute measure - but we are afraid just the same. |
submissions
| Gang of Four – Ether Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Although I am perfectly aware that the song's original subject is IRA detainment and North Sea oil, times have changed - this song is now the anthem of the crypto market, especially if one is investing in ethereum. |
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| Wall Of Voodoo – Lost Weekend Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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@[gandydancer:26096] What Stan does is snapshots of relatively ordinary desperation. I'm not sure that kind of war is ever "post-", but it is relatively modern. |
submissions
| Wall Of Voodoo – Look At Their Way Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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Cockroaches? or insects in general? As far as I know, roaches can't play tunes with their legs like crickets - and I'm not enough of an entomologist to know anything about the incest reference, thought roaches laid eggs. But yeah, most of it is roaches. |
submissions
| Wall Of Voodoo – Factory Lyrics
| 6 years ago
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And the key bit is 'another factory back home', how the man himself has become an automatic machine, capable of very little in the way of independent reasoning. He brought the same piece of chicken to work for 20 years or so. |
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