| Styx – Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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How did this become a conversation about how Styx got their name? Well whatever, here's what I think the song means: This is in the time of the great depression, where work is had to come by and people would line up in the streets to get food for their families. These unemployed men would hang their heads in shame as they walked through the line. Hence the "Unemployment line" He wants to not only find a job, but be the head of the job. A "Blue Collar" is a man who's usually a manager or a head. The workers would wear white button ups, and the blue collars were the managers. He wants to be a "blue collar man." He's wiling to work with everything he has to get financial security for his family, even though everyone may laugh at him as he walks through the line. He will take long nights, and every risk, keeping his mind on the goal ahead of him keeping his "eye to the keyhole." He's waiting for a job offer that will get him to his goal, that will finally make him a "respectable man." He dreams of a paradise where he isn't just scrapping by, but living his life without worry. He's "keeping [his] mind on a better life" knowing that the life he's sure he's destined for is ahead of him. How you take a song about someone working their everything into making a better life for him and his family and make it into a song about a "Male Escort" I have no idea. If this song is about that, then explain phrases like "Unemployment Line" and the very title itself. What does being a "blue collar man" have to do with prostitution? I know that some bands hide their song meanings under a guise of meaning something else, but Styx isn't that crafty, their quite to the point in their songs. Like "Grand Illusion" being about America's twisted idea of the "perfect life" and how it's, quite literally, the Grand Illusion. |
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| Styx – Blue Collar Man (Long Nights) Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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@[spiegelglanz:8308] Styx doesn't write about that kind of stuff. "eye to the keyhole" seems to mean in this context that he has a goal in mind, but theres a barrier in his way, yet he can still see through the keyhole what it is. And he means long nights of actual work. Like how an office worker would take on long nights of work to get ahead of his colleges. |
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| Green Day – Jesus of Suburbia Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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The main character, is the “Jesus of Suburbia,” and he says that he might have been a Christian at one point, but gives it up when he sees how “Christians” seem to live. He is the product of a flawed system. He is the epitome of what his city has to offer, and it’s horrid. He lives on drugs, “On a steady diet of, soda pop and Ritalin.” And no one tries to help him, because no one sees anything wrong with how he lives, “And there's nothing wrong with me, this is how I'm supposed to be. In a land of make believe, that don't believe in me.” The one’s that may actually care about him, are too lazy to do anything, “Get my television fixed, sitting on my crucifix” this line is referring to people that say they’re Christians, but don’t do anything for the Kingdom, instead sitting on their cross instead of carrying it. This is why he chooses to give up his faith. The song then moves into more of a description, telling about how he was raised in a 7-11 parking lot, “At the centre of the Earth.” He was taught that “Home is where your heart is” was a lie, because every heart doesn’t beat the same, and everyone has different goals in life, and put their heart into things that don’t last. He tells of the city he acridly calls “home.” He refers to this city earlier as, “the centre of the Earth” and now he also calls it the “City of the dead” followed by the “City of the damned,” being located in the middle of nowhere, a land of lost children and dirty faces walking the streets, and he tells that even with all this, no one does anything, no one cares. He reads the scribbling on the bathroom stalls, about “religion” and “truth,” and it convinces him that yes, “The centre of the Earth is the end of the world,” that this religion that he had once but his faith in was a lie, and he could care less. He realizes that he’s stopped caring, that he’s like them yelling, “I don’t care if you don’t.” He rages about the people of this City of the Dead/Damned. He tells how everyone is full of lies, deceit, and hypocrisy, having been raised in it, meaning that this has been going on for multiple generations. He tells how hearts are just being tossed around like play things, referring to the lack of commitment like pre-marital sex, instead of people trying to save hearts and bring them to Christ. That his generation is born from war times, and that no one has true stability, that they all are “Disciples of The Jesus of suburbia” meaning they are all emulating the life he’s living. He calms down a bit, after an implied drunken bout of rage, and begins wondering if he’s messed up, or the world’s what’s messed up. “Are we demented or am I disturbed?” Finding himself in “The space that’s in-between insane and insecure,” he goes to therapy, hoping that it can help him find answers, but only to find nothing. He decides he can’t live this away anymore, and runs away in hopes of finding what he believes in. He runs away, leaving behind a world of lies, this city of the dead, this center of the earth, realizing that he lost his faith to all this. He runs to the lights of the people that seem to find joy from pain (who he describes as masochists, but may actually be real Christians and he just doesn’t understand it). He has before just submitted to all this lies, death and heartlessness, but not this time. He thinks back on his decision to run away (implying some time has passed), and knows that he doesn’t regret it. He won’t apologize, because he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere in the place he was. He ran from it all, the pain and all the pointing fingers. One of the final lines is, “Tales from another broken home.” It isn’t given much thought, but try to think. He’s saying all these are tales from another broken home. He’s saying that his story is one of many, and he’s right. Many people out there in in situations like these, he’s just unfortunate enough to have gone through all of them. |
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