| Alanis Morissette – Uninvited Lyrics | 2 months ago |
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You can take this song quite literally. The narrator is faced with the unexpected attention of another person, and she is debating whether or not to dismiss it. Every verse, she becomes more and more curious about and open to the idea of letting the person in to her life. But in every chorus, the narrator has a rejection reflex; and it's unclear whether she is rejecting out of necessity or in a playful way, or both. By the end of the song, she realizes she may actually share an attraction with this person, and needs "a moment to deliberate." This isn't a new feeling expressed in music before, but notice how the lyrics take a simple moment that all women experience, and finds both an abstract and personal way of depicting the scene. And aside from the lyrics, notice how intense and almost ritualistic the music is. There's a seductive sound, both parts spiritual and sensual, which to me sounds as if she's tapping into an age-old feeling. And think about how all these opposing feelings of abstract/personal of the lyrics and spiritual/sensual of the music are mirrored in the basic plot of the lyrics, which is the narrator going back and forth between saying yes and no to a person who is pursuing an attraction to her. |
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| Paula Cole – Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| I swear that when I was a kid until just now, I thought she says "where is my furry son?" instead of prairie song. Somehow this made sense to me, like she was bummed about having a weird son.... Well, prairie song is better, clearly | |
| Bob Dylan – I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[nuumb:44074] oof grab a Snickers old chap | |
| Bob Dylan – Temporary Like Achilles Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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@[Zignor44:44073] oh also there seem to be a lot of sexual metaphors. Her second door...could this be her vagina? Sure, why not. One could argue the whole thing is about the two characters being naked, trying to go about their business, and for whatever reason she won't relax enough to let the sex go on. So he's frustrated and blaming her for everything. Maybe Achilles is a sex toy? I mean, seriously, Dylan gets so vague that you can just insert your own meanings. |
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| Bob Dylan – Temporary Like Achilles Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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When he says Temporary Like Achilles, it's a bit tricky. On the one hand, Achilles was a near immortal who died from an arrow to his solitary weak spot. On the other hand, he is a legendary figure who has been remembered to this day like few have. So his life may have been temporary, but his legend is long lasting. This kind of obscure shadowboxing-like playfulness is typical of Dylan on this record. He's often insulting a girl while hitting on her, feeling desperate while projecting hard to get, feigning injury while spitting in someone's face. A lot of the details in this song as surreal and seemingly metaphorical. Her pet scorpion, her velvet door, circus floor. Then there are the references to settings of class and old-fashioned customs and language, such as "regards", his being barred, her heart's being made of stone, lime, or rock which are more classic building materials. She also has a guard as if she's royalty and the guard is Achilles, who is in a rather low position of a guard considering the gravity of his status in legend. So it would seem that Dylan is painting the woman as either rich or perhaps just ridiculously self important and eclectic. And that creates a distance between them; he is into her and wants to "get to know her" but her whole situation makes her more and more ridiculous and unsexy to him. I guess the ultimate strike against her is his characterizing her as "hard". That can mean she's difficult but also make the point that she's the antithesis of everything he's looking for in a woman, as women are literally and figuratively considered to be pleasantly "soft" in comparison to men. There're more things to go into, but why bother trying to uncover them all? The fun of Dylan is absentmindedly listening until a meaning strikes you that never did before. |
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| Pavement – Blue Hawaiian Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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"And this slap is a gift because your cheeks have lost their lustre" and "put the bark in the dog, and you've got a guardian" just made me laugh today. I heard this pretty song for years, but somehow the jokes either never clicked or just didnt impress me in my early 20s. I always enjoyed their music and their vibe, but I think I was listening too seriously to enjoy the lyrics, especially Brighten the Corners |
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| Oasis – Don't Look Back in Anger Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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@[SMUSER17649086:38807] Clearly, these guys were up there to be rock 'n roll stars, not artists. It's not about art and higher levels of meaning. Which is fine. When people turn on their radio to be entertained, they will probably enjoy hearing the words of people who are on their wavelength, ya know? I love Radiohead, but they either aren't interested or are not capable of writing songs that reflect the simpler things in life. The few times they have (e.g., High and Dry, Creep), they've disowned the songs and claimed they were crap. Of course, those are some of their most vulnerable songs, so maybe that's where the issue comes from--Thom would rather be railing against the stupid people in society, the crown, the effects of technology, etc., than talk openly about how he feels. |
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| Oasis – Don't Look Back in Anger Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[epicandy5:38806] Uh yeah. The opening piano intro is totally Hey Jude/Imagine, and nearly everything the electric guitar plays is nicked from Harrison's and Lennon's playing on the White Album, Let it Be, and Abbey Road. | |
| Oasis – Don't Look Back in Anger Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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Can anyone actually say what this song means? The narrator is really inconsistent: who is talking to whom? Who is Sally to the narrator, who is being asked to avoid rock 'n roll bands? It's such a jumble that you have to go with your gut on this one. The "her soul slides away" part sound as if someone is dying, but it's unclear who is saying "but don't look back in anger, I heard you say". Is that Sally saying it, or someone who knows Sally and who is with her as she dies? All that any of us can do is interpret the song based on how the most emotional parts of the song hit us. We're forced to contextualize everything based on those parts even though there doesn't appear to be much connection between the verses or the chorus. But does this lack of clarity hurt the song? Arguably it helps it immensely. The Gallaghers were not great lyricists at that point (or at this point, too), but they were strong feelers and brilliant at connecting with their audience. Since they didn't have great ideas, it's actually better that the images and thoughts were kind of thrown together on this one. I'm sure that it would've sounded pretty dull had they tried to make everything crystal clear and neat. |
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| The Yardbirds – He's Always There Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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This song is cool. Definitely been that guy like the narrator, and I've probably also been the guy that's always there lol. I liked the music too. Jeff Beck makes everything good |
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| Radiohead – Go to Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Go To Sleep is about being caught between two extremes: paranoia and apathy. Paranoia from FOMO, of something terrible happening, of tyrannical rule, etc. ...and subsequently, apathy to all the things that drive the paranoia. All your left with is a vicious cycle of overcaring and caring too little. |
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| Leonard Cohen – Jazz Police Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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I think the first half conveys how it feels to be thought of as a transgressor merely for doing something new. Young people get bored and get creative which alarms the establishment. The establishment wants what's best but they are overly serious compared to the joyous creatives. Eventually the creatives start to get sucked into the spell of oversight, probably because they want to be on the side that gets less hassles. I think the second half is more about street culture in cities. Maybe hip/hop culture since it was the 80s as Cohen wrote the song and Jazz is used as samples for hip hop and rap which could offend the critical and purists of the Jazz genre. Mothers are concerned for their children and they end up repeating the same crap to their kids that the world is already telling them. Eventually, the youth falls under the sway of overserious oversight and they, too, want to be in charge. The 'feel so blue' is a nice touch because of the blue notes in Jazz. |
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| Bob Dylan – Oh, Sister Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[Zignor44:31281] I forgot a third possibilty: he wants the Sister character (perhaps a stand-in for his fans) to respond in annoyance. He wants us to call him on his manipulations, and call out everyone else who does the same. Rather than get everyone in the counter-culture to pat themselves on the back for how right they are, he wants the whole populations to wake up to how words and meanings get twisted, and to demand something more. | |
| Bob Dylan – Oh, Sister Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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I think Dylan meant this song to be hard to decipher when close reading. Think, why else would he stick hard to the double (triple? quadruple?) meanings of sibling relationships, romantic relationships, gender relationships, Biblical/religious/spiritual relationships?? He presents a multi-part-harmony of meaning to elucidate whatever is too hard to get at through a single layer of thought. It's clever but, I'm sure, is also a well-worn Dylan trope of obscuring and renegotiating the prize throughout the movement of the piece. These shifting characterizations make the thread of the narrative difficult to follow. But, if we take that vague-ness as intentional, it opens up nontraditional possibilities for understanding the song. For instance, Dylan is too clever with words to not be intentionally putting the word Sister throughout its paces. And this is done, I believe, in part to bring attention to a fault in our language: some words--important nouns, especially--can be unmoored from their context and meanings at intimate times. Con men (or women) especially are good at accessing multiple levels of personal meaning to unlock understanding and trust from a target. It's my contention that the narrator is plying the tools of his trade in front of us, knowing full well that we can see just how flexible and pliable our personal pronouns are. It should make a reader feel uneasy that another can, with so few words, paint such clear and malleable pictures of our characters and intentions, and doing it at multiple levels of responsibility and culpability within a relationship. It allows the narrator to knock the Sister character off balance and always at a disadvantage. It makes me wonder if, at around this point in his career, Dylan felt like a con man--this celebrity of 'truth to power' didn't want to let himself be lionized so easily. He was clearly talented at using words to make himself as well as the counter-culture look like the good guys and make those in charge appear evil, ugly, and uncaring. Perhaps he wanted folks in on the joke, nominally out of guilt that something that came easily to him was overvalued and misunderstood. He knew he could just as easily use the powers for evil, and often did in personal relationships. There's also the possibility that he wasn't feeling guilt, but more like disappointment and haughty anger that he was being applauded for the wrong reasons: to use Breaking Bad as an example, how many times did Walter White leave subtle hints for investigators to keep searching when he felt his talents and accomplishments were not properly understood? That Dylan could operate as both a hero and villain is also a well-worn aspect of the narrators in his songs. What I love most about this song is how clearly he needs the 'Sister' character. Since the sister is represented as a single woman, a sibling, a biblical character, a societal group (whether gendered Sister or Racialized/Gendered Sister), a jilted friend, a teammate, etc., it points to how much we need one another at just about every level to get through Life. No matter how we mistreat, in the end we come back for help and it's up to each of us to understand the powers we have over one another and the respect we must demand from each other to get the respect we deserve. |
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| Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Shibboleth Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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No comments huh? Yeah this song is cool. Right angles/ triangles? Like the right angles formed by the cross vs the triangles forming the Jewish Star? Well, and the triangle of the Trinity, I guess. And then the song is called Shibboleth. That's a Hebrew word about Christian stuff. I don't really get the connection between the lyrics and the definition. It was a word that, when pronounced, would distinguish a person's nationality based on how they pronounced it. Basically a code word. What else? There's a bunch of stuff here that seems critical of Christian interpretations of the New Testament. And then a reference to Lord Byron, maybe? I didn't read much of his stuff in school, more of a Blake and Coleridge man, myself. Also, again, no third verse to make this song truly complete. So many artists put out songs with really interesting concepts and ideas that seem almost complete, but the lack of a stellar final verse to put things on its head a la Dylan...it's a lost art. Oh God, here I am getting obsessed with threes like a proper Christian, which I swear I'm not. Not that it should matter. |
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| David Bowie – Song for Bob Dylan Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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@[Gwladys:29297] I believe that she is the painted lady referred to in the earlier part of the chorus. And I THINK a painted lady is a whore. As she is placed contrast to the leadership of Dylan, I believe 'she' is whatever passing fancy our culture decides is Truth or is exciting enough to get wrapped up in. Bowie's chorus is saying that we, as a culture, are in danger of being seduced by some fraudulent BS (a painted lady...what is the paint hiding?), and we need Dylan to come back with some more good songs to help us remember what's important. |
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| Red House Painters – Make Like Paper Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Some Neil Young/Crazy Horse in the extended guitar solos. I'm especially impressed that he recorded this whole thing himself. | |
| Leonard Cohen – Hallelujah Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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I feel like many people have a religious attachment to the song because it says Hallelujah in the chorus and has Biblical references. Leonard Cohen was a songwriter/poet so while he may have had strong spiritual/religious beliefs, what he chooses to write about and how he chooses to write is often heavily tempered through life experience; and so any religious connotations are less idealistic and more about how those ideals confront reality. So, one thing he does is take King David out of the Holy Bible, where he seems far away and from an old time, and bring him 'back to life' with modern conversational narration and placing his emotions and actions within the context of a modern song. In doing so, Cohen also takes biblical Judeo/Christian morals, attitudes, and modes of thinking into a modern context. He does with the word Hallelujah what he did with David. He takes it from a just being a word to express purely religious thanks to Yahweh (God), to serving the function of giving thanks to all that feels divine in the course of our lives, from making love to being baffled, from being humbled to feeling righteous, from feeling moved to feeling empty. Instead of knowing what is right and being morally superior, the subject of the song seemingly does everything wrong and that is precisely what brings him closer to God. He, her, us, everyone can mutter Hallelujah because of the wonder we feel when our weaknesses and frailty humble us throughout life and prove to us our fallibility. In the moment we feel small, we feel the presence of that which is bigger, and that is why we say Hallelujah. |
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| Talking Heads – Found a Job Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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It's a very funny song, but also with serious meaning about finding happiness and purpose in life. The characters are passive receptors of entertainment. The fact that there may be "nothing on" television hasn't stopped them and the listener is reminded that this is in fact quite a common occurrence. Television is supposed to a distraction, a diversion from life; the idea being that if you don't quite like what's going on in your life you can experience a different reality. But in an entertainment based culture, the roles switch places; instead of tv being something you do in between life, life becomes something you do in between tv sessions. The characters comically do the unthinkable: they make their lives much more enjoyable than any TV show. Which is only a novel concept due to the perverted way that the entertainment industry usurped any agency we had in finding entertaining experiences. What's ironic about the song is the way that it makes what the characters end up doing seem strange and special. They're literally just living life the way it used to be lived before tv. Sometimes I like to pretend that if I ever got tired of listening to Spotify that I'd just make songs for myself to listen to. The same way I make dinner for myself or make my bed. Life doesn't have to be about what others give you. Imagine making your own clothes, your own furniture, your own life! There's lots more going on in the song but it's all easy to figure out so I'll let y'all do it your selves! |
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| Mac DeMarco – Ode to Viceroy Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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Reminds me of John Donne in that the subject could be a metaphor for something else, like a woman or a someone/something that Mac depends on in times of difficulty, stress, mallaise. And then the sonic world reminds me of something that might play during a scene in a motion picture where the characters are walking through the desert bouncing from oasis to oasis, not too uncomfortably but definitely not living luxuriously and with purpose in civilization. These abaresque desert-y motifs work well for urban/suburban sprawl, too--the city or the nice town as the beacon for meaning and purpose but living there ends up being a whole other level of boredom; you think you're closer to where things matter but maybe they're only advertised that way or, maybe, just nothing important has happened for a while and everyone is still waiting a long time, poised, instead of getting along in their lives. Waiting is boring. And stressful. Might want to grab a cigarette as it'll give you something to do with your hands! And then there is the depth between the subject matter and the form of the song; when a song about something as low-level meaning-wise as cigarettes is situated within a sonic world of wandering and mallaise it makes a sort of ironic impression. What impression specifically? I leave to the people who are Very interested in the song to determine. |
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| Flipper – Ever Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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Great song! Has a funny twist where instead of talking up the happy carefree parts of life, they bring up the uncomfortable, the difficult, the sad or disappointing parts that we all have felt. Well, maybe most of us. Can't forget the lucky few. Never before have I heard something that unleashed so much empathy or communion for those feelings in a rock-ish song, or really any kind of song. It's really rare to get such an unvarnished pat on the shoulder as Flipper does here for the listener. They do their message a further favor through the execution by letting the ideas thud and almost fall flat. It keeps it from getting overly sentimental and U2-ish. Thank you for not going that route, Flipper. I can really see how Nirvana was influenced by this band on 'Ever.' The sludgy guitar, the almost begrudging hook. And then the lyrics that seem cruel or written by a troublemaker turn out to be very meaningful and touching. Not that Nirvana did anything that came close to this. Kurt's lyrics are full of a pain that is still just his, like he never found anyone to really share it with to make it okay. |
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