submissions
| Aimee Mann – That's Just What You Are Lyrics
| 9 days ago
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This song is sprinkled with insanely brilliant lines like:
"And you're always telling me that it's my turn to move"
1.) This eludes to playing a game and the negative connotations of playing games in a relationship.
2.) "Move" in the sense of "change" - the subject of the song insists that it is the protagonist that has to make all the changes in their realtionship. |
submissions
| Drive-By Truckers – Outfit Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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@[Rickvee:50529] - it's a sly bit of double-meaning by Isbell. If you interpret the line in relation to the previous line, it would mean "don't let on that you are actually more important to people than Jesus". If, on the other hand, you interpret the line all by itself it would mean "don't play music for free". The latter makes sense when you consider that young bands are often asked to play for free on the grounds that it will "give them exposure" (or something similar). |
submissions
| Drive-By Truckers – Outfit Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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@[BamaGal:50528] - more specifically, I think this song is a father's advice to a son embarking on a career as a musician. His father understands that drugs are a part of the scene, but advises his son to draw a line: "have fun but stay clear of the needle". Although the son is going to be on the road a lot he should remember to "call home on your sister's birthday". The "don't tell 'em your bigger than Jesus" line is an obvious reference to Lennon's (misunderstood comment) and "don't give it away" is an admonishment to never play music for free. |
submissions
| Midnight Oil – The Dead Heart Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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@[jkw:50385] - pretty much every non-European country on Earth shared the same fate to varying degrees. White men came and took everything. |
submissions
| The Pretenders – The Wait Lyrics
| 1 month ago
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@[Stiglr:50312] I don't think she intentionally tried to make the lyrics unintelligible. It's just the combination of the words she wrote and the tempo of the song. I'm guessing they might have tried to play the song at a slower pace and it just didn't feel right. |
submissions
| Counting Crows – If I Could Give All My Love (Richard Manuel Is Dead) Lyrics
| 3 months ago
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This isn't the only song with the line "Richard Manuel is dead". When he was in the Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell wrote a song called "Danko/Manuel" with a chorus that went:
can you heart that singing? sounds like gold / maybe I can only hear it my head / fifteen years ago they owned that road / now it's rolling over us instead / Richard Manuel is dead
The way Isbell delivers that line sort of stops you in your tracks. |
submissions
| The Replacements – Hold My Life Lyrics
| 3 months ago
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I always thought of this an yet another one of Westerberg's "struggling with success" songs. "Tim" was the Replacements first album with a major label. While it wasn't a done deal, mainstream commercial success was a real possibility. The only problem was the The Replacements were the product of a culture which regarded mainstream commercial success as a sellout; an abandonment of their punk roots. So it was "time for decisions to be made". Go mainstream "crack up in the sun" or wither away in obscurity "lose it in the shade"? |
submissions
| Talking Heads – Crosseyed and Painless Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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"facts just twist the truth around"
Truer words were never said. As a society it seems we are obsessed with the idea that we need "more facts" or that "we need to return to fact-based journalism" etc. Most people don't get that facts are, by themselves, very small and useless things. Facts don't mean anything outside of some context in which to interpret them. The biggest and most successful liars pretend that they are "just conveying facts" when, in truth, they are communicating both the fact *and* providing the framework for interpreting that fact. They do the former *explicitly* and the latter *implicitly*. |
submissions
| Don McLean – Vincent (Starry Starry Night) Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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Aside from everything else, the poetry of the lyrics just takes your breath away. The words are rich and lush, but somehow also succinct and economical.
"portraits hung in empty halls / frameless heads on nameless walls"
Two lines to sum up the pathos of Van Gogh's commercial failure better than any long essay on the subject. This beautiful work that the world would later find *so* valuable, hanging up, unframed with no one paying any attention. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Saving Grace Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[elwoood13:45880] - neither ZZ Top nor George Thorogood ever wrote lyrics like these. The music is good but when you marry it to poetry that is true it takes it to another level. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Saving Grace Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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I don't think Petty ever wrote a song more acerbic than this one.
"and there's a guard on every door / and a drink on every floor / overflowing with a thousand amens"
Just the way he delivers the hook "don't you baby?" seems to drip with sarcasm. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Straight Into Darkness Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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To me the second verse of this song really captures the essence of this song. "Man there was nothin', only black sky" You move through your life from job to job, relationship to relationship and, sometimes, you get this feeling that you are being propelled into nothingness; that everything that meant anything to you is "back there" and what lies ahead is empty and black. |
submissions
| Tom Petty – Insider Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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This song sounds too specific to be just something Mr. Petty invented from whole cloth but, apparently, he did. The protagonist seems divided between blaming the woman he loves, her "twisted friends", or the man she's apparently in love with. I intrigued by the lines "I bet you're his masterpiece / I'll bet your his self-control" because I have no idea what they mean but they evoke an image of someone who engages other people's emotions for purely selfish reasons. |
submissions
| Drive-By Truckers – Where the Devil Don't Stay Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[Tedvi:45743] - members of the owner class are sometimes referred to as "blue bloods". "Greener" refers to accumulated wealth. So to be "clean" (i.e. not engaged in illegal activities) you either have to be born rich or have gotten wealthy some other way.
I think the "blood you gave gives you away" is a reference to leaving blood evidence during the commission of a crime (i.e. robbery or murder); evidence that is used to discover and convict you. |
submissions
| Drive-By Truckers – Where the Devil Don't Stay Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[Tedvi:45742] - members of the owner class are sometimes referred to as "blue bloods". "Greener" refers to accumulated wealth. So to be "clean" (i.e. not engaged in illegal activities) you either have to be born rich or have gotten wealthy some other way.
I think the "blood you gave gives you away" is a reference to leaving blood evidence during the commission of a crime (i.e. robbery or murder); evidence that is used to discover and convict you. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – I Don’t Sleep, I Dream Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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In addition to what was said above, I think there are layers that have to due with fame. Stipe was pretty famous when he wrote this and I think it's probable that many of the men seeking to have sex with him were attracted because of that fame. The "you looking to dig my dreams" and "deliver my demons" lines are references to the curiosity these people had about his inner life, not out of any genuine interest in him as a person but more like "what is up with this crazy rock star?" |
submissions
| Hard Working Americans – Massacre Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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This song was written by Todd Snider around the time he was breaking up with his wife, Melita Osheowitz. The pain of breaking up has fueled many songs and, in some cases, entire albums. This song focusses on a particularly painful point where Snider apparently wasn't able to contact his wife (for some reason) and was force to rely on what he was hearing from the rumor mill about ... ???
That being said, there are some weird bits of ambiguity in this song. Early on the writer talks about "walking away" but, soon after, says "I'm coming after you". It seems like the Snider can't decide whether he wants to stay or leave. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Begin The Begin Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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A lot (not all) of this song is about the helplessness of the mainstream middle-to-lower classes in the face of their obvious decline and inevitable destruction.
"Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand" harkens to "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" i.e. your current level of creature comforts makes it difficult to justify rocking the boat.
"The insurgency began and you missed it" - there are revolutions taking place that you could join, but corporate media isn't going to tell you about them lest you get any ideas.
"life's rich demand creates supply in the hand of the powers" - our love of creature comforts has created an uber-class of powerful people.
"The only vote that matters" references the futility of attempting to change things via electoral politics and "silence means approval, silence means security" references the impulse to stay quiet despite everything you see going on.
"Tiger run around the tree" (a reference to Little Black Sambo) invokes the notion of keeping people so busy/distracted chasing the trends of popular culture that they don't notice what is being done to them. |
submissions
| John Mellencamp – Rain On The Scarecrow Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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@[madman8199:43931] - people need to understand that capitalism is like a virus. It follows very simple rules and has no moral agency. The virus that sickens and kills you has nothing against you personally, it is too simple for that. It is just following the logic of viruses - "hijack cells and use them to reproduce".
Similarly capitalism follows the logic of "reduce the cost of inputs". The fact that this causes people to suffer is irrelevant to the decision making process. If you work for PepsiCo you'd be insane to spend a cent more on, say, corn than you absolutely have to because all of your competitors are buying as cheaply as they possibly can and everyone is working with razor-thin profit margins.
We have shackled ourselves to a system that treats us like livestock an we wonder why so many people are suffering. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Secondary Modern Lyrics
| 1 year ago
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This seems to be a fairly simple (for Costello) song about thwarted love and/or lust. FWIW "packet of three" is a reference to the practice of selling condoms in threes. |
submissions
| R.E.M. – Maps And Legends Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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I think this song is about the difficulty of knowing anything. Our experience of the world is filtered by our expectations of what the world is, by our internal maps of the world. We\'re caught up in these maps, but the maps are a description, not the actual thing. "The map that you\'ve painted doesn\'t seem real".\n\nThere\'s a character in this song whose maps of the world are different from most other people\'s "He sees what you can\'t see". Note that there is no assertion that this character\'s maps are superior or more accurate than other peoples\', just different. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[hpylori:40877] - this song may not be *solely* about drugs but, if you\'ve ever taken enough good hallucinogens, the imagery of this song will probably resonate with that experience. The dissolution of your own ego, the helpless tug of your own imagination, the crazy joy and helpless laughter - it\'s all in there.\r\n |
submissions
| Peter Tosh – Burial Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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I think that Peter Tosh wrote this song is response to the requests he got to attend and/or play at the funeral of various political and/or gang leaders to show his support for whatever faction they belonged to. Basically he\'s saying "don\'t drag me into your squabbles". The stanza starting with "this man and that man / yes they are the same man" is his way of saying that, to him, they were all engaged in the same con of gathering power and wealth by exploiting poor people regardless of what they may have claimed their cause to be about. |
submissions
| Elvis Costello – Opportunity Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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Listening to this song after many, many years the offhand misogyny of Costello really struck me - "but her bedroom eyes were like a button she was pushing". The women in this period of Costello's writing are always using their sexual attraction *against* the author in some sort of calculated fashion. |
submissions
| Sheryl Crow – Superstar Lyrics
| 5 years ago
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The line "like Bandini looking for Camilla" is a reference to "Ask the Dust", an iconic book about depression-era L.A. by John Fante. |
submissions
| The Replacements – Unsatisfied Lyrics
| 5 years ago
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First off, this song can hardly be about "teen angst". What teen has had the time to accomplish the things they dreamed about as a ... child?
I can't help but place this song in the context of the Replacements career. At the time they recorded "Let It Be" they had accomplished everything that the band that recorded "Sorry Ma ..." could have ever even imagined. Now what? It seemed like an impossible dream at the time, why aren't they happy? |
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