| Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! Lyrics | 8 months ago |
| @[heliantha:48224] Excellent analysis! | |
| Belle & Sebastian – Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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This is a song about how heartbreak and pain are simply inseparable from being human, and that we are simply naive in thinking that we are going to get through life without experiencing those thinks. We don't stand a chance to how painful life is going to be, as all of us are under the assumption that we are the exception and that love and life is going to work out perfectly. As humans, with winning smiles, naivety, and perceiving beauty in everything, we are naive in thinking everything is going to work out as perfectly as we view it. As such, we don't stand a chance in dealing with it. The narrator seems to be reflecting on how big a role heartbreak has played on his life, realizing how inseparable his experiences, past love, and overall life is from pain. He chooses to believe in stories that suggest that people like him can also be free from heartbreak, rooting for "boys like him" that are able to succeed while maintaining their naive view of the world. He cries out, wishing that he could be saved from these things. The happy ending to the story leads him to consider past relationships that have ended in pain. He realizes he wants some kind of closure in these relationships, telling them he does not intend to win them back in a Hallmark effort of love, but rather that he wishes them well and accepts that what happened was the truth. I honestly kind of interpret the ending as him becoming suicidal and reaching out one last time before he goes. It's a topic that a lot of B&S songs cover, and it leads into the next song on the record, a song about two people who have become so disillusioned with their lives and how inseparable they are from their pain, that they look for a way to escape for good. This song kind of feels like Anthony's outlook in the track "If You're Feeling Sinister." Anthony felt like he would never feel the same that he was before, and that he has been ruined after all the pain he has went through. I think it's pretty deliberate to place that theme right after the song about losing your innocence. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Pity and Fear Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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I think this song is about a married man having an affair with a single woman, and then the affair ends, the home-wrecker leaves his life. When she leaves, there's no tears as he never had any emotional connection to her in the slightest. There's nothing more than pity and fear for himself. He takes pity on himself for doing this to his wife, and he's fearful for what it means for their marriage. He also envies this woman a little bit. She's entering into his life, but never has to deal with the fallback of their affair at all. She's free to leave the situation with a clean escape, and he's stuck in place and has to deal with the fallback. |
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| The Shins – New Slang Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[StarClaire:43319] I'm in this EXACT situation. It's just this dread and apathy of being stuck where you are, and this person being perfectly fine and happy without you, and you're back to the shitty, monotonous life you lived before. This anger and apathy spans to everything you see. Such a perfect interpretation! | |
| The Shins – New Slang Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[StarClaire:43318] I'm in this EXACT situation. It's just this dread and apathy of being stuck where you are, and this person being perfectly fine and happy without you, and you're back to the shitty, monotonous life you lived before. This anger and apathy spans to everything you see. Such a perfect interpretation! | |
| Death Cab for Cutie – Grapevine Fires Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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This song relates to climate change for me. It could be interpreted as the speaker questioning whether love and connection is really worth pursuing if our physical survival as a species is uncertain in the upcoming decades. Ultimately, the speaker realizes "it'll be alright" and decides that love can overcome death and uncertainty: a conclusion similar to many of the songs of Plans. The first stanza introduces the impending doom that faces us as a species. Climate change and the fires are spreading and becoming an issue that we all have to face, and the "end of days" are in sight. "The wake up call to a rented room Sounded like an alarm of impending doom. To warn us it's only a matter of time. Before we all burn." The "wake up call to a rented room" is a clever of way of describing that our time on Earth isn't permanent, and that we don't control it and own it as much as we thought. Climate change as a "wake up call" serves as an effective reminder that our control of Earth isn't permanent, and that it's ultimately a "rented room" that we will have to leave at some point. The rest of the song seems to describe Ben's direct experiences based off a true story where he sat in a graveyard with a friend and their daughter and pondered the nature of love and connection in the face of death and uncertainty. He sees the daughter playing in the graves and comes to the conclusion that we still can have love and deserve it in the face of mass death and uncertainty as a human race. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Long Division Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Kind of reminds me of being in love with a close friend who is in a relationship with someone else, and the complexities of having to work that relationship. (This interpretation is obviously heavily inspired by my personal situation right now, but most stuff on this website is based off that kind of thing.) The lyric relating to "old friends and lovers" and their features bleeding together in the speaker's brain seems to relate to this. The speaker is torn between his friendship with this person and his love for her, and is unsure how he can view the relationship objectively as a result. "He was always distracted by the very mention of an open door." If the girl is unhappy with her relationship and speaks to the speaker about it, he becomes distracted by the opportunity to finally be with her. "cause he had sworn not to be what he'd been before, to be a remainder" seems to refer to him wanting to change his situation with this girl. He wants to be an active part of her equation instead of just a remainder that is sidelined from her life. ' "She said she never envisioned him the type of person capable of such deceit" refers to the speaker finally confessing his feelings to the girl and her responding poorly. She only thought of him as a friend and feels like he had been deceitful towards her since he had ulterior motives in their relationship of wanting more. "They carried on like long division, and it was clear with every page, they were further from a solution that would play without a remainder." It is clear to both of them that they cannot continue like this, no matter what will happen next. Either the girl leaves her boyfriend for the speaker, abandons the speaker and continue to be with her boyfriend, or somehow lose both of them and become a remainder herself. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Everything's a Ceiling Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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A very clever song, even though it's a little on the nose and sort of confusingly written. I think the analogy of digging a hole is kind of confusing here as it seems to be referring to both getting over depression as well as life plans with an intimate partner. The first stanza refers to Ben "digging a hole" with Zooey, referring to making life plans, a home, and life together in their marriage. Then, one day, she backed out of all of these plans and decided she wants a life with someone else, thus "climbing out of the hole." However, this left Ben stuck in all of these plans and ambitions alone, leaving him feeling abandoned, and confused as to how he's supposed to proceed. The song continues to describe Ben's depression in response to being abandoned. I think the lyric "the only stars I see in the sky, they don't move me 'cause they've all been dead for millions of years, they're just light diffusing" is a really clever way of describing depression. Depressed people often interpret anything good that happens to them as either just a logical outcome of something bad, or just not worth interpreting as something good at all. The next stanza is actually wrong here, the lyrics are actually: "And a constellation is more Than the brightest point of its form But every telescope you assumed Was pointed only at you" This seems to be relating to their relationship as a couple of famous people. It's clear from this album that Zooey's higher levels of fame than Ben was something that harmed their relationship ("No Room in Frame," "Black Sun"). I think the constellation refers to their relationship, and how Zooey believed it to be her as a famous person being married to someone "lesser", rather than a balanced relationship of two people. The lyric about the telescope refers to the media and people watching them, and how Zooey believed her concerns and status in the relationship to be more important than Ben's. The rest of the song refers to Ben acknowledging that he's at his lowest at this point, and that he has no other choice but to get through these tough times and committing to getting better and one day breaking free from these life plans he made with Zooey. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Title Track Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Not about a one stand IMO, but about Gibbard running into an old ex he never really got over, the same one that the rest of the album, specifically Company Calls (Epilogue) is about. It's called "Title Track" because it sets the scene for the rest of the record. It describes and awkward and shallow conversation with an ex at an event, possibly the wedding described in the Company Calls tracks. They talk about their old friend group that splintered off after they broke up. The "advantage" he describes is the imbalance of him loving her more than she loves him back, as he ultimately is reliant on her more than the opposite. I always interpreted the "and I could taste your lipstick through the filter" lyric as the speaker still deluding himself that she is still interested in him despite her best attempts to be entirely benign and "filtered" in talking to him. He picks up on a sort of romance and intimacy in her filtered speech with him. "I tried my best to keep my distance from your dress but call response overturns convictions every time" seems to be referring to him intellectually knowing he does not have a chance to be with her, but his heart taking over and ultimately staying in love with her. Towards the end of the song, he spirals and continues to fall deeper in love with her, ("my best judgement signed it's resignation") while simultaneously reflecting on the failure of his relationship and losing his chance. I think the "tripped into the guest room" doesn't describe hooking up, but more so him being relegated to a "guest" in her life instead of something more intimate. Sad song, and definitely about something more intimate and heartbroken than a one night stand. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Title Track Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Not about a one stand IMO, but about Gibbard running into an old ex he never really got over, the same one that the rest of the album, specifically Company Calls (Epilogue) is about. It's called "Title Track" because it sets the scene for the rest of the record. It describes and awkward and shallow conversation with an ex at an event, possibly the wedding described in the Company Calls tracks. They talk about their old friend group that splintered off after they broke up. The "advantage" he describes is the imbalance of him loving her more than she loves him back, as he ultimately is reliant on her more than the opposite. I always interpreted the "and I could taste your lipstick through the filter" lyric as the speaker still deluding himself that she is still interested in him despite her best attempts to be entirely benign and "filtered" in talking to him. He picks up on a sort of romance and intimacy in her filtered speech with him. "I tried my best to keep my distance from your dress but call response overturns convictions every time" seems to be referring to him intellectually knowing he does not have a chance to be with her, but his heart taking over and ultimately staying in love with her. Towards the end of the song, he spirals and continues to fall deeper in love with her, ("my best judgement signed it's resignation") while simultaneously reflecting on the failure of his relationship and losing his chance. I think the "tripped into the guest room" doesn't describe hooking up, but more so him being relegated to a "guest" in her life instead of something more intimate. Sad song, and definitely about something more intimate and heartbroken than a one night stand. |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Expo '86 Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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To me this song isn't about a single relationship, but Ben/The Speaker reflecting on all of their past failed relationships and how they end up getting their heart broken over and over, but they keep entering into relationships hoping they will find love, even though they know deep down they will only get hurt again. They seem to be reflecting on their current relationship, knowing deep down that something will go wrong and the "familiar resolve" of heartbreak will end things. The metaphor of going up a slide over and over and getting hurt but still thinking you are going to have fun seems to support this. The line referring to losing your place in line seems to indicate that the speaker does not want to give up, as doing so would mean giving up on their "turn" to finally find love and be happy and done with the dating process. Super well written song, one of my favourite DCFC tracks |
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| Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[svenllama:42691] LMAOOOO as someone currently in a "study-abroad, long distance relationship sob story," this made me laugh, fire ass comment | |
| Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[svenllama:42690] LMAOOOO as someone currently in a "study-abroad, long distance relationship sob story," this made me laugh, fire ass comment | |
| Death Cab for Cutie – Transatlanticism Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[svenllama:42689] LMAOOOO as someone currently in a "study-abroad, long distance relationship sob story," this made me laugh, fire ass comment | |
| Death Cab for Cutie – A Lack of Color Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Beautiful song, in a super similar situation with a girl, this was already my favourite DCFC song but actually experiencing this kind of thing makes it all the more potent. I'd love nothing more than to talk to Ben Gibbard about the lyrics for this one, top 5 song of all time for me. To me, I always thought "this is fact not fiction" was about the speaker finally coming to accept the realities of this relationship now that it's done. For the first time in forever, he had come to love the relationship in reality instead of the fictionalized version he built up in his head. I think the "girly magazine" line is about porn, and is phrased that way to fit the kind of cuter genuine tone of the song. As much as you try to use it to get over her, it won't make a difference compared to the connection you shared. In the end, there's nothing you can do but face the ending of this relationship alone. Numbing your feelings with girls and porn won't do anything to replace her. I know the lyric is officially "to call at 7:03", but I always thought "to call the 703" was more interesting. Especially since it's the area code for DC, which is where The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, which released the same year and is likely about the same person, takes place. I choose to believe that's the actual lyric even thought I know it's not. |
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