| Francis Dunnery – Good Life Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[myeyesrbright:45380] I agree that the line is “Forget that I rang you”- reminds me of the Tom Waits song “Martha”, where the lyrics are comprised of (one side of) a phone call, made by a lonely man to a onetime lover who has clearly moved on and found love/happiness/all the things he clearly lacks. It’s a similarly beautiful song, in the sense that I hear in “Rosie” the same quaver of bittersweet beauty that I hear in “Good Life”. | |
| Cradle of Filth – The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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This transcription is missing what Dani sings at the very end of the track, which are lines repeated from earlier on: “Shattered are the icons of the worthless The Goddess scorned is a Valkyrie born Scattered are the wings of the virulent holy Leave their husks to be the prey of vultures and dogs” Also, this song is one of the early CoF songs in which Dani can be seen establishing the themes that will come to dominate his subsequent work. It’s about the awakening of an ancient force- the “evil” of the title, depicted here as in many of Dani’s songs as a seductive female- and the subsequent destruction of the (Christian) world. Also similar to other CoF songs is the relationship between this “evil” deity and her worshipful human liaison (the narrator/speaker) being cast as sexual or romantic in nature, with the laying to waste of Christendom seeming to be secondary- almost a product of, or the logical conclusion to, their all-consuming lust for one another. |
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| Cradle of Filth – The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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This transcription is missing what Dani sings at the very end of the track, which are lines repeated from earlier on: “Shattered are the icons of the worthless The Goddess scorned is a Valkyrie born Scattered are the wings of the virulent holy Leave their husks to be the prey of vultures and dogs” Also, this song is one of the early CoF songs in which Dani can be seen establishing the themes that will come to dominate his subsequent work. It’s about the awakening of an ancient force- the “evil” of the title, depicted here as in many of Dani’s songs as a seductive female- and the subsequent destruction of the (Christian) world. Also similar to other CoF songs is the relationship between this “evil” deity and her worshipful human liaison (the narrator/speaker) being cast as sexual or romantic in nature, with the laying to waste of Christendom seeming to be secondary- almost a product of, or the logical conclusion to, their all-consuming lust for one another. |
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| Cradle of Filth – Summer Dying Fast Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| I think most of the posters here have it right. This song is sung from a pagan or anti-Christian perspective, and uses the end of summer/the onset of autumn and winter as an extended metaphor for the impending battle between Christians and pagans. A significant aspect of this correlation between the changing seasons and the war described here is that, just as summer’s bounty will inevitably fall to decay and barrenness when autumn and then winter come about, the pagan’s victory over the Christian God and his “sheep” is assured, unavoidable. | |
| Cradle of Filth – Summer Dying Fast Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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The lyrics on the “Bitter Suites to Succubi” version are slightly different. Here is that version, which also fixes any formatting issues/omissions contained in the above transcription: Through acrid clouds of summer flies The garden swells with a thousand more wise Forever flung to celestial dreams Clawing at the grave of the dead nazarene I watch the storm approaching The darkness calls my name The trees are growing restless They feel the season change Their fruit has putrefied Forbidden once and bound to die The thread of life lies severed On the brink of paradise Grinning winds of hate unfurled Dash towers tall that grip the sun Talons stretch beneath her veil Reclamation Our time has come Time has come Autumn spreads its golden wings And lays the path for those unseen A tangled web of evil spun at last Winter spawned from barren thighs To readdress To slay the blind And throw the reins untethered to the skies They pray to the full moon rising Diana moving with such infinite grace Wrapped alone in a blanket of nightfall How many secrets can they read by your face? Will they know of majesty Of secrets held in dream-dead sleep And frozen stars that gild the frozen shores? Will their "God" of bridled love Assuage our rule from planes above Or shrink in fear from Chaos roused for war? War! Wrest askew the nails That have held you lurking deep September prayers are waning Burn the shrines of fettered sheep Spearhead the insurrection Of a world that seeks no end "We are what we are, what we shall be again…” Appear draped in terror To the comfort of your kin Stain the milky sunset red And let the others in Summer's dying fast |
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| The Silver Jews – Introduction II Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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Seems to be depicting the beginning of a party, when guests first begin to arrive, as well as an exclamation of excitement that’s being made by Berman to the listener. The party’s host is excited to spend a blissful night talking to friends, laughing and temporarily forgetting about the problems of the work week, just as Berman, as a songwriter, is excited to be able to share this period of intimately exchanged ideas and free-flowing emotion. However, the last three lines stop the song’s uplifting atmosphere of pure, uncomplicated happiness and optimism: “My friends, don’t you know that I never Want this minute to end And then it ends...” Not only does the poem have the party come to an end literally moments after it began, using a nifty trick in which the poem’s pacing is very suddenly warped, jarring the listener until memories are shaken loose, vivid memories of the sad, deflating sort of revelation that tends to occur when one snaps to the fact that this joyous, highly-anticipated event (on which they’d been counting, both for the revivifying properties of socialization and for the possibility of some unknown magic, maybe a chance meeting that ends up changing the course of their life, or some thunderous revelation, falling out of the star-pocked midnight, strong enough to power them through the seemingly endless run of dull days and emotionally excruciating nights until the next party) is over, eerily empty of the radiant potential with which it was shot through just moments ago. The poem also uses the last few lines to suggest that not only does every wildly liberating party have an equally crushing end inherent in its very logic, but that this particular narrator is conscious of this impending comedown before the party has even started, before the album has gotten through even its short introductory remarks. To sit in the earliest minutes of a party, or to grumble in the first minute or two of an album, and be consumed with thoughts of the inevitable sadness that will attend the last guest leaving, the last not fading- that is a well-wrought image of depression. If you’re lucky enough not to suffer from depression, any anxiety disorders or substance abuse issues, but would like to understand what such ailments feel like to those afflicted by them, look no further. |
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| Elvis Costello – Battered Old Bird Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| I think this song is about a mentally-ill man who lives on the top floor of an apartment building, possibly in a converted attic which serves as a small apartment. He can hear everything that goes on in this place, and the verses are mostly comprised of his observations about the building’s other tenants and excerpts of dialogue from various conversations on which he is eavesdropping. The first two verses describe an argument between the building’s landlady and her estranged husband, a relationship which is full of bitter acrimony and resentment. The husband arrives to the child of one of her tenant’s, who proceeds to swear at the husband. He fires back that, were she a proper woman, she would have taught him “wrong from right”. The main reason I believe that this song is from the perspective of a mentally-ill, attic-dwelling neighbor, unseen but all-seeing, is because of the choruses: “He’s a battered old bird/And he’s living up there” suggests that he has had some sort of pain or tragedy in his life, and he now spends all of his time in his room, “tak(ing) these little pink pills” in his little world “where time stands still”. Maybe the “little pink pills” refer to a medication that is intended to curb the effects of his mental illness. The third and fourth verses leave the husband and the landlady storyline, going on to describe many of the building’s inhabitants: “two old maids/Each one wishing that the orherbwas afraid”, maybe suggesting that these are two lesbians who are engaged in endless bickering and fighting? As this house seems to be a gathering place for sad and troubled people, this would make sense to me; there was a man who everyone thought was “so mild/‘til he chopped off the head of a visitor’s child”. The narrator goes on to describe this man dancing on a bonfire, “swallow(ing) sleeping pills” and washing them down with “a bottle of sweet sherry” which carries the promise of redemption. On it’s face, this seems to be a story of a quiet man who snapped, killed the children of one of the other tenants in the apartment building, and then committed suicide by mixing sleeping pills with alcohol. Yet the narrator has much more insight and more vivid imagery about this occurrence than he does about the others. Both with the “old maids” and the estranged husband and landlady, he only knows them through their bickering, and reports to us only what he hears. Why is he suddenly so descriptive when it comes to this “mild” man who has apparently committed murder? I’ll return to that. The fourth stanza refers to “the Macintosh Man”, which is the title of a 1973 film based on a British novel from 1971, with a plot concerning the travails of a British secret agent. This is most likely just the narrator’s snarky way of saying that there is something sneaky about this man, as he’s always going places- as evidenced by his omnipresent “overcoat”- he writes all throughout the night and seems to have a drinking problem. Other than the detail about the “overcoat”, (which is explainable in that surely our narrator OCCASIONALLY finds ways to see these people with whom he is so obsessed) we are again getting only details based on what the narrator can hear: “the typewriter rattlin’ all through the night”, the drinking habits of the “Macintosh Man”, which the narrator presumably knows because someone who drinks from morning to night is not going to be a very quiet neighbor. In a line that I find to be quite touching, our narrator relates to us that the “Macintosh Man”, while talking to himself one night, said “One day I’ll throw away all my cares”. Is he so tired of the cycle of alcoholism, his constant reaching for “the cupboard at the top of the stairs”, that he is ready to take his own life? The fifth verse is the most harrowing stanza of them all, which starts with our narrator relating a few snippets of dialogue praising the good qualities of a young boy who shows great promise. However, the narrator says “that’s how the trouble begins”. What does he mean by that? This becomes clear as he embarks on a condescending tirade about all the people he’s seen “rise and fall” from his eternal observational perch in the attic. The tone he takes at the end of this song suggests that he possesses a true hatred for the endless parade of humanity who he can only see pass him by, but with whom he does not interact, and with whom he feels no kinship. He is revealed, here in the song, as an evil misanthrope. He mocks the “big deals” of the lives that pass by him, before ominously suggesting that, whatever these people do, they’d better do it “beyond these four walls”? Why would he say that? Well, the next line mentions a boy thought by his parents to be “playing outside”, (maybe the handsome, promising youth of this stanza’s first line?) but it is revealed in the final line before the last repetition of the chorus, that “pieces of (the boy) are already scattered in the attic”. That’s why you should pursue dreams that necessitate leaving this apartment building: this man is a misanthropic, voyeuristic serial killer. Furthermore, as regards the “mild” man of the 3rd stanza, considering the information we have now, do we really think that he is responsible for committing the crime of “chopp(ing) off the head of... (a) child”, a crime which seems eerily similar to the crime to which the narrator just confessed to us in the last verse. I mentioned that the narrator seemed to know more about his “mild” man than he did the other tenants. I think the narrator chose this “man so mild” specifically to frame him for murder, silencing him with “sweet sherry” and “pills” so he could not protest his own innocence. After all, the narrator knows that the drunk in the fourth stanza keeps his booze “in a cupboard at the top of the stairs”, and he keeps reminding us in every single chorus about his “little pink pills”. Elvis was in a dark place when he wrote this record, and there are some other brutal songs on here (“I Want You”, “Home is Anywhere You Hang Your Head”, “I Hope You’re Happy Now”, but this one takes the cake. As a last comment, I’ve been listening to this song for 15 years, and only today when I listened to my vinyl copy of “Blood and Chocolate” and read the lyrics along with the record did I have this revelation about this song’s meaning. Does anyone agree? Am I missing something that would cause my whole theory to crumble? Let me know. | |
| Jeremy Enigk – Light and Shadow Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| I think Jeremy’s giving advice to songwriters/artists in general. I think many young artists have a tendency to get overly frustrated when they suffer a setback with respect to their art, whether it be negative feedback or a lack of recognition and success that they feel they deserve, whereas those who have been successful seem to understand that setbacks are not only inevitable but healthy, capable of strengthening one’s character and resolve. There is no hint of condescension or mockery in this song, though, which is one of the things that makes it so touching. Essentially, Jeremy- a musician with an incredible career and a ton of great music under his belt- is telling all prospective artists to keep failing, to keep “tearing at the wall”. You will fail as many times as it takes for you to finally strike the blow that will “light up this world”. In other words, failure is not only healthy, but is the only true path to success. Having to “knock/A thousand times” will surely be frustrating, and many people will see you as foolish for pursuing a goal as abstract as artistic renown. Ignore them, and ignore the frustration, because the “dream” that causes all artists to brave the awkward, often painful path toward artistic mastery: “I know it’s real”, Jeremy says. Take it from him, if you’re gonna take it from anybody. | |
| The Magnetic Fields – '00 Ghosts of the Marathon Dancers Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Not sure how intentional this was, but this song comes across as a very well-executed homage to the late Leonard Cohen- lyrically, compositionally, vocally, all of it. It taps into Cohen's specific brand of melancholia and does so very respectfully, which is what makes it seem more "homage" than anything approaching a rip-off. | |
| The Magnetic Fields – '88 Ethan Frome Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Gorgeous little song about a gorgeous little book. | |
| John K. Samson – Prayer for Ruby Elm Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| I think it's "The station and the riverbed register what we won't hear". I also think he says "remember all the rhymes for knot", using be singular as a pun in "for naught". Maybe I'm wrong but that's my two cents. Great job! | |
| Alkaline Trio – Message From Kathlene Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| I got this album is like, 7th or 8th grade. Of course it was the Matt songs that hit the hardest at first, "SFO" and "Cringe" and "Clavicle" just tearing up my tiny, naive little heart. But "Message From Kathlene" snuck up on me, as it has a subtlety and complexity that some of Matt's more straight ahead stuff lacks (which is OK, there is room enough for all depths and breadths) and I found myself struck by the incredible melancholia and deeply felt lovesickness that just oozes from Dan's creakily beautiful voice. It started to make its way onto every mixtape I made, for friends but especially for prospective girlfriends, and it always prompted one of two questions: 1) Which band sings the Kathlene song or, if the listener was already familiar with the Trio, 2) How did I never notice this one before? Dan is exceptionally good at writing songs that only seem to make themselves known a year after the album's release, which is one reason why he and Matt are pop punk's Lennon and McCartney. Matt Skiba stuns you with the raw emotion, the scorched earth approach - taking a verse and a chorus and just burning them to the fucking ground - and then Dan peppers the albums with achingly beautiful torch songs such as this one, so by the time you've truly absorbed an Alk3 record in its entirety it's been a few years and they're about to release another one. Maybe that's why, 18 years later, I'm still roped in and waiting for their next album as eagerly as I waited for "Maybe I'll Catch Fire" in the early months of 2000. I could go on and on about that record, too, but I suppose that's for another comment section and another song. | |
| Common Rider – Longshot Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| A lot of Jesse's lyrics for Common Rider deal with how a mature perspective can change one's view of the sadness they experienced in their youth. He writes about looking back on a life bursting at the seams with loss and devastation, on this album, and trying to place things in some sort of transcendent poetic context. "Longshot" looks back, as well, describing how relationships function when you're young. See, mature Jesse knows that sorrow is a temporary state, but young Jesse didn't. And since mature Jesse can't communicate with young Jesse via time travel, it's only through communication with friends, loved ones or certain artists that perspective can be gained. Jesse describes himself as "the one with the ruined look", and how "every last corner of the day was bruised and gray". Dire straits, it sounds like, but luckily someone was there to "(drive) tired in the rain", get rid of the booze that probably wasn't helping things very much and talk him out of his suicidal state. "Every single thing is bound to come and go", says Jesse's friend, reminding him of the ephemeral nature of sadness. The 2nd verse inverts this situation, where it's someone else (presumably the friend from the 1st stanza) with an "ache" that they don't think they can handle for another night. So, just as they did for him, he goes to them with some "lucky strikes" and a certain helpful phrase: "Every single thing is bound to come and go". What a beautiful depiction of friendship. The 3rd verse is a bit opaque, but the parts I do understand comprise a beautiful promise and affirmation of Jesse's eternal devotion to this symbiotic relationship- if the tide gets too high, he says, "we will take this flood apart/ and drag this lake for its watery heart". In other words, no matter how hard things get, if the two of them function as a unit then they'll always be able to find the light in the darkness, the eye of the storm, etc. The chorus just reinforces the paradoxical nature of hope, asserting that although the world will inevitably challenge them and put their optimism to test after extreme test, the very toughness that threatens their existence will force them to cling to each other and become a unit strong enough to win. "Underdogs don't drown", he says- probably because they fight the hardest and have the least to lose. Brilliant, catchy song. Every song on this album is a straight-up classic, and is even better than the also wonderful "Classics of Love", in my opinion. This song is a perfect summary of everything that makes this album soar, both lyrically and musically, and so works wonderfully as a closer. | |
| The Replacements – Nightclub Jitters Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This is both a great, simple evocation of both disdain for mainstream activities and and admission of a certain amount of anxiety, maybe social, that keeps someone from engaging with most of their peers. | |
| The Replacements – Swingin' Party Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I think the "swingin' party down the line is just death". I don't think he's talking to another addict ("if being strong's your kind, I need help here with this feather"), so he's saying that everybody is essentially afraid if the same thing: death. Drugs, partying, all that is simply his way of dealing with a generalized anxiety. This is a plea for sympathy, solidarity and mutual empathy. Gorgeous melody and brave for a punk rock band to attempt. Not to mention pull off. | |
| The Weakerthans – Everything Must Go! Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| This song is so beautiful. It's sung in such a fragile way, (although you could say that about many of Samson's songs) which links up perfectly with the regretful, nervous narrator. He's holding a garage sale, he says, to pay his "HEART'S outstanding bills". This, just like the first couple lines in the next track, "Aside", essentially set up the action in the proceeding lines. All of this clutter has accumulated "sentimental value", a phrase I think holds a similar double entendre to the one presented here. It isn't just STUFF- everything has significance beyond what's implied in a physical description of it (even human beings, who have all of this beautiful internal detail at their command, who have beliefs, memories, etc.). So, "A cracked up compass and a pocket watch" suggests a directionless, wandering state and wasted time. The compass is broken and he is giving up his old timepiece, the latter's it's outmoded form- meaning, it's not a watch or even a clock- especially underscoring it's uselessness. Additionally, I think, his desire to get rid of his "pocket watch" expresses a desire for change, to literally live within the hours and minutes of a new life. "Some plastic daffodils" is one that impresses me as being very subtle. While daffodils represent beauty, they are inorganic, they are not real and pretty tacky. I think these represent our tendency to fall in love with things that we regret loving later on in life- women, art, or tacky decorative "plastic daffodils". By selling off "Cutlery and coffee cups (he) stole from all-night restaurants", he is at once suggesting a state of poverty, of impermanence (if you don't buy nice things, you are just using them temporarily- you aren't home-making), and ALSO, by pointing to the "ALL-NIGHT restaurants", hinting at lonely nights spent drinking coffee and brooding ("All-night restaurant North Kildonan/ lukewarm coffee tastes like soap/ I trace your outline in spilled sugar/ killing time and killing hope" - "None of the Above" from "Fallow"). God damn. I could go on forever but it would belabor the point. Just wanted to point out the double entendre upon which the whole song is based, and that, by selling these things that have basically come to symbolize his life, he is looking for acceptance, for "a place where akward belongs", and "a sign recovery comes to the broken ones". He's willing to let them go because, he reasons, if people will buy his possessions despite their shoddy quality, then maybe someone will love him. JKS is the most underrated songwriter today- how can anyone not be moved to tears by this? And this isn't even the best song on this album. Hope this helps some people. | |
| Thrice – To Awake and Avenge the Dead Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I wrote this 10 years ago and then people started talking about 9/11 (even thought it predates 9/11) and Princess Diana, so I'll say it again. Dustin wrote it about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, using that novel's main character as an analogy for the lack of faith, and the lack of credence given to those of faith, by millennial US enamored with scientific progress, the separation of the cult of the body over the life of the mind, and the tenets of dualism as set out by Aristotle. ZATAOMM is about an individual who, after experiencing a philosophical revelation pertaining to Western dualism as initiated by Aristotle that would, if widely heard and understood, would fundamentally and ontologically change the nature of global consciousness, is treated as a schizophrenic and electro-shocked into a state of amnesia w/r/t his aforementioned revelation. The book depicts his memory returning, along with the urgent import of the ideas which were essentially snuffed out in an act of cultural suppression. That is what this song is about, end of story. | |
| Elliott Smith – Bled White Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| Addiction. Only an addict, or ex-addict, can TRULY get every connection in Smith's songs. I guess if you've intimately known an addict, you'd get a lot of it. I hate to say it and there's a lot for other people, too. But his songs have these lines that seems either nonsensical or sometimes a little trite until- BOOM, if you struggle with addiction and he's there along with you, the meaning clicks. He needs drugs to write, he needs drugs to not be completely bored by the ugliness of 21st century urban American, he needs drugs to be happy. He's blaming everyone but himself, which Elliott surely did on purpose- made the narrator unreliable to mirror the deception and denial inherent in the addict's world. Perfect. Sorry to suggest some people will never get this music, I really think that's just like an extra layer of paint on what's already a beautiful and shiny edifice. | |
| The Kinks – Sunny Afternoon Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I have no idea how so many people have managed to convince themselves that Ray Davies wrote "Sunny Afternoon" as a genuine attempt to engender pity for this character. Whatever his opinions on the fairness of British tax law in the 60's, this man is a blithering idiot. This is satire and sarcasm at their most obvious, which is not to say the criticism is any less biting. Evidence, you say? Simple: this man's catalog of grievances is objectively ludicrous. The taxman has "taken everything (he's) got"? Ok, he means besides the "STATELY home", the "ICE COLD beer" (which qualifying superlative suggests, beyond the fact that he's an idiot, the existence of other luxurious appliances in his position), his "car" (which clearly not taken by the taxman since it was driven off by a frightened, abused girlfriend). Besides a home, cold beer and a car, which Davies surely recognized were precisely the luxuries that sustained regular folk the whole world 'round, I guess he has nothing. Or, as I think Davies is obviously implying, this man is whining about what has befallen him while constantly letting slip that he still lives in extreme comfort. To working class people "lazing on a sunny afternoon" is a rarity and a luxury. For this man, it is an eternal torment. Now that I think of it, did the taxman even take his yacht? He just laments that he "can't sail (his) yacht". That is a strange way to put having one's boat repo'd. More likely, he is too down and out about having to give taxes away to enjoy his God-given right to, erm, sail in a giant yacht. To give this idea some credence, consider that he asks for someone to "help (him) sail away". Davies wasn't careless with his words, and the repetition of this word suggests that he does not mean another, heretofore unmentioned boat. In fact, maybe it's not that he's too "depressed" to take his yacht for a spin- maybe he really can't "sail (his) yacht" in a practical sense. He doesn't know how to do it, and possibly had to fire a Captain who had done the sailing for him. His plea, then, of "help me, help me, help me sail away" would not be a plea for someone to join him in his escape from a painful present. It's a request for someone to do his bidding without remuneration. He deserves to be waited on, just as he deserves to be on a yacht and to smack his wife around. That part is so obvious I will not mention it beyond laughing at this plea for sympathy for his lost "car" from an abusive, driunken spouse. Anyway, I could go on, but I just had to get the truth in there as I was so amazed that so many people were missing some of the clearest satire in rock n' roll history. | |
| Iron & Wine – Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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This song certainly seems to contain political commentary, but it's important to note that this aspect is inextricably bound with Sam's slight fire-and-brimstone theology. Love is an enormous and essentially all-purpose concept on previous Iron and Wine albums, so the fact that he begins this (comparatively) more aggressive and fiercely played song with the assertion that "Love was a promise made of smoke". One gets the impression that something has happened to the optimism and romanticism that largely dominated Beam's earlier work. Love is also "A bone cold and older than our bodies/ Slowly floating in the sea". This suggests that love, with all of the connotations Beam has draped around it, was dead and out of reach long before he was born. He is now living in a world where "The shiny blades of pagan angels in our father's skies" is a daily occurrence. Though he seems to simply speaking about airplanes, the narrator may be either highly superstitious or paranoid due to his religious beliefs. I think, though, that this is just the narrator's way of expressing the arrogance of man: they can travel wherever they want without necessarily respecting the Creator of the skies through which they fly. The narrator is married, it seems, to a woman who is distressed about the condition of their son. I assume that he has been swallowed up by the apathy of an irreligious world. Possibly he has gotten himself into trouble by engaging in behavior that, had he been upright in God's eyes, would not have happened. He then drifts into memory of when he was a poor young man ("a beggar shaking out my stolen coat"), possibly feeling guilt for crimes that he committed before his mellower years. This next line, however, is where political commentary enters the song, and provides a possible explanation for the troubled (or "pagan", which is the pejorative of choice in this song) world: "... they caught the king beneath the borrowed car/ Righteous, drunk, and fumbling for the royal keys" I believe that this is a direct reference to George W. Bush's DUI, an incident which took place before he was the U.S. president ("fumbling for the royal keys"). The borrowed car indirectly refers to his father, and the fact that George W. did not come from a generation that had to work for positions of governmental or intellectual prominence. He is described as everything that we loathe in our fellow man, let alone in our Commander in Chief: "righteous" instead of humble, ungrateful for his inherited affluence and still assuming that he could follow in his father's footsteps as a leader and an influence over legislation. The second stanza starts with a beautifully complex metaphor: "Love was a father's flag and sung like a shank/ In a cake on our leather boots". The image of a trampled flag blended with the image of a shank baked into a cake, an image usually associated with the smuggling of instruments of death to prisoners, suggests a complex combination of betrayal. That is, by scorning and trampling the values of our forefathers into the dirt, we created a world in which such deception as a "...shakn/ In a cake" can take place without our knowledge. Considering the end of the last stanza, I believe that George W. Bush is the shank, the instrument of death and the starter of wars, who was slipped into the office under the guise of piety (the cake). This maneuver was easy for politicians to make because U.S. culture has become, like the "unholy child" of the first stanza, ignorant of the ethical and moral systems (Christianity, it seems) that would allow us to see Bush as inherently violent and dangerous. Indeed, what's left of the beauty and the ethical power of Christian sentiment is one single "feather floating down/ To where the birds had shit on empty chapel pews". The image empty, befouled pews should put to rest any doubts that the narrator is blaming our culture's crookedness on the mass abdication of service, prayer, confession and faith. Much like the planes that ominously fly overhead in the first stanza, here "Every morning" there is "... one more machine/ To mock our ever-waning patience at the well". Here the well suggests purity, as well as an antiquated way of acquiring nourishment (physical and, it seems, mental). The development of technology seems concurrent with the shrinking of Christian faith. Even his wife, if the "she" is the same woman mentioned in the first stanza, has become vengeful in her frustration: she takes joy in "stealing socks" (probably just a metaphor for stealing, a grave sin, things that this probably poor family needs). He also sees her "... singing something good where all the horses fell", possibly enacting an archaic metaphor for war (horses have historically been animals of war) and suggesting that she revels in the death of soldiers who have died at the hands of an arrogant, faux-religious impostor. In this man's world, everything has become turned around: the world is agnostic and apathetic about their condition, his son has been lost to this world and the evils that can subsequently sneak in, and his wife has become angry and bitter. So, in one of the last images of the poems, he casts himself as the snake (normally the ultimate figure of evil, as the serpent destroyed our state of perfect happiness and created original sin), hinting "every possibility" to his wife. In a world where the "king", the worldly representative of God, is terrorizing foreign countries and using an inherently peaceful religion as justification, he becomes the snake who whispers that there is knowledge outside of the restrictions of the "king". This is spark of optimism, and a beautiful image of hope and faith coming from a man who has every reason to lay down his sword and give up the fight. However, the song does not end on this note. A figure called the "pagan angel", a term previously given to airplanes in the sky, appears with a gun to utter some of Beam's most ominous and devastating lines: "'My love is one made to break every bended knee". I see the "pagan angels", the planes of the first stanza, as war planes. Right as this man is whispering what would be defined as "blasphemy" in the ear of his emotionally turbulent wife, he is confronted with the guns of a war plane pointed right at him. His resolution to "...break every bended knee" is a confirmation of what others may see as this man's paranoid religious fanaticism. The powers that be have outlined their programmatic plan to eradicate the faithful (those on "bended knee"). This song is one of the most effective criticisms of the Bush area, despite one's own particular faith, and has all of the subtlety and moral passion that make songwriters essential and worthy of our admiration. Beam also makes it a pity that Iron and Wine will never be lauded along with Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen's as a master of melding sound and phrase to form a complex, astoundingly beautiful and profound commentary on U.S. culture. Though he is among the more popular in his singer/songwriter or indie rock genre, I cannot see him receiving awards or changing the hearts and minds of the Americans about whom he writes songs as prayer and exhortation. That's my take. |
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| Andrew Bird – Core and Rind Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| For Mr. Bird, this is a pretty straightforward song. It's about a man who feels misunderstood and generally underestimated by someone. It fits in with the previous track on this album, "Two-Way Action", in that his intellectual depth is explained as being at odds with the rest of the world. The guitars are killer on this track and it is a beautifully simple gem on this lyrically complex record. | |
| Andrew Bird – Two Way Action Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| EXPERIENCING a revelation, rather. | |
| Andrew Bird – Two Way Action Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| I think this song is about the grueling nature of touring the country with a band. The narrator is clearly struggling to maintain an inspired, positive and perceptive mentality while subsisting on junk food and being barraged by the physical and spiritual ugliness of the deep south. I think Mr. Bird is attempting to explain what it's like to be an artistically sensitive person who, because of the nature of his career, has to travel through parts of America that do not resemble his own enlightened upbringing whatsoever. The dauntingly uninspiring geography of Tennessee seems to throw the fragility of the narrator's values into relief. I think the idea of building a song around a man experienced a revelation about a world that is largely apathetic to his abstract aesthetic goals is very interesting and also well-executed. | |
| The Weakerthans – A New Name For Everything Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| This is about the need for personal reinvention. The speaker is pretty desperate for an influx of new ideas and energy in his life, and his search for "a new name for everything" is a metaphor for his attempt to reconfigure how he approaches his life. I think it's about how language, and specifically poetry, have helped the singer think about his own life in different ways and defeat the stagnation and despair depicted in the song. | |
| The Weakerthans – Manifest Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| This song is about optimism. He's talking about finding joy in the realization that life is meaningless, normally a sobering experience. To him, this means that he can insert meaning wherever he wants. In this case, he puts all the meaning into a girl. I probably would, too. | |
| Thrice – Image of the Invisible Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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You guys are all forgetting something: This song SUCKS. The music is simple in the worst possible way; it is repetitive to the point of being tedious, the melodies are forgettable, and the formula is the cliched anthemic stomp that plagues the airwaves these days (All That's Left was another example of this). The worst part is the lyrics. The imagery in this song is so mixed and jumbled, you might think the subject matter is extremely complex. It's not. It's another one of Dustin's lame rallying cries for Christianity: "waaaaaaa, the world hates Christians, we all need to stick together". Fuck that. Muslims and Jews are persecuted. Christians get preferential treatment in more areas of the world than any. So what is he bitching about? He's trying to make Christianity exciting again, is what he's doing. Sadly, as I see from reading these comments, it's working. "we all were lost now we are found no one can stop us or slow us down we are all named and we are all known we know that we'll never walk alone" What is the possible value in that steaming heap of cliches? This is a perfect example of a band who pussies out of writing badass metal with excellent lyrics when they have a larger audience listening. They create watered down radio crap like this. Apparently, God didn't see fit to bless this band with a long career. After this album, they're goin' away. Good riddance. |
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| Thrice – Hold Fast Hope Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This is one of the only lyrically satisfying songs on Vheissu. I'll talk about the melodic disappointments in a second. Though I find their pseudo-spirituality laughable, the lyrics are fairly well written. It has it's flaws: his use of the word "o'er" is the only archaism in the song, and it really doesn't fit. I get that he's trying to affect a biblical tone, but it comes off as trite and melodramatic. Other than that, the imagery is pretty interesting. Flames crawling up a mast, the wrath of God swooping down (I didn't know I bought a cd by a band of Southern Baptist preachers!). This doomsday scenario is probably the most captivating thing about Vheissu. After this, it all goes downhill: lyrics about love and God that are so cheesy I feel like hanging myself. Like I said, the melodies in this song are... what's the opposite of catchy? Oh yeah. SHIT. Especially in the end, when he belts out "ribs will raise cathedrals" and "scrape your skin with steel wool". Totally unnecessary, and he butchers the notes. Yuck. |
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| The Decemberists – Sixteen Military Wives Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Wow, you guys all really seem to know the meaning of this song. | |
| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Hoooooooly shit, I think I get it now. When Bryia 026 said the thing about the dry ravine, and Leslie's mother being dead before giving birth, it made me realize that if Leslie's mother is the female in WBGDT then the fall could have ejected the baby prematurely! This explains for the incongruities I was talking about earlier, in terms of the women's deaths in these two songs. And the "wastrel" who brought Leslie's fate on her is the rich man who seems to exert some sort of control over his lower-class lover ("and MY parents will never consent to this love"). I am so glad that I didn't have to lessen my appreciation for this band even a little bit. | |
| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| My guess is that the protagonists in WBGDT die, because they meet on a veranda and it says that they "fall". While the fall is most likely a metaphorical representation of the ruination of their futures, it seems like they actually fall. | |
| Cradle of Filth – Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Elizabeth Bathory was a psychotic serial killer whom we know virtually nothing about. Awesome... | |
| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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marykay, "The mother births the babe prematurely and both succumb: 'I still cling to the petticoat of the girl who died with me.'" As I said before, if she dies in We Both Go Down Together, how is it possible for her to die once more in childbirth? Also, this "man of lower class" in Leslie Anne Levine that Stylus Magazine talks about doesn't add up either. The male is the rich one in WBGDT. If you have actually heard Colin say that this is the prequel, I am very disappointed. He is one of my favorite lyricists, and I would like to think that he would catch a glaring oversight such as that. Imposs1ble, The fact that they play LAL following this one means nothing. They are thematically connected, in terms of the lower-class pregnancies and their calamitous results (which in both songs is death). Anyway, there's no way that you two should think this is the prequel unless you have actually heard Colin say so. Where can I find recordings of him saying this? |
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| The Decemberists – The Sporting Life Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| I like to take a huge drag of a cigarette when he says "and breathes in deep", and then blow it out slowly when he says "the sporting life". Um... I think I'm retarded. | |
| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Imposs1ble, Leslie's mother died in childbirth. With that in mind, it would be pretty hard for her to die once more with this wealthy lover. You're probably lying about hearing Colin say that, but if not, this is not a well thought out prequel. It doesn't even make any thematic connections to Leslie Anne Levine, not to mention the aforementioned contradiction as to when Leslie's mother died. I don't need to do research when I am fully capable of reading the lyrics without help. Square. |
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| The Decemberists – We Both Go Down Together Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This is not a prequel to Leslie Anne Levine. That song was about, in short, an aborted child whose ghost still haunts the general vicinity of her death. She is in love with the ghost of a chimney sweep, who most certainly would not come from "wealth and beauty". This is about star crossed lovers who commit suicide together. Snap. | |
| The Decemberists – The Mariner's Revenge Song Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| Yeah, me too. And this one is wrong. It's "Find him, bind him..." Also, it's "wanton cruelty" rather than "one cruel deed", and "wailed" instead of "quailed". Fuck songmeanings.net for not posting my flawless copy and posting this persons. Actually, I don't give a shit. But still. Fuck 'em. | |
| The Decemberists – The Infanta Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This doesn't have any certain moral, it just describes the personages that would be present at such an event as a coronation. A baron, the Prince, a Moor, the King, etc. It's just that in the end, it hints that she is not biologically related to her parents, and was found in a cradle floating on the water. That suggests an air of foreigness, or mystery, about her. | |
| Cradle of Filth – The Twisted Nails of Faith Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Yeah, sure. This song starts off with a general lamentation of the horrible condition of the world. It goes into depicting Elizabeth Bathory with "limbs purring from the kill", which is fitting as it is the song that follows the slaughter fest "Desire in Violent Overture", and is as if she is resting from the activities described in that song. Something snaps her from her lethargic state, (was it the cry of the wolf? haha) and she seeks out the Sorceress. They begin some sort of Satanic ritual that involves raising the dead by reading ancient chants. This seance spins into chaos, and they succeed in bringing the dead back to life: a demon has entered the room. It seems like he is about to rape Elizabeth, but she offers the Sorceress to him, under one condition: he gives her eternal life. The demon agrees, and the Witch curses Elizabeth as she is dragged away. This song is at the point where Elizabeth's sin starts having adverse effects on her life: her vanity is so intense that her friend (the Sorceress) is killed because of it. I believe that this whole concept album is a moral tale, in part, about the dangers of embracing one's lustful or wild side. This is very interesting, coming from Dani who has written about indulgent, sometimes Satanic rituals and/or lifestyles in many of his songs. It could be taken as a caution about how far we embrace our appetites, coming from someone who knows. Best line on the whole album: "As the Demon slavered foetid vows And bore His prey away In talons itching to perpetrate The nausea of eternal rape The Sorceress screaming in His grasp Spat a final curse to stain The Countess with the promise That Her lord at war would be cruelly slain" |
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| Cradle of Filth – Amor E Morte Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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haha This conversation actually made me laugh. Amor E Morte means love is dead, and seeing as how this song is about necrophilia, I'm guessing it's a pun (his love, the woman he's fucking, is literally dead). This song is disgusting, and I'm pretty sure that's why I love it so much. 5 and 6 on Midian (Lord Abortion and this one) are probably the two grossest Cradle of Filth songs ever written. They r0x0rz. |
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| Cradle of Filth – Desire In Violent Overture Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This is the most simple song on the record, yet probably the most disturbing. This just describes in detail her revelry in the torture of young women. I encourage everyone to really read the lyrics to this song, Dani has a beautiful way of scaring the shit out of people. I think the purpose of this song is to just how truly insane Elizabeth has become, and her devotion to the practice of killing young women. | |
| Cradle of Filth – Beneath The Howling Stars Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Now that Elizabeth is at the peak of her power, she throws a ball. The beginning of this song merely describes the general feeling of despair that is in the air, and contrasts that by showing Elizabeth resting content with her Dobermans. As the night grows darker, her mood becomes violent, and she kills a servant for the slightest infraction. All of the language thus far seems to be indicating some kind of ominous occurence in the near future. She descends to the ball room, and everyone stops to stare. She is exceedingly beautiful, and the Black Count (apparently just some powerful, wealthy figure) is enraptured by her. They leave the dance after practically fucking on the dance floor and go for a carriage ride, in order to have a more private sexual encounter. She convinces him to kill a hag that insults her age, and he does so with pleasure. This shows us that they are kindred. Eventually, to punish her or incense her to war, the God she abandoned in 13 Autumns and a Widow kills the Black Count. She is furious. Some of the best lines come from this song. My favorite: "And because He sought Her loves onslaught, He gutted the crone for sport." Awesome. |
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| Cradle of Filth – Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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This is the second chapter in the story of Elizabeth Bathory that's presented in Cruelty and the Beast. Here we see the effect that the abandonment of her repressive lifestyle has had on her: her newfound wild side is literalized in vibrant clothing, her dark beauty now attracts the stares and applause of others. There is a dark side to this, however, in that she becomes more and more fixated on the torture of prisoners. Her constant indulgence in sensual pleasure leads her into an intense narcissism, and she becomes enamoured with her own reflection. It is mentioned that she eventually sells her soul for eternal beauty, though it is not clear if this is literal or just a figurative representation of her strong desire to retain her beauty forever. She persists in her acts of torture, and (growing increasingly unstable) she starts to believe that the blood of her victims, when applied to her skin, will prolong her beauty. Having forsaken all virtue, she makes herself vulnerable to all sorts of dangerous passions that are described as having their way with her. This all seems quite unpleasant to us, but she recalls the rape that occured in her childhood, and is too far gone to stop at this point. The song ends with the image of her power and influence growing right along with her perverse activities. This song is amazing. Dani's frantic writing in the middle of the song, when she goes insane, is a great way of letting the writing style represent what the character is going through. |
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| Cradle of Filth – Thirteen Autumns And A Widow Lyrics | 19 years ago |
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Everyone's wrong. This is about Elizabeth Bathory, and is the first song on Cruelty and the Beast, which is a concept album that works together various legends about her, and takes many fictional liberties with it. As it is the song that introduces the character, it describes her birth into a well-to-do family, and growing up seeing prisoners tortured regularly. She gets a sadistic pleasure from this, and that sets up her actions throughout the rest of the story. One day she DOES get raped by a priest, and although it is most likely a symbol for how forceful religion was in her time, it's portrayed in the story as an actual occurence. I believe that her "kissing the Devil's phallus" is more figurative than literal, however. It represents her turn to the extreme opposite of Christianity, (giving heed to her evil, or Satanic, impulses, which have already been hinted at various times) as she most certainly DID NOT enjoy being raped by the priest. I don't know where that came from. So she leaves her families castle, and has some mysterious encounters with a witch and a sodomite, the nature of which we can only infer. Most likely, she was schooled in black magic and the extremes of sexual pleasure. She "comes to life again", and is strengthened by what she learns. She returns to the castle, and already the forces she has joined herself with are working their magic: the priest is hanging in the belfry. The song is about, literally, a woman who all of this shit happens to. Metaphorically, it is a pretty scathing comment on the hypocrisy of the church and the empowerment involved in seeking alternative lifestyles. Dani's writing has, arguably, never been better than on this album. He fucking blows my mind. |
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| Cradle of Filth – Swansong for a Raven Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| It is definitley crucial to listen to A Ghost in the Fog before this. This reiterates what happened in that song, but adds a new twist to it. In the end, you find out that he never avenged "Clarissa" by burning her attackers. It was merely a dream of revenge had by him in his jail cell. I am guessing that he was there when Clarissa (his lover) was raped and murdered, and was taken into custody so both of them "would burn on the morrow". Amazing lyrics. Especially the end. Damn. | |
| Cradle of Filth – Mother of Abominations Lyrics | 19 years ago |
| This seems to be about an extremely powerful female deity. There are hints of war being waged against the patriarchy of Christianity, or possibly another major religion (though with Dani, I doubt it). It is confusing, though; sometimes he seems thankful that this figure has gripped "the cosmic wheel", while other times he portrays her as an embodiment of the trend of modern society (shown in an unfavorable light). Not his best, but still better than most other bands can come up with. Sweet song, too. | |
| Thrice – Under A Killing Moon Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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I am pretty disappointed. I mean, the music is good (notice how I did not say GREAT like I would about every one of their other songs.) But the lyrics do not touch their others. They would be impressive for another band, but seeing as how Dustin wrote songs like In Years To Come and So Strange I Remember You, this is not up to par. It seems like he unlearned everything he went to college for and is writing from a very simple position. |
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| Coheed and Cambria – 33 Lyrics | 21 years ago |
| Ok, I love this band and all but I have one thing to say: their lyrics are fucking BAD. They are disjointed (which in some cases is good, but not in this one), wrong word choice is rampant, no cohesive storyline can be found in many of them... can someone (I challenge anyone) give me a line by line summary of what this song means? I doubt it. Their music is amazing, but it's about time bands got educated. On the exterior the sound smart, but they really need work. | |
| Thrice – To Awake and Avenge the Dead Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Has anyone ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance before? Read it and tell me that this song is not about that book. In that book, he remembers a schizophrenic side of him that was electro-shocked out of his body. He was so brilliant that he went insane, and his big "mission" was disproving the dualistic logic that Aristotle symbolizes. The book is him slowly remembering this side of him that had been killed, in a sense. Goddammit what an amazing book. |
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| Thrice – See You in the Shallows Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Sometimes, even though "the rocks are leaping for the sky", you need to say "i don't care" and jump anyway, if only because the place you are at has outgrown you, and has been "well worn by ignorance". Things look scary sometimes, but the cliff is being worn away, and you are going to fall anyway. Why not jump of your own volition. What's the worst that could happen? This song is about conquering your fears in spite of everything that instills fear in you. |
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| Thrice – See You in the Shallows Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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Sometimes, even though "the rocks are leaping for the sky", you need to say "i don't care" and jump anyway, if only because the place you are at has outgrown you, and has been "well worn by ignorance". Things look scary sometimes, but the cliff is being worn away, and you are going to fall anyway. Why not jump of your own volition. What's the worst that could happen? This song is about conquering your fears in spite of everything that instills fear in you. |
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