| The Wedding Present – Brassneck Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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The Wedding Present are not really a Manchester band - Dave Gedge is from Leeds and while he grew up on the wrong side of the border he returned to West Yorkshire - and and it is from West Yorkshire that he gets the expression Brassneck which is a term used to describe brazen people around here. One might say "That Peter has a real brassneck doing that." It is not often used in a positive way - to be a brassneck is not considered a good thing - but it does mean confident or perhaps aggressively confident perhaps. Simon Arimitage - the West Yorkshire poet - has a poem called Brassneck about pick pocket thieves which illustrates the meaning of the term. Also - It is all A, D and G and dead easy to play :) |
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| Crowded House – Weather With You Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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This is about getting famous as a singer. "Now it's the same room but everything's different" In that NF goes back to the locations he used to go to before he was famous but they seem different because he has changed. "Things ain't cooking in my kitchen - Strange affliction wash over me" Despite the fame something is wrong. "Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire - Couldn't conquer the blue sky" Questions the power of singers and bands to make a difference in the world saying that even if the most power can not have control over some elements on earth than what effect coudl he have? "There's a small boat made of china - Going nowhere on the mantlepiece" A metaphor for the frustrated traveller. The boat is a think of movement but it is not a real boat and is just an orniment so in a way it is trapped as he feels. "Do I lie like a loungeroom lizard - Or do I sing like a bird released" And he questions if the reasons he is not satisfied with his situation is because he lacks talent (the bird released) or if he is a fraud (The lying lougeroom lizard) "Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you" NF concludes that the mood of a lack of satisfaction is not something he can control or avoid. Wherever he goes he takes the weather with him. |
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| Liz Phair – Girls' Room Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I like to think of this song as being sung by an adult in the middle of an argument with her partner. She finishes the arguement with a shout of "I'm going to sleep in the Girls' room" the Girls being her children and after going into the room with her kids she thinks back to the days when she was on the cusp of adulthood (The reference to shaving being pubity) and the sense of uninhibited enjoyment she felt then. I'm sure if Elliott Smith had sung it it would be about drugs though :) |
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| The Beatles – Dig It Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| For all you Americans "Matt Busby" was the manager of Manchester United who won the European Cup with a team that included Bobby Charlton and George Best. | |
| Pulp – Bad Cover Version Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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* It's like a later "Tom & Jerry" when the two of them could talk The cartoon series started letting them talk and it is generally accepted was never as good after that point (Jumped the shark) * like the Stones since the Eighties The Rolling Stone have not put out anything good since the end of the 1980s (or 1960s in many people's opinions) * like the last days of Southfork The famously bad end of TVs Dallas where The Devil confronted JR to try to get him to kill himself. * Like "Planet of the Apes" on TV As opposed to the movies which are pretty good. * the second side of "'Til the Band Comes in" The Scott Walker album which - vinyl fans - had a good first five tracks and a weak second five * like an own-brand box of cornflakes Kellogs famously so they never make Cornflakes for anyone else meaning that no other brand of Cornflakes will taste like a Kellogs box. |
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| Pulp – The Fear Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This song is about Pulp and Jarvis Cocker's life after Pulp went froma very small band to a massive band with the release of Different Class. It is Jarvis saying "Here we are, we are famous and we have got everything we wanted and it is all a bit rubbish really." | |
| Pulp – Wickerman Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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"After the Leadmill." The Leadmill is a music venue in Sheffield which Pulp have probably played loads of times. |
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| Liz Phair – 6' 1" Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Every song on exile in guyville is mirroring a song on Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones. Take a look at: http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=45241 This song is a reply to it. |
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| R.E.M. – Exhuming McCarthy Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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The trial which produced the quote from the middle "Have you left no sense..." is featured in the film "Good Night, And Good Luck" if anyone wants to know more. The song is about the way that fear can be used to motivate people and was then applied to Reagan and the way he focused on supposed external threats from the USSR which we now know to be fabricated. It is very, very easy (and correct) to apply this song to the period from 2001 to 2006. |
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| R.E.M. – So. Central Rain Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| driver08uk is spot on. It is about waiting for a phone call which is not coming because - unknown to the singer - a flood has washed the phone lines away so as the singer waits for the call he wonders why she is not calling and mentally pulls apart the relationship they have. | |
| R.E.M. – King Of Comedy Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Adding to algunmae's description King Of Comedy is a 1983 Martin Scorsese film in whcih a would be stand up comic will do anything to become famous eventually restorting to kidnapp and blackmail. | |
| R.E.M. – Daysleeper Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I've always thought it was about companies which put profit over people and the person in question is the Daysleeper who has a detached life where he does not connect with the rest of the world because he spends the hours when everyone is awake asleep to allow him to work for this company which have no interest in his well being. An ocean machine is a static noise creation device which saliors used to use to make a constant hum of static which - in theory - drown out the sound of the sea when they were sleeping on the boats. The louder the static from the Ocean Machine mixed with sound of the waves on the boat and made one constant hum and not few infrequent sounds. In the song this would be used to deafen the sound of the City outside the daysleeper's bedroom. That said I have also heard the term used to describe a machine whch creates a noise to sound like the ocean to help sleeping. |
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| R.E.M. – Star Me Kitten Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| The Rolling Stones wanted to put a song about Groupies on Exile On Main Street (I think) called Starfucker but the record company said no so they renamed it Starstarrer (Star being a symbol for an expletive deleted). The "star" in "Star Me Kitten" is a reference to that and does indeed mean "Fuck Me Kitten" | |
| Blueboy – River Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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"Eye like River" is a reference to River Pheonix the movie star who had eyes (nice ones I guess) The song is about being noticed for one's looks and while that is shallow it is also exciting and gives a level of acceptance. |
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| The Raconteurs – Intimate Secretary Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| As kakistocracy is a system of governing where the least able have power as opposed to - and for example - a democracy where those who have been selected by the people have power. | |
| Pixies – Hang On to Your Ego (The Beach Boys cover) Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| It is from Frank Black but it is not a straight cover. Hang On To Your Ego is on Pet Sounds as "I Know Theres An Answer" and his (some) different lyrics. The song is about LSD which - at the time - was said to supress the ego of people (Funny how no one ever seeks to oppress the Id - probably cause they like using it in Scrabble) | |
| The Smiths – Frankly, Mr. Shankly Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Billy Liar is about a guy who works in an undertakers in Bradford who wants to leave to write for a stand up comic. Billy drifts into a kind of fantasy world where he is doing what he wants to - "I want to live and I wat to love" echos this. There is no Mr Shankley in Billy Lair but Leonard Rossiter plays a Mr Shadrack. Now probably because it is really hard to come up a decent rhyme for Shadrack Moz changed it probably to Shankley because it fitted with Frankly. Bill Shankly was a long serving the Liverpool Football Club manager and it is very probably that Morrissey had heard the name and done the word play for sometime. Billy Liar also gives the final Smiths album its name with one character shouting "Borstal Here We Come" at the end. Borstal is teenage prison and swaps out for Manchester prison Strangeways |
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| The Wedding Present – Give My Love To Kevin Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| About how stupid the name Kevin is. Not really. It is more about the idea that you start to get over a break up when you start to see the people who have caused you the problems as more human and less bringers of evil hurtness. At least that is my take on it. | |
| The Wedding Present – Shatner Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This is about domestic violence and not really about Capt Kirk. It is the really to prototype for the rest of the Wedding Present songs setting out the theme of being on the outside of relationships which you can see the imperfections of (See also "Dare") | |
| The Sundays – Goodbye Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This song's title was a kind of joke. It had taken the Sundays years to follow up the debut album and the first single from the second album - this song - was "Goodbye" prompting the NME to say "Goodbye already? You only just bloody came back!" | |
| The Sundays – Monochrome Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| About watching the moon landings in 1969 on TV. | |
| The Sundays – Summertime Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| This song is about looking for love and doing it in the small ads in newspapers: "Romantic Piscean seeks angel in disguise" is typical of those sort of adverts. It goes on from the idea that you meet a person to the outcomes of that - could be great, could not be - and as I see it the subject of the song convincing herself that it is worth taking the chance. | |
| The Sundays – Here's Where The Story Ends Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| I always liked "the shed" reference in this because it portrayed the subject of the song as more of a part of the relationship within it. At this stage in this type of music songs were sung with a detachment from the subjects - the likes of Morrissey sang as if they were above certain things - but in "Here Is Where The Story Ends" Harriet Wheeler's character in the song is more involved. I always though "the shed" was a quick shag and that in admitting to that she is admitting to the kind of equalness in a relationship which Morrisey et al do not portray. She is embrassed by it but accepts it as a part of the relationship. At least that is my take on it. | |
| Belly (US) – Hot Burrito #1 Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Gram Parsons wrote this song after his wife had left him (he was not very nice to her) and on hearing it she came back to him. | |
| The Beatles – Lovely Rita Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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Rita's name is a corruption of "Meeta Davis" who gave Paul a parking ticket when he was parked on Double Yellow lines on Abbey Road one morning. He read her name off the ticket and called her "Lovely Meeta, Meter maid" before changing it later for the song title (which made more sense) Meeta David turns up on British TV every few years to relate the story of how she is the real Rita. |
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| The Beatles – Paperback Writer Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Wyrm is almost right about where this song comes from but it was not Paul's Grandmother who came up with the paperback but rather Paul himself on a BBC Radio One interview in which he told the interviewer/dj that he could write a song about any subject and - because it was close to hand - picked up a paperback and said (para) "I could write it about this" | |
| The Beatles – Sexy Sadie Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| Sadie Frost was not named after "Sexy Sadie" - "Sexy Sadie" was named after Sadie Frost who was born in 1965 and - as I heard it - was the baby of a friend of one of the four who heard the name, liked it and used it. | |
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