submissions
| Joy Division – Disorder Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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I'll be a contrarian and go on record as saying that this song may or may not actually be exclusively about Ian's epilepsy. Yes, Ian suffered from epilepsy. Yes, he wrote about it (most famously in "She's Lost Control"). To me, this song is about more than having an epileptic seizure and I think there's been too much focus on that aspect of it in the comments so far. But as Ian sang, "Who is right, who can tell, and who gives a damn right now?" :-)
For me, the central line is having the spirit but losing the feeling. This is the struggle of an artist, an unhinged and disconnected artist: how to take pleasure from the things around him, how to use them to make and create, instead of growing bored and detached from them and living solely inside his own head; the protagonist has an artist's spirit but he can't live in the normal world, he can't take the banality of day to day existence as it wears him down and dillutes his artistic purity (spirit) and makes him lose his feeling (FEELING FEELING FEELING!). But here's the rub and the paradox of the great artist: without being grounded in the tangible and the real at all, he cannot fulfill the role of the artist as social commentator, trickster, or priest.
And perhaps here is where the epilepsy comes back in: Dostoyevsky also suffered from it and described it as a religious experience but it had similar effects on him, causing episodes of manic depression, the ability to see things in a high state of mania and, for a time, with piercing clarity and then at the next moment losing that feeling completely and suffering from debilitating depression; where everything becomes banal: a chore, a list, and, yes, even a news report, to go back to danohuiginn's previous comment.
Great song. |
submissions
| Joy Division – Shadowplay Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Great song; when hearing this song, I've always thought of the story of Judas and think this is being told from Judas' point of view, someone with a heavy conscience who has betrayed an important figure, someone very close to them who trusted them implicitly. The "shadowplay" are the nightmares that follow after he has betrayed JC and he's plagued with the dark and surreal imagery of these assassins. His conscience won't let him escape. He waits for JC, expecting him everywhere, but never finds him. I'm not a Christian and I don't know if Ian is/was or what he intended but I feel this reading is probably better supported by the text than Bliss Freak's. ;-) |
submissions
| Midnight Oil – Read About It Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Love this song and wanted to comment on it since no one else had. For me this is about the difficulty of staying informed, not realizing one is subject to the biases of wherever you are born and the control the media exerts in keeping you from the truth. It doesn't matter if you're in the United States (watch the documentary "The Control Room" or China (what do you know about Tianamen Square--try googling it, still nothing, right?) (or the good ol' USSR to use the frame of reference from the 80s when this song was written). It is about how easy it is for an individual to become apathetic and ill-informed in such conditions. |
submissions
| Echo and the Bunnymen – Never Stop Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Love the string instrumentation in this song. For me this song is about the space between right and wrong; the irony is the absolutism of the title, trying to stay faithful and true to ones idealism in love while also realizing there is a lot of wiggle room between right and bad/wrong and good and that life is about compromise, not living in a world of strictly black and white dichotomies where cake is either poison or poised to come back in season. |
submissions
| The Unbelievable Truth – Higher Than Reason Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Beautiful song; for me it is about the irrational--the metaphor is religion but it is probably about any heightened emotional state that is beyond the perview of reason such as romantic love. |
submissions
| Menomena – The Pelican Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Bird is often slang for a girl. I think the metaphor here is for a gold-digging girlfriend who just keeps taking and taking to the point where the relationship is very one-sided and the boy starts fantasizing about how to exact revenge. The boy feels so put out by the girl that it is easy to compare her to a pelican (mine! mine!- finding nemo), an epic battle (300 anyone? ;-) ), or a theft which results in a stoning. This song is very dark but beautiful. Love those drums! |
submissions
| Catherine Wheel – Texture Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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For me this is a song about someone who is bored with their present conditions (could be their lover, school, work); everything is too plain, too... smooth. The writer is a romantic and naive, wants complications, wants tragedy, wants to stop sleeping and dreaming and really live life to the fullest with all of its complications. |
submissions
| Catherine Wheel – Heal Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Great and tragic song; for me, it is about the difficulty and grave bravery of growing up, becoming a man, healing from an abusive past, losing one's lofty (and innocent) idealism about what the future contains but, in so doing, becoming more firmly rooted in realistic probabilities and outcomes and by so doing finally appreciating those around you who've given you strength in small ways that you've likely overlooked because a small part of you enjoyed suffering, living in your own head and with a boyish ego, and thought that by stoically suffering you were being brave. |
submissions
| Catherine Wheel – Creme Caramel Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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Beautiful song; the chorus and refrain "Wedding night thighs kept me alive" will choke you up. Suggested corrections: "really unctuous" "Moody and blue" "Our love is much" Creme Caramel is a sweet desert and a nickname for the lover; the singer is remembering the sweetness of the lover and their love making in times when things were not going as well. |
submissions
| Catherine Wheel – All Of That Lyrics
| 17 years ago
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This is a beautiful song. Different than most CW songs. Not sure if the lyrics above are 100% correct (I hear something else). It reminds me of three things, listed in no particular order: Warhol's in/famous quote that in the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes, Walt Whitman's great poem Song of Myself and the line (paraphrasing here) I contain multitudes; do I contradict myself, then I contradict myself and the wonderful children's book The Little Prince. |
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