| Wir Sind Helden – Von hier an blind Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| i guess a romantic relationship makes sense too, but to me the song is mostly about how there's always an element of cluelessness in going through life - how there are always those points where you just have no idea what to do next; after all, you've never been this far before... i like how it captures that feeling of being a little overwhelmed but still manages to stay cheerful (especially the video) and say: just keep going, it's an adventure! | |
| Johnny Cash – The Mercy Seat (Nick Cave cover) Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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i don't agree that sympathizing with the singer makes the song less powerful - it emphasizes the brutality of the "mercy seat" and even makes the "kill hand" part more awful, because his disgust with his other hand - the one that did nothing to challenge or resist as it was being labeled EVIL - becomes more believable. i also wonder which lie he told - that he's innocent, or that he's not afraid to die? |
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| Tom Petty – Into The Great Wide Open Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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"I don't hear a single" doesn't make complete sense to me either, since his record "went in the chart" already - maybe it means that after his huge success, he couldn't follow up with any more good stuff? so he actually was a one-hit wonder? going by the video, i think it has to be negative. there's all that heavy hinting that he turned his back on the people who helped him become a star and lost his humanity and balance for a bit of fame that didn't last (the heart in the tattoo vanishing, him smashing stuff up, being "cursed" by faye dunaway, and finally the new tattooed generation coming up while he's "axed"). speaking of which - with all the johnny depp hype, someone needs to mention that faye dunaway rocking a music video is beyond cool! |
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| Wir Sind Helden – Wenn es passiert Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| i guess it could just be a concert song, but if you've ever seen the music video with axel prahl, it seems much more - melancholy, wistful, meaningful than that... about having dreams or caring about something, about desperately wanting to experience life fully, not letting all the mundanity lull you into missing the moments of joy or amazement. | |
| Joan Baez – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| i understand being annoyed that she got the historical figure wrong, but "i swear by the blood below my feet" makes just as much sense to me as "mud" - it's just swearing by lost loved ones (spilt blood) instead of by the land. | |
| Bob Dylan – Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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so this is basically a very long agreement with laocoon, but since there aren't many other comments and i like this song a lot... to me the title/refrain plays with 3 meanings - on the one hand, it's just literally true. the word 'love' has four letters. which could also be interpreted to mean that the dream of romantic love is just an unrealistic ideal, that 'love' is no more than a mundane word we use to create the illusion of something that doesn't really exist. on the other hand, 'four-letter word' is a nice way of saying cussing. so maybe that shows that our idealized concept of love isn't only nonexistent, but might even be an abomination, a swear word, a curse - like hopeless seeking or disillusionment can always be. so the first verse seems to be just him remembering the first time he heard the phrase from a friend who had a child and was perfectly content with her life. maybe the part about slavery could be a reference to how the traditional jobs of homemaker and mother were sometimes called 'slavery' in the women's movement, but that for some women they really aren't? or that even someone who doesn't believe in love can be happy, free from the 'slavery' of misplaced ideals... i have no idea; i can't think of anything more plausible. in the next verse i ask myself whether he's talking about the same person as in the first. anyhow, i see an idealistic kid in 'love' with someone whom he overhears speaking to a former lover (a more important one, who holds a permanent place through a mutual child) about the fact that she doesn't believe in love. so kind of a sad, disillusioning thing. saying goodbye unnoticed seems to refer to the person above - and it could just be saying goodbye to someone who doesn't care much about what you do, but i also thought of a kind of emotional goodbye, where you withdraw from a relationship mentally and the other person doesn't notice that everything's ended because you're both still going through the motions. and then he's just talking about carrying on his own 'games', unsuccessfully searching for this impossible ideal of a soul mate. then the last line (nothing more absurd) i'd see as him still not believing that this ideal can't be found, not believing the cynicism. but then he reaches his own interpretation of the phrase, falls out of 'love' often enough to realize that it - at least in the form he's seeking it, the 'holy kiss' - isn't permanent, isn't real, is just an illusion that passes from couple to couple and never actually stays with anyone. - i'm not sure about the traps, maybe the idea that those kinds of expectations are traps only you can set yourself (or free yourself from). but finally, he believes the phrase. and then at the end, maybe he's back beside the one who hurt him with that cynicism back when he was a romantic, or maybe he's just with some new idealist of his own and it seems weird to be in the opposite position - of having someone else believe in 'forever', love, etc (and maybe want that from him). i'm not sure about the cheating thing - maybe the thought of ships passing in the night and not being willing to engage in an affair, or maybe not being able to cheat and pretend to be more idealistic than he really is... and finally he can't think of anything to do but to fall back on what he's learned (maybe with a touch of spite, if he's really talking to the person mentioned in the beginning of the song) and say that idealized love is impossible or that seeking it is profanity. |
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| Wir Sind Helden – Müssen nur wollen Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| i like the way you can interpret the phrase "wir müssen nur wollen" either as "we just have to want something enough (to achieve it)" or as "the only thing we're really forced to do is to want to do something." i think it's about the empty promises of "self-actualization" in modern society, maybe of consumerism, of believing that achieving big dreams is the only purpose of life, that individuals control their own destinies completely - and that we always have to want more than we have. all this of course without thinking about how meaningful the goals we're trying to achieve really are. | |
| Wir Sind Helden – Die Zeit heilt alle Wunder Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| i like to think of the ambivalence of healing (good) wonders (not so good) as part of the meaning. on the one hand you've got time maturing you, helping you get over painful events or feelings or relationships, but on the other hand, it's also blunting your ability to feel, to appreciate the world and see how many bizarrely amazing things are in it. even getting over, say, an incredibly painful relationship, is somehow sad because it involves a deadening of emotions and a leaving behind of things that were once important to you. where there used to be live emotion, there's nothing left but the time you invested and the (healed) emotional scars ("ein paar stunden und narben da wo wunder waren"). | |
| Lou Reed – Romeo Had Juliette Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| i see the idea of pure, real emotion mixed in all the hopeless filth and violence, but also the fact that it can't survive for long. romeo and juliet. something flickered for a minute - and then it vanished and was gone. | |
| Melissa Ferrick – Everything I Need Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| this song is so simple and optimistic. which might be what makes it so - comforting. energizing. the perfect antidote to postmodern industrial overpriveledged media-saturated self-indulgent anglo-european discontent ;) | |
| Talking Heads – Seen And Not Seen Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| i think it's about the fact that in being/becoming ourselves, in choosing our jobs and interests and habits and clothes, we're shaping an image as much as a personality - and that there's always a certain amount of tension or fear at the thought that we might be doing it all wrong - that we might not only be making wrong decisions about our lives but systematically creating outer selves that make us even more fundamentally unknowable or wrongly known to others. | |
| Josie Cotton – Johnny Are You Queer? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i'm still on the high of having seen valley girl for the first time - a movie with the genius to realize that this is THE ultimate climactic prom-scene song | |
| The Magnetic Fields – I Can't Touch You Anymore Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| this completely captures the ambivalence of loving someone who constantly alienates and hurts you | |
| The Magnetic Fields – Papa Was A Rodeo Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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amazing song - funny, wistful, sweet; hopelessness and hope, romanticism and cynicism perfectly combined... father/mother thing makes a certain amount of sense - though if he meant to reference gender stereotypes that strongly, i would imagine it was tongue-in-cheek |
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| Paul Simon – A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Lyndon Johnson'd to Death) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| but the whole song is performed as an exaggerated version of dylan's music (including harmonica); it uses dylan's style of making enigmatic repetitive rhymes and turning proper nouns into verbs in a ridiculous, meaningless way; simon ends his sentences with an overdone version of dylans drawn-out nasal lilt... i do agree that he's also mocking the cult followings of these pop-culture icons and events, but to say it's NOT directly mocking dylan is a stretch for me. you can't parody someone's music without in some way making fun of them; and the title itself is an indirect reference to dylan's style | |
| The Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i really don't think he's saying lovers hate being in love or that actors hate their own performances in the last verse - exactly the opposite; that you can't afford to hate the part you play in life (or admit that "everything is just dirt") because it would be as stupid as intentionally breaking your own heart. | |
| The Velvet Underground – I'll Be Your Mirror Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| sheslostcontrol - i guess i can see that in the song too; this unrealistic expectation that your entire self-image can be completely positively redefined by one other person, that the beautiful reflection created by that person's love could be enough to diffuse every negative view you have of yourself or your life... but even if i admit it's unrealistic and maybe even kind of dangerous in some ways (expecting a single other person to define your self for you), it's somehow a lovely metaphor and rings true in the sense that experiencing love and acceptance and admiration from others tends to make us like ourselves more than we would otherwise, and maybe even turn us a little more into the idealized person they see. i guess i want to say that even if that alone can't possibly be enough to keep someone from suicide, it does make life better. | |
| Die Prinzen – Alles nur geklaut Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i don't know, maybe i'm overinterpreting, but i kind of like the idea that it's saying that the music industry doesn't have any new ideas in general, that everyone's just making money ripping off things that have already been done... | |
| After the Fire – Der Kommissar Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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it's kind of interesting how you can translate a song pretty accurately and just by leaving out or changing one or two lines completely obscure the meaning. translation: She was young her heart was pure But every night night is bright she got (?) original: Jah, sie war jung,/ Yeah, she was young Das Herz so rein und weiß/ Her heart so pure and white Und jede Nacht hat ihren Preis,/ And every night she had her price translation: And I got to thinking while she was talking That I know she told the story original: Ich überleg' bei mir, / I think about it Ihr' Nas'n spricht dafür,/ Her nose is an argument in its favor (or: her nose is demanding it) and herforder already translated the line about the snow we're all skiing downhill on. Oh, and in general: "Kommissar" is (among other things) a rank of police officer. "Alles klar, Herr Kommissar" is like a sarcastic/respectful "Everything ok, officer?" to a cop given that falco also sang a song called "mom, the man with the coke is here" and died in a car crash while supposedly doped up on alcohol, cocaine and marijuana, cocaine seems a pretty safe interpretive bet. |
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| Paul Simon – A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Lyndon Johnson'd to Death) Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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mean. i like dylan, and get kind of defensive when paul simon (who has his own musical and/or lyrical points of justified mockery) makes fun of him. that said... love the title ;) |
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| Paul Simon – 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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i agree with different_13 - verses are awesome, chorus is ok but doesn't fit at all; too cheery, and too rhyming also - i have absolutely no happy go lucky type feeling while listening to this song; it's about cheating on someone and leaving them - and while i definitely sympathise with the singer, it's in this melancholy understanding kind of way, not a chipper isn't-it-cool-how-many-different-ways-there-are-to- break-someone's-heart? way |
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| The Velvet Underground – Sweet Jane Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i don't know, i don't see the "simple life" aspect of it as so very positive... more resigned, accepting the emptiness of it because admitting that your whole life is just some imposed meaningless role is the same as throwing away everything you've got; and who wants to do that? | |
| The Velvet Underground – I'll Be Your Mirror Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i don't know. i think everyone finds something twisted and unkind inside themselves, if they look closely enough. the idea is finding someone who makes you better than you are, someone whose good opinion of you helps you to be what they see you as - and determines the way you experience yourself. | |
| Leonard Cohen – The Stranger Song Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i don't know - i don't see the "player" as an intentional user of women, just someone always discontent with his lot, always looking for something more than mere love, an "artist", a gambler... who really does get tired for a while and lets himself be comforted, but then feels the need to move again, to be more than a lover, to keep playing (life, not women per se). and somehow she realizes that something about her is perpetually seeking too, drawing her to all these temporary men, keeping her alone and a stranger just like them. and she kind of resignedly or fatalistically accepts that ("ok the bridge or somplace later") - but it still hurts, she still ends up sweeping everything up and watching him leave. | |
| The Magnetic Fields – All My Little Words Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| the combination of cheesy and real is what makes it work. perfect capture of emotion - hackneyed and true (which in itself might be a cliche?) | |
| The Magnetic Fields – I Think I Need A New Heart Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| i think it all kind of fits - he gets rejected ("don't call me") because he can't commit, maybe because of romantic baggage, maybe just because; but he kind of wants to, since that's what his lover wants ("need a new heart - just for you"). or something like that... | |
| John Lennon – Working Class Hero Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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um... interesting interpretation, fairest. anyhow, a lot of people seem to think that lennon is telling people to escape the stuff he's singing about by "following" him, but i think it makes even more sense to interpret that line as sarcastic - or maybe ironic - than the chorus. he's not outside the system. why follow him? what's being a "hero" even supposed to mean? |
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| The Smiths – Is It Really So Strange? Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| does anyone understand the "killed a horse/nun" part? it seems like it's referencing something specific, but i have no idea what... | |
| Modest Mouse – Birds vs. Worms Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| the power thing seems plausible, but i just like the understatement of "don't get along". it's not about hate or even really dislike, but how can you get along with someone whose ultimate goal involves killing you? it seems like it's about inherent and absolute conflict of interest. | |
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