submissions
| Courtney Barnett – How To Boil An Egg Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
|
From Courtney, “How To Boil An Egg” is an old song. “I used to perform this song at all the open mics when I was 21,” Barnett explains. “It never got recorded, so for personal-posterity I updated it and made this version recently when I was bunkered up in the bush doin’ some demos for my next album. In tradition of the Milk! Records compilation releases, like ‘Pickles From The Jar’ or ‘Three Packs A Day,’ I wanted to include a song of mine for Split Singles Club that was a tad left of album-centre. It’s a songwriting experiment that doesn’t really belong anywhere else.” Barnett played every instrument on the song herself. |
submissions
| Pinegrove – The Metronome Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
Evan wrote about 'The Metronome', reddit AMA in March 2016.
"Metronome is about liking someone unrequitedly who is also friends with all of your friends." |
submissions
| Pinegrove – & Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
In a 2016 Pitchfork interview, Evan was asked about the best advice he’d ever received.
"I took a James Joyce seminar and my professor said: “When reading Joyce, it’s never either/or. It’s always and.” And that advice extends to just interpreting experience. It’s an adventurous perspective, and it also does not try to collapse or reduce or one-dimensionalise experience—there are many layers to everything that’s going on, and they’re not competing, they co-exist. And you don’t have to choose. In fact, to choose is a little bit foolhardy. Never either/or, always and… [points to his “&” tattoo]." |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Need 2 Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
|
Evan talked about 'Need 2', reddit AMA in March 2016, explaining that the song is about songwriting. |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Need Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
From reddit AMA in March 2016, Evan wrote that 'Need' was his personal favourite song he’d written.
"My favourite might be the song 'Need', on 'Mixtape Two' / 'Everything So Far'. I try to write songs where the speaker is a slightly better version of me. I think the voice in need makes some important realisations that I could learn a thing from." |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Angelina Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
Evan talked about 'Angelina', in reddit AMA in March 2016.
"It’s basically 3 different melodies over the same chords, in different vocal registers. I try to play with the tension of it by selectively introducing symmetrical melodies on different layers of the song. It all feels familiar because basically it’s just variations on the same thing. I use the same trick in 'Aphasia.'" |
submissions
| Pinegrove – New Friends Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
Evan talked about “New Friends” reddit AMA in March 2016.
"I think 'New Friends' is in part about how when you connect yourself deeply to a person sometimes it’s at the exclusion of your other people. And what happens when you and your partner break up? Lookin' up once the dust has settled and realising you forgot to water your other relationships & now they’re wilty." |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Waveform Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
From Gold Flake Paint in 2016, Evan talked about what Waveform was about:
“Waveform is a song about what it means to turn suffering, or friction, or just emotional content, into an object of art,” he continues. “’I drew a waveform with your blood’ is the clearest way I’ve tried to express the red imagery on the album; the blood being the content of what I’m making this musical sculpture out of. It’s expressing the line between the physicality of art as an object and the ephemerality of the music.” |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Aphasia Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
From a 2016 Pitchfork interview, Evan describes what “Aphasia” is about:
"Aphasia is a neurological condition that prevents you from accessing words well, and we have a song called “Aphasia,” and people have asked, “Do you actually have aphasia?” No, it’s a metaphor. It’s a fear of mine that I won’t be able to express myself well enough, or that I’ll be somehow trapped inside myself. Maybe a lot of people feel that way. So I’m using it metaphorically as an extension of solipsism. Not only am I afraid of discovering that I am the only real thing, but I can’t communicate that discovery to anyone because I’ve lost my use of language. That’s what Cardinal is about for me." |
submissions
| Pinegrove – Cadmium Lyrics
| 6 years ago
|
Evan from reddit AMA in March 2016.
"Cadmium is about the pressure that builds when you don't say what you're thinking about, and how it always feels so much better to just talk about what’s on your mind. Also I wanted to explore different representational strategies, i.e. different ways to ‘say it’…. there are no answers, just questions."
In an email to FADER, Evan said:
"The song’s a lot about correspondence and communication. There’s a book called 'I Send You This Cadmium Red' by John Berger and John Christie that collects the letters the two Johns sent to one another. The first letter sent was just a square of that colour. I was writing a lot of letters with my friend out west at the time, and we liked the idea. We started sending colours and art sometimes and found it to be a different and good (and sometimes more direct) way to say what we were feeling". |
submissions
| Hop Along – Powerful Man Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
|
This song is about a true incident. Frances saw a man abusing his child and was too intimidated to act. |
submissions
| Josh Pyke – Songlines Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
From Josh, “I wrote this track with Marcus from Jinja Safari. The collaboration came about when I heard a track being played in my local cafe and liked its style. I asked the owner who it was and she told me it was Jinja Safari. I asked my manager, Gregg, if he could hook up a co-write, and it turned out that Gregg actually manages Jinja Safari too. Serendipity.
The lyrical concept of ‘Songlines’ comes from a book I read which explained the beautiful tradition of Indigenous Australians passing on knowledge and also ways of navigating vast landscapes, through songs.
It occurred to me that since I use songwriting as a way of processing my own thoughts, as well as songs being a type of musical diary for me, that I was creating Songlines for my own kids, to pass on whatever (possibly questionable) wisdom to them, so that they can navigate their way across the landscape of the life we’re building together.” |
submissions
| Hop Along – Waitress Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
|
“It’s about one of the first times when I looked at somebody and felt the distaste in the air,” she explains. “I mean, I could have been making it up. You don’t know what people think about you, but just being in a situation where you know someone has reason to be disgusted with you. And I was just trying to do my job. It was one of the first times I felt really small.” |
submissions
| Dan Kelly – Never Stop The Rot Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
From Dan Kelly, ‘Never Stop The Rot’ the video was directed by Sunny Leunig In a green screen studio in a storage facility in Brunswick. Phoebe Taylor was the star and plays my bored travel partner with fabulous seventies flair! She is a designer, a motorbike rider and a drummer in the Steve Miller Band. We had to borrow a motorbike off her friend Tao as her bike broke down and we borrowed a small rubber dinghy too.
The band have been coming to rehearsal in Skins after riding/jogging from work so I thought they should try them in the clip. I think it's made for one of the great guitar solo shots ever. No guitar or guitarist just the band on exercise bike and stretches. I spent two hundred bucks at the army disposals on hiking gear and we only used half a second of hiking! I looked quite silly. Sunny was looking after me there.
Some of the Dream Band couldn't make it so we just didn't use them and pretended to play their instruments. Sorry Maddy and Joe but time was tight. The theme started as a slide night of my holidays for bored friends. We used that at the start but realised no one under 30 knows what a slide is, so it descends fairly quickly into japes, high jinks and group exercise. The green screen was invaluable here as we had to cover a huge amount of territory again due to my lust for geography in songs.
Sunny shot it in a day and edited it in five days to meet the insane online demand for my product. Peace. |
submissions
| You Am I – Beehive Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
|
From Tim Rogers, "Wonderfully collaborative amongst the band, as they wrestled with a winsome little tune with a baffling bridge that opens out into a chorus like a newly popped bottle of Cotes Du Rhone in a field of dancing satyrs. Rustys drum parts mapped with Andys bass are highlights for me, and then cheeky Davey adds piano, all played and recorded live, on a sweaty arvo in Brooklyn. We were going to engineer Wayne Gordons bar straight after the chosen take, so our enthusiasm mixed with tender care is palpable to me... Gee we're as excitable bunch of middle aged men as you'd be unlucky enough to meet. We do, however, welcome you to join us if you have an appreciation of the sillier things in lyfe [sic]." |
submissions
| The Drones – Taman Shud Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
The title of the song is inspired by an unsolved 1948 case of a man who turned up dead on Somerton Beach in South Australia. As a statement from The Drones adds:
"The strange and baffling circumstances of his death have become one of the world's greatest unsolved crime mysteries and have fascinated crime historians everywhere except Australia ever since.
"67 years later Right wingers rule the world uncontested because Left wingers earlier outlawed everybody's right to call out people being assholes on the grounds that assholes also have the right to believe in the possibility of a Leftist Utopia in which nothing straight forward can ever be said.
"'Taman Shud' is the result of that delusion and proof to the contrary."
"The pedophile thing is in the context of the lines either side of it; the 'brick and tile' and 'Master Chef; lines.
"In that context the pedophile line is a rebuke to the media's (and politicians') obsession with frightening parents into thinking any male over 35 potentially wants to have sex with their children. It's all done under the guise of protecting people, but it's really just one of many smokescreens used while politicians actually are screwing people." |
submissions
| Smudge – Down About It Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
Another Evan Dando co-write which had already been on a Lemonheads release (1993’s Come On Feel The Lemonheads). Vaguely melancholy, with a nice yearning touch.
Tom Morgan: “That was written when we were touring with The Lemonheads in Australia – we wrote that in Perth. Originally it was called Her Guitar, and the chord progression is descending so that’s where we got the title Down About It, because it was going down.” |
submissions
| Smudge – Ugly, Just Like Me Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
One of Smudge’s most fun tracks, rife with self-deprecating lyrics (“I really, really like her ‘cos she’s ugly just like me”) and couched in strummed guitars, all clocking in at barely over a minute.
Tom Morgan: “That was one of the first songs I wrote ever. It was probably just as Smudge was starting. Don’t know why it wasn’t recorded earlier, I think we were conscious of the length of the songs and that we had to make the record longer – that’s why there was so many songs on [Manilow], and that was one of the songs that we worked on [to pad out the length].” |
submissions
| Smudge – Scary Cassettes Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
A heartfelt paean to Lou Reed which also name-checks Lou Barlow and Sebadoh – hard to see how this could be anything but great, but a catchy number to boot.
Tom Morgan: “I really don’t know… I just really love Lou Reed. There’s a bit of plagiarism there at the very beginning (the track opens with a stanza from Satellites Of Love – ‘I’ve been told that you’ve been bold, with Harry, Mark and John’ – before countering, ‘Well that’s my second favourite line, from my fifth favourite song’ before joyously proclaiming, ‘Hope you like Lou!’) and I had to justify the plagiarism I guess. I dunno.” |
submissions
| Smudge – Divan Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
One of the band’s sweetest songs, basically an invitation to a friend to stay over for the night whenever so inclined (“crash out on my divan”). Obviously struck a chord with a lot of musos, because as well as being covered by The Lemonheads (as b-side from 1992 single of Simon & Garfunkel cover Mrs Robinson) it’s also been attempted by countless others.
Tom Morgan: “Yeah, a lot of people recorded that. Once again I don’t remember why we recorded it again for Manilow – I feel like the EP version might be better, the one before it. That was written without a guitar – just one night on the street. I think we were going to the Cross, and we were in the back of a cab and passed this restaurant called Divan, like a Turkish pizza restaurant, and then I wrote the first verse and by the end of the night I had the whole song.” |
submissions
| Smudge – Impractical Joke Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
A laidback number, which meanders along at a cruisy tempo with a liberal smattering of hooks thrown out along the two-minute journey
Tom Morgan: “Same thing, that was really quick. I remember when I write the lyrics that I was really happy with them, it felt like I was writing something different to what I’d written before. It sounded grown-up to me. In those days [the music and lyrics] all happen at the same time. The song would be written as I’d be playing guitar, so it was all at once. It happens a lot from what I’ve read, and it seems that often the best songs are written that way – you’re not really analysing what you’re doing, so it can match up really well.” |
submissions
| Smudge – Ingrown (Slight Return) Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
Originally meant to be album opener but relegated to first drop. Upbeat and catchy with a strong chorus and memorable hooks.
Tom Morgan: “It was pretty quick to write. Back in those days I used to have a bunch of lyrics and just write off the top of my head, so that was pretty quick. We had that song for a while before we recorded it.”
Was it common for songs to come fully-formed, or at least really quickly?
TM: “Yeah, back in those days definitely. I wish I could get back to that again – it’s a hard slog now to try and get a song out of me – but in those days it was really easy.” |
submissions
| Ryley Walker – Primrose Green Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
|
Not too sure about the lyrics, but a top toon! This is how you make a Primrose Green cocktail according to Ryley. "It makes you trip balls, man!It makes you hallucinate. It's basically Old Grand-Dad, this cheap American whiskey that bums and scagheads drink, you can get a pint of it for $6, mixed with these morning glory seeds that we used to shoplift from Home Depot. You get about 20 packets of these seeds, and steep them overnight in two gallons of cold water, and all the hallucinogenic chemicals are extracted. You strain it to get the seeds out and if you drink that, you will trip. Two hours later, you'll be like, 'This isn't working, what the fuuuck?' It creeps up on you. If you mix it with the whiskey, add a little lime, which is where the green comes from, and you drink a bunch of it, you'll be staring out at a lake laughing your head off. A couple of kids have come up to me and said 'We tried it, man-we lost our minds!' And I think, 'What have I done? I've inspired a generation of idiots!'" |
submissions
| Hop Along, Queen Ansleis – Waitress Lyrics
| 8 years ago
|
|
“It’s about one of the first times when I looked at somebody and felt the distaste in the air,” she explains. “I mean, I could have been making it up. You don’t know what people think about you, but just being in a situation where you know someone has reason to be disgusted with you. And I was just trying to do my job. It was one of the first times I felt really small.” |
submissions
| The Peep Tempel – Big Fish Lyrics
| 9 years ago
|
Singer/guitarist Blake Scott told Mess And Noise, "The first demos of this track went for 30 minutes, had a big stoner fuzz solo, guitar and bass duels. It was so over-the-top and indulgent. We went the hard edit and got it to a seven-minute instrumental. It felt desolate, and had a real sense of foreboding; it reminded me of Josef Schwab, “The Kimberley Killer”. He was a German guy who murdered five people in the north of Australia in 1987. ‘Josef Schwab’ was the original title. The story is terrifying: he was shooting people who were camping during the school holidays. I had a go at adding some lyrics and then the feel changed completely; it felt more inner city, low-level crim. We gave it another hard edit, and went for a repetitive doof vibe. Rock-on-pills.
By the time we added the chorus, we had left the Kimberley altogether and were in a shitty card game that some halfie gangsters had seen on The Sopranos and were trying to reproduce. Probably my favourite track on the record." |
submissions
| Courtney Barnett – Avant Gardener Lyrics
| 10 years ago
|
This is what Courtney has said, "Avant Gardener is all true. Apart from the adrenalin to the heart, like in Pulp Fiction. I just got adrenalin in the top of the thigh...But in the heart sounded so much more exciting! Most songs are stories. Some are more elaborate than others."
Also, I think the correct lyric is 000, as in triple zero. This is the number you call in Australia for ambulance, police, fire,etc. Anyway, brilliant song and lyrics! |
submissions
| Smudge – Scary Cassettes Lyrics
| 12 years ago
|
|
Originally titled 'Hope You Like Lou', the title comes from a Lou Reed interview where Lou was saying that he sent out cds of new material because he didn't want the label to hear those 'scary cassettes'. |
submissions
| Ryan Adams – Save Me Lyrics
| 12 years ago
|
In the early dark
With your heavy pen
In a recent interview in Uncut, Ryan said "My grandmother, who was like a mother to me, who took care of me throughout my childhood and my teens, was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and it turned out it was not treatable. My grandmother's mother lived to be 101, so I assumed that my grandmother would live to a very old age. I still am in a lot of pain about her. In that song I'm describing myself in California, driving down Santa Monica Boulevard, thinking 'What the fuck am I doing here? How did I get here? I am losing...my mother.' Basically my mother. I'm trying to think for her and get to grips with my horror and confusion in one line." |
submissions
| Paul McCartney – Jet Lyrics
| 12 years ago
|
|
He started writing it about his horse. Then it changed into a song about a woman with marital problems. |
submissions
| The Lemonheads – Kitchen Lyrics
| 14 years ago
|
|
It was written by Nic Dalton, a guy he made friends with in Sydney, who joined his band for the next record, "Come On Feel The Lemonheads". |
submissions
| The Lemonheads – Into Your Arms Lyrics
| 14 years ago
|
|
My sister had this song at her wedding. It was originally recorded by a little known Australian band called Love Positions, who Evan was friends with at the time. |
submissions
| The Lemonheads – Alison's Starting To Happen Lyrics
| 14 years ago
|
|
This song is about Alison from Smudge. They were sitting around taking e, and everyone came on except Alison. 20 minutes later Alison started to happen. Apparently the first question she gets asked is whether she has her tit pierced. |
submissions
| The Lemonheads – Alison's Starting To Happen Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
|
This song is about Alison from Smudge. Evan and his friends had taken an ecstacy pill. They were all peaking except for Alison. Half an hour later Alison's pill started coming on. |
submissions
| The Smiths – There Is a Light That Never Goes Out Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
Could it literally be a light that never goes out?
There's a young guy who sits in his room and just wants someone to take him out, but nobody ever does. So he spends all of his time sitting in his bedroom feeling lonely. This is why his light never goes out.
No, I didn't think so either. |
submissions
| Ryan Adams – Oh My God, Whatever, Etc. Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
|
I heard an interview where Ryan said he came up with the most ridiculous titles for songs that he couldn't possibly write about. One of them was this song, and I think we can all agree it worked. Great song! |
submissions
| You Am I – Coprolalia Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
Coprolalia is involuntary swearing. Yeah that version with Tex is a corker.
The album Tim and Tex did together under TnT, and titled "My Better Half" is also brilliant. |
submissions
| You Am I – Boulder Fair Lyrics
| 15 years ago
|
|
Boulder is a town in Western Australia. It's near Kalgoorlie, where Tim spent his early years. My mum and my sister used to have a World Vision tent at the Boulder Fair. You were dying to know that weren't ya? |
submissions
| You Am I – Guys, Girls, Guitars Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
This is a great song that gives a wink and a smile to "Chocolate Clown" by the Liquor Giants. It could be about the lead singer Ward Dotson. |
submissions
| Bluebottle Kiss – Your Mirror is a Vulture Lyrics
| 16 years ago
|
|
I can't believe that no-one has added a comment to one of the best bands in the world at the minute. This song was written during the mixing session for their album "Come Across". The riff for this song is lifted from The Stooges' "TV Eye". The band say that the objective was for an authentic soul sound and the rock-meets-free jazz feel of The Stooges album, "Fun House". |
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.
