| Elliott Smith – A Fond Farewell Lyrics | 14 years ago |
| I'm sorry to hear about your friend Explosive. Strange, how the saddest songs makes one feel better when down. | |
| Tupac Shakur – If I Die 2nite Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This is one of my favorite songs of his. I listened to it 6 times in a row just now. What does this mean? "But y'all some hoes, the game should be sewed" Thanks -Whitey McWhiterson |
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| Tom Waits – Get Behind the Mule Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This story is a narration told by a gravedigger (Tom Waits) about a woman (Molly) who murdered her man (Jimmy the Harp) with a pistol and a rope. The corpse was too heavy for her to carry so she drug it behind the mule to the woods, where two boys (Jack the Cutter and the pocked marked kid) helped her make a makeshift coffin and bury him. They caught up with Molly in Kentucky but brought her back to California (Atchison to Placerville). They strung her up on a stage in Weaverville. Enter the 1930's black Studebaker Hearst (driven by Birdie Joe Joaks). Waits built Molly's coffin and dug her grave(with a silver spoon :p) while the hangman fumbled with a noose. Waits watched her hanging while he stirred his Brandy with a coffin Nail. The moral of the story ... Stay Wise, Keep Watch, Don't Let Trouble take over, Keep your eye on the prize, But Sooner or later ... You Got To Get Behind The Mule ... |
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| Tom Waits – Heartattack and Vine Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Good Insight you have there eatagoat666. Here is a clip that writer Stephen Peeples did with Tom Waits in 1980. Waits: I was in a bar one night on Hollywood Boulevard near Vine Street, and this lady came in with a dead animal over her arm, looking like she'd obviously been sleeping outdoors. She walked up to the bartender and said, "I'm gonna have a heart attack," and he says, "Yeah, right, you can have it outside." I thought that was pretty chilly. So I re-named Hollywood Blvd. "heartattack." |
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| Rachael Yamagata – Elephants Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I can't decide which line is more horrifying. "And I am dreaming of them with their kill, tearing it all apart, blood dripping from their lips, and teeth sinking into the heart." OR "You can flee with your wounds just in time, or lie there as he feeds, watching yourself ripped to shreds and laughing as you bleed." The image of carnage it creates is worse than any nature show. One can help but but picture themselves as the prey being devoured. It's no wonder why elephants scream. |
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| Elliott Smith – Ballad of Big Nothing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Hey they are throwing out drugs from a float in the parade! Me ME, throw to ME! | |
| Elliott Smith – Ballad of Big Nothing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| "Candy" is cocaine. "Car" is slang for crack! "You can do whatever you want to" is slang for shooting up behind a Papa Murphy's while your friends watch and laugh. "Nothing" means the white stain left on your mother's blouse when I left her house last night. | |
| Elliott Smith – Ballad of Big Nothing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is about kids growing up and being free to do whatever they want in the big bad world. But the big world is nothing but a blender of chaos, drugs, sex, perversion, anger and depression. Call your big brother for help but he's face down in the alley. Come here little naive one, I have some candy for you here in my automobile. Now look at you, zapped out, used, and thrown down from partying into a pile of pity. So congratulations young one, on finally growing up, doing whatever you want, and being apart of something. Let's all celebrate and cheer for the BIG NOTHING. woo hoo :( |
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| Elliott Smith – Ballad of Big Nothing Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Well good interpretations people! It is the same interpretation you have for all of Elliott Smith's songs. This song is about HEROIN! This song is about SUICIDE! This song is about committing HEROIN while shooting up SUICIDE! |
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| Elliott Smith – A Question Mark Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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DUDE! Totally! Perfect interpretation. |
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| Elliott Smith – Son of Sam Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is about interpretation of oneself and the conflict within. It gives a sense of awe about what we are capable of, be it good or evil. We've spawned from the love of a mother and the slap of a docter, to be thrown into the world to make our move, with nowhere to go. We've the courage to not feel weird being out of our comfort zone, but we don't really have any other choice. God's embrace keeps us close, but when you look at me, you are not looking at an image of yourself, but at a demon within. What the hell are we? Great Song Elliott! |
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| Elliott Smith – Alameda Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I was walking around lost in North Portland the other day looking for the music store, and happened upon Alameda. I sang this song out loud the rest of the day. It was quite a privilege to walk down Alameda thinking about MY friends. I think all of us at some point take our friends for granted, or look down our nose at them. In reality we cry out to these same people for acceptance. We find fault in others but really it is the fault within ourselves that restrict us, and find reasons not to finish what we start. The Bible could not have illustrated this lesson more clearly. It's hard to know that we'll never get to hear any new music from you Elliott. It breaks my heart. |
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| Elliott Smith – A Passing Feeling Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I like stegbo's interpretation. I see the song as a little more vague. Looking around at everything you have created, only to see shells bursting in a destructive inferno. Sending help messages down a severed wire. Notice that when he hits the high note, the word "FALL" reverberates in the soul. Incredible. |
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| Tom Waits – Blue Skies Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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A well-played, heartfelt song from the Early Years album Vol. 2. Another great version is the wonderfully orchestrated piece on the "Tales from the Underground" album. Check that one out on YouTube. Here is the second verse from the ladder version: "That woman stuck by through thick and through thin, I was cold and hungry when she smiled and let me in, But she wanted those fine things and those nights on the town, Well it looks to me, like she let me down" |
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| Elliott Smith – A Fond Farewell Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"Veins full of sweet sugared glaze, dipping into my black cafe" "This is not my cinnamon roll, it's just a fond farewell to the bun." "It wasn't sweetened right, and it made, all the caramel run" |
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| Elliott Smith – A Fond Farewell Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The pictures Elliott paints in the mind and the melody he plucks on the heart is one-of-a-kind. Reading other posts, I love how the lyrics can be interpreted in so many ways. The only thing we can surely say is that nobody is wrong in their interpretation. While the song clearly has references to drugs in the song, it is more about the struggle with the human condition. This song is about the tender threads that hold together our being, and watching them unwind and be pulled apart. I can relate to this scene Elliott creates with the junkie lying on the floor, isolated, and allows his shadow to show opportunity "out any open door." They have fallen to an unclimbable low, and have failed at everything. They have failed at being high, failed at being a human being, and even failed at suicide. There is a "missing link" that can string him back together, but with such a sullen outlook, reality is too hard to deal with, the only way to cope is to slow down the "higher brain" by injecting the body with "disappearing ink." This person is not the shining individual you once knew and loved. They are only a shell of what they once were. What once was inside is no more. This is a farewell to what once was, and rude awakening to what is. Frickin Beautiful. |
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| Tom Waits – Sins of My Father Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I agree tempguy, Waits can paint vivid pictures in the mind with just a handful of words. In this song, the way this story is told is so haunting that it sends chills through the body. When asked about the song in an interview, Waits said "The sins of the father will be visited upon the son. Everybody knows that." This song is not only about the sins of a father being passed to the son, but the sins of humankind being passed to a generation. One man's murder and judgement is illustrated in the song, "Night is falling like a bloody axe," "Carving out a future with a gun and an axe," "A long black over coat will show no stain," "I'm way beyond the gavel and the laws of man","They'll hang me in the morning on a scaffold yea big," "To dance upon nothing to the tyborn jig." The tyborn jig is the dance done at the end of a hangman's noose, coined in Tyborn, England where legendary scaffolds executed scores of people to the entertainment of the masses throughout the centuries. Humankind's treachery and lack of justice is illustrated when he sings "The worlds not easy the blind man said, Turns on nothing but money and dread" and "Everybody knows that the game was rigged, Justice wears suspenders and a powdered wig." One could be looking into a mirror when he states this line, "wicked are the branches on the tree of mankind." What is a generation to do with the bloodstained rags left over by a history of evil? "I'm gonna wash the sins of my Father I'm gonna wash the sins of my Mother I'm gonna wash the sins of my Brother Till the water runs clear" |
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| Elliott Smith – Punch and Judy Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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This song is about Elliott Smith coming back to Portland, Oregon and visiting with an old friend, and seeing the old neighborhood. As they drive down Division street(Near 6th and Powell[Needle in the Hay] and across town from Alameda [Alameda]) They talk about old times that he "used to be a part of," and how "I used to like it here," but now it "bums me out to remember." "Punch and Judy" is a puppet comedy improvisation routine ("They don't read page to page or speak easy") that dates back to medieval times when puppeteers would entertain at "sidewalk scenes" and other social gatherings like Elliott entertained with his bands. Portland was once Elliott's town, and he knew everyone around, but now they "just stare and whisper." Once, when adoring fans and friends would rain praise after a curtain call, but now he is "Pretty lucky if they get any kind of response at all." But the fact is, Portland will always be Elliott's town. |
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