| Elvis Costello – Deep Dark Truthful Mirror Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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Elvis wrote the song, but as much in art, and in dream interpretation (or hallucinations) he is not the only one who can explain it, or explain it fully. The thing his missed is that title and that opening line. It IS a mirror, after all, and so the meaning we take from this song depends on who we are, and what deep dark truth we have to face about ourselves. Yes, in this song, the nearly incomprehensible imagery mocks us as we try to decipher it, but it may not be ours to decipher, but the drunk man Elvis spoke of. That mirror is still there, though, if we are brave enough to look at ourselves in it. What will you see in your deep dark reflection? What things will it tell you that Elvis still loves you too much to say? I love you too, believe it or not, and I am telling you, by writing this comment, that you ought to face that mirror sooner, rather than later, and free yourself of self-delusion. I am no different. Same eyes... |
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| Crowded House – How Will You Go Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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Songs have meaning for the writer and the listener. Volumes have been written about which is more important. This song, lovely though it is, reminds me of my brother's death, which happened shortly after I purchased this album. Thirty years on now, it means much more to me than it did then. I have lost three friends to alcohol, one by suicide this past year as a direct result of his "falling off the wagon" and the other two to the ravages on their bodies, and so young they were, in their 40s. I had just been running errands when I came home to my mom's house, where I was staying between my junior and senior year of college. A year earlier, both my brother and I had had brushes with death and survived. That day, while driving on one of my errands, an unskilled truck driver pulled out abruptly with his flatbed, causing me to slam on my breaks and think of my younger brother's friend, whose sister had been decapitated in just such a misadventure a few years earlier. The whole rest of that outing, I was thinking about mortality, and then I came home to the news my brother had experienced it first hand. When my brother died, I was dedicating every note and word of Woodface to memory, as I do with albums I enjoy. It lets me play the album in my head as loud as I want without the need to disturb others. The line that catches my heart is just prior to the one about pearls. "And you know I'll be fine Just don't ask me how it's going Gimme time, gimme time..." How many people have to ask you "How are you doing?" when someone close to you dies? What an absurd question. "Well, let's see, the person I have known longest in my life as a peer, my first friend,my first rival, my first companion aside from my parents or a pet, has died at 25, leaving me, at 23, to ponder mortality on the very day I had a close call with death myself, just as it was a year ago when I was chased by a mama bear (oh yeah, I was) across a mountain on the same day someone tried to murder my brother. How am I doing? Aside from all that, I'm just peachy, thanks!" That whole album was like having a group of friends with me, helping me through the mourning process WITHOUT the long nights of drinking. It was the album wherein Neil's big brother, Tim, reunited with him, while mine reunited with infinity. |
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| Toad the Wet Sprocket – Before You Were Born Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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@[itsALLprogramMUSIC:28965] There is no way you and I hear the same song? Gay man? NOT depressing? Great song for after a bad day? Uh, yeah, to maybe tip you over the edge off of a cliff, it's great. This song is like repeated kicks in the head to a person who does not deserve it. Musically, it's catchy and all-too memorable. But the message is that life is nothing but pain, ending only with the sweet homecoming of suicide. not uplifting at all, unless you believe in "heaven", which if more people really did, would make the world a huge morgue. |
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| Toad the Wet Sprocket – Before You Were Born Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[T_D_Phoenix:28964] What does "injustifications" mean? Do you perhaps mean "injustices"? | |
| Toad the Wet Sprocket – Before You Were Born Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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I should think it obvious that at least part of the song (the part in the title and repeated over and over in the chorus) is about "before you were born", someone kicked in the door. The idea that this is about abortion is borne (ha ha) of a far too liberal (ha ha) interpretation. Those seeking abortion are not "kicking in" anything unless it is a state-mandated abortion, which is rare on earth. The interpretation of the song being sung to a child born as a result of rape seems to be strongly implied if not stated explicitly. Rapists often, in fact, kick in the doors of their victims. I hear very little sympathy in this song. I hear the damning of the rapist (faceless father) but nothing approaching loving acceptance of the child, quite the opposite. This would seem to be a very "pro choice" song, if anything to do with abortion is intended, seeing as how the child is told "there is no place for you here", "you are not wanted here", "stay back where you belong", which in a world of self-obsessed, egotistical narcissists, is very, very true. Even the so-called "pro life" activists of this world HATE the children who are born into poverty, abuse, and neglect. Look at how they vote on issues surrounding welfare, education funding, the justice system, etc. This song is a song intended to make people born from circumstances from rape commit suicide. For stating such hateful thoughts and not overtly making any hopeful, loving statements for the listener, the band's song writer is an inhuman monster. It's one reason I never appreciated Toad the Wet Sprocket. God damn the song writer for making me wake up at two o'clock in the morning and wonder what the f--k that 90s song was about. Since I've read the lyrics, I now know. The writer hates people born of rape. He thinks they should die for the crime their faceless fathers committed. How cruel. |
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| Andrew Gold – Lonely Boy Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I remember this song well as when it was a hit, I was a little boy who suffered from a lot of depression. I knew when I listened to the lyrics that my younger brother's birth was NOT the cause of my loneliness, so I recognized that this song's lonely boy, and perhaps other lonely boys (and girls) out there had different reasons for feeling desperately alone and unloved. Don't worry, I'm mostly okay now, but thanks for saying "awwwww!' in your mind. I was, in fact, loved as a boy. For various reasons, I had periods when I did not FEEL loved. What struck me about this song at the time is how ridiculously short and simple it was. He was born first and an only child for two years, thought it was made him special,. put all his emotional self-esteem eggs in that basket (at age two, really?) then a sister's birth upsets his worldview and sense of self. Okay, that is unfortunate, one would hope he'd welcome the new addition and rejoice at gaining a playmate. For this emotional hurdle to somehow fester and form him into a cold, unloving jerk who bolts for the door the second he reaches 18 is pathetic and quite disturbing....but then.... It ends. The story just ends. I know his sister has a family ()a son at that) and she follows her parents' child-rearing philosophy and "the cycle continues", the "wheel turns" and all that, but it's over. The song just ends. All I can think the end is saying is that possibly Andrew Gold deeply regrets that his EARLY childhood confusion that "only son" meant "only one" prevented him from having a meaningful, loving relationship with his sister and quite possibly any woman and so he is left childless while his sister has managed to procreate. He is now very lonely indeed, as an adult and is coming to grips with the reasons why. Still, it is too short. There is no resolution. But then, perhaps Andrew Gold himself had not yet had a resolution to his dilemma at the time he wrote the song. One can only hope it was cathartic for him and his life improved. With that, I think I'll check him out on Wikipedia since it's nearly 40 years later... Ha! Here's what Wiki says: "Although Gold put personal references in the lyrics to "Lonely Boy" (including his year of birth), he admitted in an interview that it was not autobiographical: "Maybe it was a mistake to do that, but I simply put in those details because it was convenient. I hadn't been a lonely boy at all — I'd had a very happy childhood." Also, since Gold died of heart failure in 2011, we cannot ask him "WTF?" about this song since if it wasn't autobiographical at aside from his birth date, what was this song really about? |
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| Carly Simon – That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Her contemporary, Neil Diamond, wrote another dreary (yet also hopeful) song about marriage. Husbands and Wives I practiced for weeks singing it, intending to sing it at my brother's wedding, with the intention of emphasizing the hopeful part. That line, the refrain, is: A woman and a man And a mana and a woman Some can And some can't But some....can These are two cautionary tales about what can happen if you DO just decide to "settle" and do what you think is "expected of you". You know what else you're expected to do some day? DIE. I trust no one in their right mind is in a hurry to fulfill THAT expectation. Marry, if you must. But do not make it out of obligation or out of the fear of living alone. There are worse things than being lonely. Being in a loveless marriage where both people are so resentful that they feel "trapped" is a lot worse than being alone. Sometimes it can lead to terrible things. If children are conceived in a loveless marriage, the results can be quite awful. All that said, I think there is hope for everyone. We need to be honest with each other, talk about our feelings and stay focused on our common humanity. Love CAN be created within a loveless marriage. Children from broken homes CAN heal that wound inside and find lover themselves. It requires facing the truth and ridding ourselves of the silly romanticism about love and bringing the highest form of love we can to every situation. The recognition of our oneness. All is one. No one is truly separated. We are like the facets of an infinite jewel, merely reflections of the light which is the love from our source. Without the jewel, and without that light, we are nothing. In fact, the jewel and the light are all we truly are. We are not the facets. Our illusory, individuated conscious is a manifestation of a much larger whole. We are the same thing. We are one. Anyone heard a song that says that? I have, but they are only in Hindi and Arabic. Any song writers in English wanna try that? |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – I Am A Rock Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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All of what you said, regarding the situations that could lead to social withdrawal are correct and I think Paul meant this to be a song for all occasions when people feel this way. He has said in interviews that it troubles him that some (such as Wolfee) seem to consider this an ANTHEM for self-sufficiency and the nobleness and peace of solitude. He has said the song is about the fact that if we are not willing to suffer a little, to be vulnerable to one another, that we will be locked in our own prison and will be very lonely. He meant that to come across as a bad thing, not a good thing. Good metaphor (wolf/forest) for that line. He's looking to poetry, a method used to connect human beings spiritually/emotionally with words, as a shield against having to deal with people. Yummy comparison. I also think, Maninamac, that you ought to try composing your posts in a word processor first, then paste them to avoid the problem of multiple drafts being published online. |
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| Simon and Garfunkel – I Am A Rock Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Winning? | |
| Simon and Garfunkel – The Only Living Boy In New York Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Clearly a big city song, it's no wonder my key memory of it is playing on my car stereo moments before a job interview in San Francisco. The feelings were: reassuring, "no sweat", and "am I the only one feeling this...the only one feeling?" Paul should know, without a doubt, no matter what his lyrics actually mean, like this one, he puts genuine feeling into the songs and touches hearts for decades, generations later. I congratulate him on his immortality and thank him for so much emotional grounding, so much humanity. Oh look, I'm crying...look what you did! | |
| Stone Temple Pilots – Plush Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Funny. For the longest time, actually during most of STP's heyday, I refused to listen to STP because I thought of them as one of the many Pearl Jam rip-off bands that were around at the time. Only in my advanced aged years (41) have I come to appreciate STP as distinct and worthy of listening. Pearl Jam is still one of those bands that I will always love, but STP was not a Pearl Jam rip-off. Sleep now in the fire. |
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| Stone Temple Pilots – Plush Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Funny. For the longest time, actually during most of STP's heyday, I refused to listen to STP because I thought of them as one of the many Pearl Jam rip-off bands that were around at the time. Only in my advanced aged years (41) have I come to appreciate STP as distinct and worthy of listening. Pearl Jam is still one of those bands that I will always love, but STP was not a Pearl Jam rip-off. Sleep now in the fire. |
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| Stone Temple Pilots – Plush Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This site is so much fun. "Yeah...like...I feel this song is about trust in relationships and how this guy can't trust the girl he's in love with...or something..." I find it particularly hard to trust a girl who is raped, murdered, and left for the dogs to smell. They are just the least trustworthy girls of all. I really feel for this guy and his tortured existence. What does he keep saying "Japan head" for?? "When the dogs devour her, I got time, time to wait for tomorrow...Japan head, Japan Head, Japan head..." What is that all about? |
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| MGMT – Kids Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Is it bad form to mention the video for this song which shows a terrorized child being taunted and harassed by hideous monsters? If you can get beyond the concern that I had, that this poor little boy was being needlessly traumatized for a music video, the message is that the world is full of hideous monsters and they all happen to also be people. In the animated ending, our Ziggy Stardusty lead singer later appears to offer some refuge or rescue for the crying boy, only to transform into a myriad of monsters himself. I'd like the back story behind this video and the band's involvement in its conception. |
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| Brian Eno – Here He Comes Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This is my favorite Brian Eno song, though it makes me cry nearly every time I hear it, partly from a kind of melancholy but also from a yearning for that part of my innocence I often neglect. Not to invoke Carly Simon, but I feel like this song is about me. Please don't think me so vain. In so many ways, it seems to be about a great many boys (and girls) whose spirits transcend the boundaries of linear time and mundane circumstance. Our "deep blue eyes" may be brown, green or hazel in reality, but our true selves mirror one another as if we were all as stars in the night sky or all that same blue as the blue sky. I would place this song beside "And She Was" by Brian's friend and frequent collaborator, David Byrne and songs that remind us, as Ozquonk did in his comments, that some imagery are the kind that simply "are" and must be observed outside of the confines of a story telling us "what happened". This didn't "happen". This, in fact, is happening right now. These lyrics read like a dream journal. |
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| MGMT – Brian Eno Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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What this song means to me is that I have found a new band that I can listen to with my teenage and 20-something friends and not be biting my tongue the whole time, worried that an honest appraisal or, God forbid, a petulant facial expression might slip out between my strained foot tapping and insincere smiling. I do so very much love the youth of today, and with all the crap they have to put up with in the hellscape of a world we people over 40 have created or allowed to be created while we stood by and did nothing, I don't want to begrudge them a moment of joy with what passes for talent in the music industry these days. MGMT, on the other hand, makes the unbridled mockery that I would perpetrate against so many of today's pop-punk and whine-rock bands so very very justifiable. With this song alone, MGMT has shown what can be done when a group of insightful, lucid, yet mildly mentally unstable young people come together to make a joyful noise unto the world. Brian Eno was a legend even when I was a kid, and his legend will grow, amplify and reverberate even more as time goes on. His resonance in the annals of musical history will echo through the chambers of time. I agree with every positive comment I have read so far about this song, especially those of "modernRock" that this is a quite literal song (perhaps a pun, since it could mean both that it expresses musical literacy as well as lyrics that mean exactly what they say on the surface) and, perhaps ironically, "Yeahbrandon" who quite innocently admits that he doesn't know who Brian Eno is. Aside from what we know on a historical level, what do we REALLY KNOW about this genius? The question Brandon asks is more profound than he might know. His question will undoubtedly continue to be asked for many decades, if not centuries, to come. MGMT does a great service to today's youth by raising the question with this tribute to this great man. Also, I think I have a huge man crush on Andrew VanWyngarden. He's half my age, but I want him to feed me milk from a bottle and sing me to sleep in his arms. OMFG, did I just say that?!? |
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