| U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
Bloody Sunday refers to the notorious incident in Derry on 30 January 1972 when British Army paratroops open fired on Catholic demonstrators, killing thirteen, with another dying months later as a result of wounds. It's not exactly known why this happened; the Saville Inquiry concluded in 2010 that none of the demonstrators who were killed had posed a threat to the paratroopers and one of them had even been shot after already being wounded. The result of the shootings was that IRA membership swelled and the violence continued to escalate. Around that time, John Lennon wrote a heavily pro-Republican song called "Sunday Bloody Sunday". This might have inspired the name of U2's better-known song. However, this song's lyrics don't actually mention the incident. Really, they could any of the killings or bombing that took place in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The narrator doesn't take sides and resists the urge to get involved or join in retaliation ("but I will not head the battle call") - he just wishes and prays for the violence to stop. The Rattle and Hum documentary features a particularly famous performance 8 November 1987 in Denver. Earlier that day, 11 people had been killed by an IRA bomb attack in Enniskillen. Bono launched into a tirade against the Irish Americans who ignorantly supported the IRA from their armchairs. In later performances, he would ready out a list of the 29 people killed in the 1998 Omagh bombing, the worst terrorist attack during the whole Troubles. |
|
| Dire Straits – Money For Nothing Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
It's told from the point of view of a appliance store worker who sees rock stars performing on the screens of the TVs that are on sale. He's jealous that they make so much money so easily, when he has to do physical work all day. Mark Knopfler said he was inspired by a real person he had seen in a shop. It's an ironic subject for a song, because Dire Straits were (deservedly) rock stars themselves, though they were far less commercial than most musical acts. |
|
| Dire Straits – Industrial Disease Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
This song was released in 1982 and it's about the industrial decline and economic malaise that affected the UK in the 1970s and continued into the early 1980s. Even though the economy would recover later in the decade, this was only really due to the growth of the service sector. The lyrics of the song compare the economic malaise to a literal disease - I quite like how Mark Knopfler describes the absurd things happening in a deadpan manner. Especially the brillaint lines"Two men say they're Jesus / One of them must be wrong!" The "protest singer" is just a reference to daft conspiracy theorists who feel the need to imagine that there's a secret plot behind everything the government does. What the protest singer is claiming is that the government deliberately engineered the Falklands War to distract people from their economic problems. He then goes on to claim that the 'system' gives people distractions like "gassy beer, page three / Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease" to further cover it up. The "Brewers droop" effect is when someone's sex drive is damaged by alcoholism. It was also the name of a band that Mark Knopfler previously played in. |
|
| Bruce Springsteen – The River Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| Sorry, when I wrote "I prefer to take the lyrics literally rather than treat "the river" as a metaphor for anything." as the opening sentence, this wasn't in direct response to the previous comment posted by GuyNemeth. I agree the river represents hope and dreams, just to clarify I also believe that the song also refers to a literal river as well. | |
| Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
The overall direction of the John Wesley Harding album (on which this song originally appeared) was that the lyrics were more concise, but the imagery they came with was no weaker. Some of his songs on the previous albums were very long with lyrics that either represented a stream of conciousness or told a very clear story. The song is about two outcasts who are heading through the wilderness to the "watchtower" for some confrontation. If you haven't noticed, they are also the "two riders" mentioned at the end of the song. The watchtower is a society where everyone knows their place. The joker and the thief don't fit in with this society. The joker can't understand how it works, so the thief tells him not to worry about it. The Hendrix version of the song is, of course, brilliant. It's because of that reason that the original track sounds a bit sparse and incomplete by comparison. For this reason, many of Dylan's live performances of the song seem to have been influenced by Hendrix. |
|
| Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A. Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
It's typical of Bruce Springsteen's songs that the chorus has a happy message and a catchy tune, while the verses lament worldly troubles. It's the main reason why many of his songs are misunderstood, such as Glory Days, Born to Run, The Rising and Hungry Heart. But Born in the USA is by far the best-known example. The chorus taken alone sounds appropriate for a great patriotic song, but the song actually very anti-patriotic. It's about the Vietnam War, an embarassing episode in American history. Some of the most bitter lines in the song come just before the song launches into the chorus - I refer to the lines "...to go kill the yellow man" and "nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go". It almost sounds like he's mocking patriotism and making it seem shallow. My interpretation of it is that the narrator is actually in a state of confusion. He's torn because on the one hand, he wants to be patriotic and still looks up to the American dream. But on the other hand, he can't ignore the fact that he's living in a much bitter reality. As most people who posted here have already said, it's about Americans who fought in the Vietnam War. For starters, 60,000 of them never came back, and the narrator of this song lost his own brother. But those who came back were often met with dismal prospects and found no respect. Normal war veterans are treated as heroes, but because of American embarassment over the war, they were mostly ignored. They also came back to a time of growing unemployment and industrial decline. The third verse is about how the narrator can't get a job once he comes back. The "VA" refers to the Veteran's Administration, an agency of the federal government which at the time was responsible for giving benefits and assistance to army veterans. It's now been replaced by the Department of Veteran Affairs, which is led by a cabinet secretary. One of the things they would do is assist them with finding work, which is presumably what the narrator went there to ask for. As with the man at the refinery, they only shrug and blame the poor economic climate. A slight factual error is that the Battle of Khe Sahn involved the North Vietnamese Army, not the Viet Cong. The battle in question took place in 1968 at a time when public opinion was turning against the war. The Americans successfully defended the Khe Sahn army base against a prolonged attack, but eventually abandoned it because it was costing them too much. Springsteen himself never fought in the Vietnam War; he was drafted but failed his physical, partly due to the fact he had been injured in a motorbike accident the year before. |
|
| Bruce Springsteen – The River Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
I prefer to take the lyrics literally rather than treat "the river" as a metaphor for anything. The song is thus pretty self-explanatory. The narrator grew up in a very conservative rural village. His teenage romance with Mary resulted in her getting pregnant, so they had to have a shotgun wedding, otherwise they would have ended up as outcasts. Some years later, they are now returning to the river - the place where they used to play and romance together during the best days of their lives. The most notable thing about the lyrics is that the song sounds pretty innocent up until the start of the second verse. Then it takes a rather sudden turn. ("Then I got Mary pregnant...") The second chorus has the same lyrics as the first chorus but this time, their visit to the river has a different purpose - they're going there to escape their wordly troubles. The third verse describes how they are some years later. Their situation isn't dire. He's got a job and they're not the outcasts they could have been. But he struggles to find work and money (the song was written at a time of industrial decline). Worse than that, there's a feeling of emptiness. Their love has faded, they have no dreams for the future and have a past they try to ignore. But he can't ignore it, because his memories of their romance by the river, as he describes in the final section, were actually the best moments of the life and that's why they "haunt" him. He has a melancholy life and marriage which is haunted by nostalgia for the time when they used to have fun. So in the end, they both go down to the river ("My baby and I") to revisit the place of their favourite memories and see if they can find some of their old love again. But it's not going to be the same. The fact that the river is dry represents this. There's going to be a certain emptiness about it no matter how hard they try. |
|
| Genesis – Jesus He Knows Me Lyrics | 10 years ago |
|
There's a clip of Phil Collins discussing televangelists on the program "Room 101". On the program, celebrities discuss their worst fears or hates and Phil chose televanglists. In the video, it appears that one of the televangelists he was dressed up as was a person called Ernest Angley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gySQdpSvZcQ During the choruses, he dresses up as someone else but you can't really see who. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Brain Damage Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
Only shallow lyrics deserve shallow analysis. Shallow analysis involves trying to pick out things like every possible drugs reference. The Dark Side of the Moon has very deep lyrics and they deserve better than that. And when I say deep analysis, I don't mean vigorous, I mean emotionally deep. "The lunatic is on the grass" - this is obviously a reference to the notorious "Keep off the grass" signs. So the man who is considered insane is sitting on the forbidden turf, in his own happy world of "games and daisy chains and laughs". Insanity is looked on as stepping off the boundaries of accepted society ("the path"). Then we have the lunatic being mentioned again, but we discover he is only one of several "lunatics" being held down and repressed. Repressing insanity and trying to keep people in place becomes routine, as "every day the paper boy brings more". Essentially doing the same unnatural thing to many naturally different individiuals. There is no nature in it. The first chorus builds up to the title line of the album. If disaster strikes and "the dam breaks open many years too soon" and there is limited refuge "on the hill", it leaves a silent question as to what would happen to the people in society that we don't value. It also asks us what'll happen if the same thing happens to us, and says that's if that's the case "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon". More on the title line later. The other verse is actually told in the first person, a person who is mad. And the "lunatic" is something deeper. "You raise the blade" and "make the change" does indeed imply brain surgery, but it could be psychological. But it shows how society will try to fix and "rearrange" people and questions the need for this. The last part ("You lock the door and throw away the key") says we abandon and repress insanity, as though it is the victim's fault when it isn't. He just surrenders to society. Just like Syd Barrett being left behind by the band, and as his own song 'Dark Globe' shows, you shouldn't get the impression Syd wasn't aware of himself. The end of the song is about a "cloud burst", a huge and powerful force. Why then does the thunder only go in one ear and (presumably) not the other? It's a strong and terrible force, and when you shout for help "no-one seems to hear". But this chorus is now in the second person, and we are the lunatic. We get another clear Barrett reference hear, which needs no explaining. I've always interpreted it that Roger was guilty of leaving Barrett behind. "I'll see you on the dark side of the moon" - Roger felt he could relate to Barrett's own feelings, and also to our own madness. The moon has often been associated with Insanity and darkness. And the moon itself is split between a bright side and a dark side, slowly moving between the two. The light and dark imagery - we hear that at the end of Eclipse. |
|
| Pink Floyd – Time Lyrics | 14 years ago |
|
This may or may not be a coincidence, but the whole song itself represents life. The long intro with the rototom solo represents the early stages of our life, when we are not aware of the passage of time or in any case are powerless over it. Similarly, the Reprise of Breathe represents old age, when we just want to stay at home. The "tolling of the iron bell", evidently a church bell is sometimes intrepreted as the funeral of a time waster. This is quite fitting because the next track is about both Religion and Death. The main lyrics are divided into two parts. The first part obviously describes when we are young and "fritter and waste" the hours, as "there is time to kill today". It ends with a warning that one day we discover "ten years have got behind you". The second part is after it's too late for us to do what we want. Trying to "run, catch up with the sun" is about us trying to do the impossible to set things right. In the end "the sun is the same in a relative way" - everything stays apparently the same, and even though the sun does age, it is not nearly as dramatically as us being "one day closer to death". The last bit, about aborted plans and "hanging on in quiet desperation", continues onwards to the end when "the song is over". So we have two parts of our lives: when we are young and think we have all the time, and when we are older and have lost the power. As these parts are bridged by the guitar solo, I think the solo itself represents Roger's revelation which inspired the song: that he had never been preparing for a 'real life', but had been living it all along. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.