| Spacemen 3 – walkin' with Jesus Lyrics | 9 months ago |
| I think the Spacemen were listening to Kevin Ayers' "Decadence" when they came up with this song. | |
| Television – Venus de Milo Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| I kinda think this song is referring to the breaking down of the “classical” idea of beauty and symmetry which kind of defined the Punk movement. As Lou Reed and John Cale said: “Is there beauty in ugliness, or is it playing in the dirt?” When he “walked out of the arms of Venus d’Milo” he was abandoning the bourgeois way of life. | |
| Luna – Lost in Space Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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To me this song is the second part of Luna's song "Moon Palace" on their Penthouse album. The lyrics "And you know there's something else But you can't give a name Someone's selling all your heroes And it seems such a shame" say it all. What you wanted as an carefree adolescent is getting vaguer and vaguer as you're become an adult. All your friends are moving on and doing interesting things, but you're stuck, clinging to the dreams you had in your youth that only make you melancholic. |
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| Luna – Moon Palace Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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This song, as well as the entirety of Luna's album "Penthouse," is about coming of age, with one foot in late adolescence and one in the "adult" world. It's a time of big realizations, epiphanies and navigating romantic relationships. The lyrics: "Well we're travelin' light Gonna speed through the night Only now you recall It means nothing at all" "It means nothing at all" because all of the things that you thought were important have now fallen to the wayside as realizations and epiphanies start to inform your new adult self. |
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| Lou Reed – Lady Day Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| Can't help thinking that Caroline was based on Edie Sedgwick, a party girl screwed up by drugs and men that used and abused her. I also see Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. when "She climbs down off the bar and went out the door to hotel that she called home" | |
| Galaxie 500 – Summertime Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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Wow, no comments? This song really captures the feeling of that last summer, maybe after you've graduated from college or high school, that's going to be the last bit of aimless freedom you're going to have before you have to start working or living in the "adult" world. The line "I'm so glad that your were fired" says it all, like, screw it, you're going to work the rest of your life, let's savor this last bit of freedom before it's gone forever... |
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| Donald Fagen – New Frontier Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Well, I get the distinct feeling that the "Big Blonde" is a man in drag trying to look like "Tuesday Weld." Their relatioship is "underground?" C'mon. "Confess your passion, your secret fear/Prepare to meet the challenge of the new frontier" He can't wait "'til he moves to the city" where unconventional relationships were more tolerated in the 50s & 60s, and now for that matter. | |
| The Kinks – Celluloid Heroes Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| As all great songs, there is a double meaning here. As Ray lists all of the Hollywood stars he conjures up images of people who impersonate these movie stars as they hang out near the sidewalk markers. It reminds me a lot of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side in that respect; people living on the fringes of society. | |
| Lou Reed – Ennui Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| I think Lou was listening to Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" when he recorded this. | |
| Air – Sexy Boy Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| The bass line sounds as if it was lifted from David Bowie's "It's No Game" | |
| Leonard Cohen – The Future Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| This song was released in 1992, but is very relevant to the current situation, as we are now on the brink of becoming a totalitarian state. Leonard knew very well where we were headed 23 years ago and wrote this visionary epic, detailing our path to de-humanization. | |
| The Band – The Shape I'm In Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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This song works on so many levels, lyrically, musically and vocally. It so aptly puts the ridiculous expectations society puts on people and the ample amount if rope we're given to hang ourselves with. It's a "no win" situation. "Save your neck or save your brother Looks like it's one or the other Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in" |
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| Galaxie 500 – Flowers Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| Wow. only one comment! It's Galaxie's opening song, on their fist album! So perfect, so simple and expansive. | |
| Neil Young – Stupid Girl Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I think the "girl," who is wealthy, had a trauma that she can't get over, possibly a rape. The narrator is not sympathetic and makes fun of her paranoia and trauma. | |
| Bob Dylan – Idiot Wind Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| I really think Bob is telling us that "we," none of us, really know anything about anything. In the swirl of life and all the betrayal, clarity and redemption within it, we're still "idiots" that really don't know what it's all about and never will. And, that is our lot in life as human beings. | |
| Luna – Bewitched Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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I'm pretty sure this song is about being in a co-dependent relationship with a mentally unstable person prone to mood swings. "Her sleep is troubled/Her face will twitch/She wakes up angry/And I'm bewitched" and "Her smile is forced/she's always late/But she's not sorry/And I capitulate". The woman is bi-polar and the narrator is in way over his head, worshipping someone who is extremely unhappy. It's doomed. |
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| Steely Dan – Babylon Sisters Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| It's about a man who's getting older and clinging to his youth, but is realizing that his threesomes with very young women and fast lifestyle are leaving him spiritually empty. Babylon is a reference to evil or errant ways and when the background singers belt out "Shake It! they're telling him to shake off his errant ways before it's too late and his bridges are all burned. I always think of Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita when I hear this song. The character dies a "spiritual" death in the end. | |
| Elvis Costello – Chemistry Class Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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To me, this song seems to be about an unwanted pregnancy: "You've got a chemistry class I want a piece of your mind You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine" Mixing your chemistry together and having a child "Are you ready for the final solution" = abortion |
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| Bob Dylan – Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Lily is the Jack of Hearts. "I know I've seen that face somewhere, Big Jim was thinking to himself" "Lily took her dress off and buried it away" - Changing into Jack And the final verse: "Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair" - Why was her hair dyed? "She was thinking about her father, whom she very rarely saw Thinking about Rosemary and thinking about the law But most of all she was thinking about the Jack of Hearts" - Because she is the Jack of Hearts! She had "Strange affairs with men from every walk of life which took her everywhere" - She's worldly and creates Jack out of a conglomeration of her father and all the men she knew. The song's about women taking control of their lives by any means necessary. |
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| The Byrds – Wasn't Born to Follow Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| It's about not losing your wonder and not bending to convention no matter how tempting it might be.Basically, don't lose yourself to false security. | |
| The Silver Jews – Pretty Eyes Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| "Elephants ashamed of their size" = Memories you can't get out from under. Hosing down the elephants = crying, overwhelmed by your memories or something you wish you did or didn't do. | |
| Beck – No Complaints Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Love the Velvet Underground "Sister Ray" riff he's got going. The woman in the video is very Nico-esque with her blonde hair and tamborine... | |
| Leonard Cohen – Democracy Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I agree with you Sylvied. I like how the last stanza describes someone who could be completely unaware politically and also, at the same time, be about some who is very politically aware. Great device and great writing! | |
| David Bowie – Life on Mars? Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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Sorry, got cut off before. It can also be said it’s about the passing of the WWII generation of the parents, who lived through war and poverty, to the 60s |
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| Leonard Cohen – You Know Who I Am Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I agree digitalceremonies, it is from God's or a god's perspective and, like most great songs, it has dual meanings. I'm not religious either, but the lines: "Changing from nothing to one" and "I'll leave you one broken man whom I'll teach you to repair" seem to speak of transformation from non-belief to salvation or spiritual awakening. At the same time it parallels a story of a relationship between a man and a woman. Brilliant! | |
| John Lennon – Watching The Wheels Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| The song is about crossing from your youth and youthful ideas into adulthood. When he sings "No longer riding on the merry-go-round" and "I just had to let it go" he's talking about no longer clinging to his youth, self doubt and need to be on top of everything. This is Lennon, the middle-aged man, content with himself the way he is, or was. Mature. | |
| David Bowie – Life on Mars? Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This song is a harsh critique of America in the early 1970s and how it’s crass consumerism and “other” offerings such as vacuous films (Sailors fighting in the dance hall) and horrible pop music (Alley-Oop, look at those cavemen go) are passed off as culture or a kind of pinnacle that foreigners or people of other mindsets should aspire to, but in the end are left empty and dissatisfied. The “girl with mousey hair” already knows this and "It's a god awful small affair", this America thing. It’s been shoved down her throat by her parents that she should look towards America, but she wants more from life than what is being offered. Unfortunately, she becomes “hooked to the silver screen”, a line that conjures up images of A Clockwork Orange and the Matrix and being “programmed” and/or brainwashed. It can also be said it’s about the passing of the WWII generation of the parents, who lived through war and poverty, to the 60s | |
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