| CKY – 96 Quite Bitter Beings Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| I'd like to see a Broadway style musical called Escape from Hellview. It would be a horror musical featuring CKY songs. | |
| Sneaker Pimps – M'aidez Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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To me this song seems to use a musical arrangement that, without even attending to the words, evokes concepts of sensuality and sexuality. This is very good because those seem to be two of the major themes of this work. The words conjure (among other things) the same themes. The other half of the equation seems to be a dreamlike quality. This is also smart because the writer/composer here seems to be juxtaposing the idea of sex with the idea of dreams, in the sense that what is going on at the surface level is an emotionally impactful sexual encounter, if not an ongoing (but fruitless) sexual relationship. However, there is something "unreal" about this sexual relationship, perhaps being that the sex is superficial and means more to the writer than it does to the object of his affection. M'aidez or "mayday" as we call it farther west, is the international distress call for pilots and sailors. So in the chorus he continues to go back and forth between "m'aidez" and "this is no m'aidez". I believe this has something to do with mixed feelings -- "I'm in trouble", "I'm not in trouble"; "it's okay", "it's not okay". An inconsistent sense of security seems to exist in this relationship. Faltering confidence in one's own emotional perspective. At one point the writer sings about dead zones and half way homes. I think of dead zones as areas where you don't get cell phone service, which I think is apropos given that the next line is about still life lived on mobile phones. This seems to be talking about a communication breakdown, and when communication IS there, it's superficial (lives lived through the more artificial with a less human kind of communication/less fulfilling or meaningful connection). Half way homes I think is referring to like, home being where the heart is, and a person's "home" being another person's love in a figurative sense. Problem is, this relationship only includes 50% or half of what the singer really wants (I make that assumption about the singer's desires because he sounds somewhat mournful of this). Again, it's okay, it's not okay; I'm fine with this, I'm not fine with this.. Save me, don't worry about it. Writer clearly enjoys his sexual relationship with the other person, and even idealizes her (the girl had wings and precious things -- she's an angel with wonderful qualities). He may be realizing, however unfortunately, that he is in love with this person who he already knows is not looking for more than a sexual relationship with him, and he's struggling with this idea that he (probably) agreed to this situation, but now he wants more and he's not likely to get it, and that whether he cuts this off or stays the course, he's going to be met with an emotional challenge either way. He is telling himself he should be okay with the situation as is, but he's not sure if he can. I'm not entirely sure what "open charms lost on velvet" means, but if I had to speculate, perhaps it's something about how his openness and good qualities don't seem to register with this other person in the context of this sexual relationship (velvet is sometimes associated with sex). Like it's lost on her that he has good qualities worth loving and this is and always has been "just fun". When he says "wide awake at dawn" I can think of two things, those being either losing sleep over this emotional conflict, or remaining awake after a full night of sex. Not sure about "the sun won't choose to shine on" other than maybe, she's the sun, and won't choose to shine on this situation in the form of her actually loving him. There is BDSM imagery throughout the song as well, hinting at a certain kind of power dynamic, where he is kind of "bound" in this situation, a clever double entendre about this being a sexual relationship, and himself being caught between a rock and a hard place emotionally. If she doesn't know he's feeling this way, and she finds out, then she holds all the cards (all the power). And in a way she already does because she is unattached emotionally to the outcome, where as he seems to care very much about it, so he's the vulnerable one and she's impervious. He talks about how she's "happy with the western world". This could be taken to mean that she is content with this more superficial, less genuine lifestyle, in a part of the world where polyamory or nonmonogomy, is more socially accepted. "a string of pearls", not sure but could be a reference to semen. "Diamonds on her tongue" either means literally a tongue piercing or maybe that she has a way with words, able to convince him to remain in this situation by the way she talks to him. Anyway, that's my take. |
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| Harry Nilsson – Coconut Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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Maybe there's no meaning. Maybe it's just about feeling better. But, a common songwriting technique is to give everything a double meaning. I believe this artist was intelligent and may have intended a metaphor. Trigger warning: my tentative and totally speculative "analysis" is about taboo sexual themes. Again, I am not married to this interpretation but sexual innuendo and double entendre are very common things in popular songwriting, so I'm approaching this with that in mind. I have no vested interest, emotional or otherwise, in this being the accepted meaning. What makes this easy is that the lyrics tell a very simple story. There's not too much to dog through. To me it sounds like it could be about an incestuous relationship between a brother and sister that resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. Brother had one half of the equation, sister has the other. One thing went physically inside of the other. Plausible enough. Then the sister goes to the doctor, desperately wanting a solution to the "bellyache", possibly being code for pregnancy. That's really all I got. See? Simple, loose, reasonably plausible. Not definitive but possible. Could be a song about drinking and having a hangover and the only cure being the "hair of the dog". Sister drinks the drink, has hangover, doctor says the only way to feel better is to drink more lol. Equally plausible, but a lot more boring. Analyzing songs is fun, open to interpretation, and something we all can discuss. The beauty of lyrics is that they can and usually DO have more than one meaning, and that with well-written songs, you can usually count on there being something more than what's on the surface. |
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| Ween – Buckingham Green Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[fongaboo:29754] I was thinking the same thing. I came here because I wanted to confirm that the lyrics are essentially meaningless. Spot on with the Ozzy comment. It's almost as though Gener was doing an impression of him. All of that said, it's an impressively well composed song. | |
| The Decemberists – Till the Water's All Long Gone Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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When dealing with Decemberists songs, it's safe to assume that the lyrics are meant to be literal rather than figurative. This isn't ALWAYS the case 100% of the time, but they ARE a folk band after all. So they tell stories. And yeah, a lot of them are based on older stories. I could be wrong, but this song SEEMS like it's about a man in a town that was come upon by a group of nomads who were in search of water, which was a limited resource in this man's town. It SEEMS like he had to sacrifice his daughter to the nomads (the ones who came down from the mountain), in lieu of giving away the town's limited water. Kind of a "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" kind of situation. Could have something to do with faeries too, not sure about that or what the original source of this story might be if it's not originally by Colin Meloy. |
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| Coheed and Cambria – The Crowing Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Coheed and Cambria really helped bring to popularity a revolutionary dynamic in music (don't start -- I'm not saying they invented it or anything, only helped popularize it): The terminal climax: Where they most climactic part of the song is the ending. I LOVE songs like that. Radiohead does it too. It's a great thing. This song rocks. | |
| Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out) Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[noneedfordav:23333] Damn what a pretentious description of that song from who I am assuming is Yorke. | |
| Radiohead – Black Star Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| I usually roll my eyes when someone says one of Radiohead's songs is about depression, because so many people attribute that theme to every song of theirs that they interpret. And that's just far too simple. Just because their songs do frequently have a dark/ominous tone, and are about depressing THINGS doesn't mean that they are literally ABOUT depression generally. However, in this case, sine most of the songs on this album deal with one of two things (relationship dynamics or the artificiality of a life of fame), this song does seem to be about how depression can affect and effectively destroy a relationship. Narrator tries to understand his lover's troubled mind, what's eating her, he knows about the things she has in her mind which trouble her, but there's nothing he can really do about it. So eventually he can't live like that anymore; can't live a life where his lover's depression is pulling them both down. So by the end she's just a painful memory that he tries not to think about, feeling a little tinge of panic/shock when he is reminded of her. | |
| Radiohead – Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Dumb. Why do people take one look at something and assume it's either about drugs, or a love song. RH are deeper than that. You need to look deeper. | |
| Radiohead – My Iron Lung Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| Iron lung -- something artificial keeping one alive. Like a song that is a "total waste of time, (my) iron lung". A necessity of the 20th century -- just an artificial piece of crap to keep one going a little longer. | |
| Radiohead – Just Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[3stringovation:23332] Speaking as a long time RH fan who would love to see a "return to form" or "return to roots" album someday (unlikely I know), I would hope the answer is "back to the beginning". Societies collapse, and are rebuilt. Maybe like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or an album that focuses on redemption. | |
| Radiohead – Just Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| @[laffreely:23331] Dumb | |
| Radiohead – High and Dry Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| So, a good rule of thumb is that Radiohead don't write love songs. If it seems like a love song, you need to look deeper. They do write songs about relationships, but in true RH fashion, it's usually about relationships that have been drained, were superficial from the start, or other negative/sad things. This is Radiohead after all, not One Direction. | |
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