Modest Mouse – Novocain Stain

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  General Comment:I really love this song. To me it's about progress happening all around you while you stay largely unchanged. Things are changing and you can't do anything about it, it's almost as if you're being left behind. It is so nostalgic and sad. I suppose he is condemning progress to a degree but also accepting its inevitability. "More housing developments go up, named after the things they replace." - reminds me so much of my own city (Auckland, New Zealand). There are suburbs with names like Forrest Hill, Meadowbank and Farm Cove - reminding us all of what used to be there before someone came along and slapped a bunch of cookie cutter houses there.

  Flag Obliqueon October 06, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:It seems like this song is about how quickly life passes us by and how abruptly the areas we came to know so well change right before our eyes. Our lives are a blur and we remember the most important parts through random triggers like smells and colors. There is definitely an aspect of the towns we know and love being commercialized and overrun by strip malls and chain restaurants.
  "So welcome to Minnow Brook
  And welcome to Shady Space
  And it all seems a little abrupt"
  These lines refer to our life swiftly passing by us until were old and left wondering where the time went. Shady space sounds like a retirement home and Minnow Brook could be a town he grew up in or spent time in in his youth.
  
  This is one of my favorite modest mouse tracks. I feel like we encounter so much in our life that is lost from our memories and we just get bits and pieces of flashbacks from the smell of perfume to the color of a bedroom wall that will remind us of time passed. This song encompasses that idea of the world around us changing so quickly and abruptly that we are left with fragments of our history.
  
  "TV stained my memory" lovethatline...

  Flag lunaticshysteron April 19, 2011   Link

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  My Interpretation:Isaac is telling us to dismiss the corrupting influences of society such as TV, malls, chain restaurants and housing developments. He reminds us to feel the world through "sounds, smells, colors and towns" pure, concrete objects in life. He feels as though he has lost a part of himself due to these corrupting influences."When I can work out how it was, Then I'll tell you, TV stained my memories..." He urges us not to do the same. He feels that humanity loses their humanity with this corruption. Nature is a big part of being a human and we isolate ourselves from it through TV, malls, housing developments etc...

  Flag cowega7on January 30, 2011   Link

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  General Comment:Pretty straight forward song. It's about the distortion of time. You lose your memories slowly till they're just sentences in your brain rather than living images. TV kind of replaces that when you look at some of the imagery of old farm life or the past. It's always dramatized or hollywood-esque and distorts our memories of things. All the while things are also changing around you as the smaller, simpler things are replaced by larger, corporate, complex buildings. Overall the song is about how quickly the old ways are dying and how quickly the new things are replacing them to the point where the old ways never seemed to even exist or matter.

  Flag RSATORIon February 18, 2010   Link

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  General Comment:I'm pretty sure it's "I don't fit the shoes"

  Flag st3fannieon February 02, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:"tv stained my memories" is such a brilliant line. it's true though, so much of my memory is wasted on remembering the stupid plot lines of sitcoms and we relate so much of what happens to us to things that we've seen on television
  and dragon stfu. i'm sick of all these people on here who have never even been to washington talking about how isaaquah is this tiny white trash trailer town. it's not. it's urban, like half an hour tops from seattle, and full of yuppies just like the rest of western washington.
  sources: i've lived in the same house in bellingham (bout an hour north of seattle) my whole life

  Flag zombiesraftermeon January 25, 2009   Link

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  General Comment:More housing developments go up
  Named after the things they replace
  So welcome to Minnow Brook
  And welcome to Shady Space
  And it all seems a little abrupt
  
  Anyone that lives in Jersey can attest to the truth of this.

  Flag Wayward-Airmanon August 28, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:i agree with "milkmit" of 05 when he says that its
  "interchange plazas and malls..."
  cuz ive been listening and im positive he says malls in the plural, and it wouldnt make sense to say "interchange causes a malls"...
  then again its modest mouse, so anything goes really lol

  Flag iluvvsmp2on August 19, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:out of curiosity, i just did a few google searches since i always thought it was "welcome to meadowbrook" rather than "welcome to minnow brook." there is no minnow brook or minnowbrook that i can find in washington state. however, there is a meadowbrook farm just outside of issaquah in snoqualmie, WA. despite isaac's marble-mouthed delivery in the older material, i do think it sounds much closer to "meadowbrook" than "minnow brook" and because of the location of meadowbrook farms, i'm willing to bet that's what is being referred to.

  Flag Dumbjawon May 07, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:i'm from the issaquah area (renton,) and since the 90's when isaac romped around this area, it's really become just an average suburb of seattle; there's nothing interesting here anymore, and yes, there is an abundance of housing developments named after things they replace.

  Flag xylotehwarrioron March 13, 2008   Link

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