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Oh, there’ll be time to get by
I get dry after the swimming pool
Oh, there’ll be time to just cry
Or wonder why it didn’t work out
Oh, there’ll be time to fish fry
For letters by yours truly
Yours truly
Someone in my dictionary's up to no good
I never find the very special words I should
And so I have another party with a water glass
And I sit on all your actions, it’s a birthing game
And I bet he needs a shower 'cause he’s just like me
But the soldiers in the painting know your secret face
Well your parrot told me just how I can make you smile
'Gonna let you do your thinkin' if you need a while
But what I gave you made him get mad
A little bit funny how a thing like that
Could travel through one mouth in through another
And the next thing you know you gotta hear it from your brother
And the words they sting, like a stump of old wasps
Do you remember when I said, "Go throw the rock in there"
And we ran through the woods to our good house
But you forgot about the things that he could say like
"I don’t think that I like you anymore
Well I found new feelings at the feeling store
And I can't find you at our kissing place
Well I’m scared of those new pair of eyes you have"
So I duck out, go down to find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'd snuffed out I doubt I’d find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
But I don’t wish that I was dead
Now, a very old friend of mine once said
That either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits
But feeling is good
Confusion's not a kidney stone in my brain
If we’re miscommunicating, do we feel the same?
'Cause either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits
And feeling is good
So I duck out, go down to find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'd snuffed out I doubt I’d find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
If you give a little
you can get a little bit
I get dry after the swimming pool
Oh, there’ll be time to just cry
Or wonder why it didn’t work out
Oh, there’ll be time to fish fry
For letters by yours truly
Yours truly
Someone in my dictionary's up to no good
I never find the very special words I should
And so I have another party with a water glass
And I sit on all your actions, it’s a birthing game
And I bet he needs a shower 'cause he’s just like me
But the soldiers in the painting know your secret face
Well your parrot told me just how I can make you smile
'Gonna let you do your thinkin' if you need a while
But what I gave you made him get mad
A little bit funny how a thing like that
Could travel through one mouth in through another
And the next thing you know you gotta hear it from your brother
And the words they sting, like a stump of old wasps
Do you remember when I said, "Go throw the rock in there"
And we ran through the woods to our good house
But you forgot about the things that he could say like
"I don’t think that I like you anymore
Well I found new feelings at the feeling store
And I can't find you at our kissing place
Well I’m scared of those new pair of eyes you have"
So I duck out, go down to find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'd snuffed out I doubt I’d find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
But I don’t wish that I was dead
Now, a very old friend of mine once said
That either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits
But feeling is good
Confusion's not a kidney stone in my brain
If we’re miscommunicating, do we feel the same?
'Cause either way you look at it
You have your fits, I have my fits
And feeling is good
So I duck out, go down to find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'd snuffed out I doubt I’d find the swimming pool
Hop the fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
If you give a little
you can get a little bit
Lyrics submitted by FuneralCatering, edited by smuckersje, sortilegus, foompd
Track duration: 08:22
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"But I don't wish that I was dead
A very old friend of mine once said
that either way you look at it you have your fits
I have my fits but feeling is good"
This is an amazing set of lyrics that speaks to the meaning of the song, as well as life itself. Even though everybody is destined to experience pain and unhappiness in life, the ability to be able to feel these things is always better then the alternative (death)
Hence the chorus: "When I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find the swimming pool" The swimming pool represents that ability to feel. In death we lose that ability. A truly inspiring song emphasizing the beauty of life and the importance of feeling. Even during our lowest moments, it is still better to "feel" these negative emotions rather than to not feel at all.
The lyrics to "Bansee Beat" are emotional, almost in a Bright Eyes type way... even though not as cleverly expressed... they still do the job of evoking a painful past or ongoing thing, the way love twists us around and makes us slaves to it.
Wonderful tune.
Clever? I don't think that's running through the mind of Avey Tare when he's writing a song. Oberst does it because that's what's given him the response to his music that he likes. I like Bright Eyes and his solo work but Avey's writing is so much more relate-able, unfiltered and uninspired.
But i don't wish I was dead,
No, a very old freind of mine once said,
That either way you look at it: you have your fits,
I have my fits; but feeling is good.
Confusions not a kidney stone in my brain,
But, if we're miscommunicating:
Do we feel the same?
I think the song is about two childhood friends that only realize their romantic feelings for each other later in life, after having been in relationships with other people. The swimming pool has a double meaning. First, it represents the nostalgia of the friends' childhood days spent running through the woods, swimming/skipping or throwing rocks in lakes, finding abandoned houses or shacks to call their own secret spot, and just being innocent kids discovering life together. Second,it describes what we continually return to after failed relationships, the pool of potential romantic interests, all the OTHER fish in the sea if you will.
The two friends come to realize their mutual feelings for each other, but the timing is bad because the girl is already involved with someone else. The narrator kisses her anyway, complicating things for both of them. The girl's boyfriend knows that something is wrong because of the "new eyes" she has for her childhood friend and gets mad, loses interest in her quickly and gossips about what happened.
This presumably leaves the narrator and his friend in a place where they can be together in bliss right? But for whatever reason (the narrator is still pondering) it doesn't work out.
Possible reasons: swimming in the pool of people and sex and relationships for too long has corrupted both parties' sense of trust and longevity as a long term possibility, leading to paranoia about the relationship that makes the narrator "need a shower" or want to just "duck out and find the swimming pool". In other words, he saw himself how easily a relationship could fall apart when he kissed his friend and made her go astray from her current interest, so why couldn't it happen again? so then why go through all this pain just to reach that result again after so much has been invested?
Do we extend ourselves romantically just because "feeling is good"? because we're driven by biological needs for companionship and sexual expression? do we compromise and "give a little" just for the sake of getting "a little bit"? and what exactly is the point if in the end it's only temporary, and we'll end up burning all the letters and notes and reminders of past lovers along with our connections to them? of course any time AC says "fry" i have to assume there's more than one meaning there haha
I am reminded of the "guy who tosses typewriter" scene from Richard Linklater's film Slacker where the pissed off ex-boyfriend quotes James Joyce's Ulysses:
"If he had smiled why would he have smiled? To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity."
"that either way you look at it you have your fits
I have my fits but feeling is good"
To me this says he is looking back at the shitty bits of the relationship, the parts where he was feeling extreme despair or hatred, and he doesn't regret them. Experiencing feelings other than happiness is enlightening in retrospect. This may not be what they meant by this, but to me this fits perfectly.