Lyrics for Communist Daughter as interpreted by PLANES

Communist Daughter Lyrics
Sweet communist
The communist daughter
Standing on the seaweed water
Semen stains the mountaintops
Semen stains the mountaintops

With cocoa leaves along the border
Sweetness sings from every corner
Cars careening from the clouds
The bridges burst and twist around

And wanting something warm and moving
Bends towards herself the soothing
Proves that she must still exist
She moves herself about her fist

Sweet communist
The communist daughter
Standing on the seaweed water
Semen stains the mountaintops
Semen stains the mountaintops

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subverted0
05-27-2002

Rated 0 
as usual, i don't claim to know what i'm talking about, and this song is very figurative and strange. the only lines i can try to decipher are "and wanting something warm and moving...moves herself about her fist." perhaps the writer speaks of a lonliness that someone feels and metaphorically masturbates to prove that she is still a person, still alive, still existing. i don't know.

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MDMaster
06-21-2002

Rated 0 
The mountain tops could be her breasts or something.

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2 Replies
xnathanlanex
06-30-2002

Rated 0 
do you think communist might stand for her personality trait..? that reference always made me curious

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FayeValentine
07-10-2002

Rated 0 
I think communist in this song represents the idea of sharing everything. In combination with songs like "Oh, Comely", you get the idea of a girl being used, and used by many people. She's passed between people, like a prostitute, as if she is one of the possessions the communists' share. The idea that the mountain tops are her breasts continues this...she's used and then left, and she has to see if she's still alive in the only way she knows to be alive--as a sexual object.

That's my take on it, anyway.

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i'macliche
03-21-2003

Rated 0 
I was thinking the same thing. Except, the entire Communist reference, I think, just shows that she is different and misunderstood. I mean, let's face it, there aren't many Communists around. And since she feels so misunderstood, she has taken the casual sex/masturbation route to prove that she still feels, as opposed to cliche cutting. The mountain tops are a metaphor for her breasts, I think, which would sound silly and childish, except for the fact that most people wouldn't get this far in an interpretation. But, I could be/probably am wrong. At least I still have my looks...

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mrtrout
04-08-2003

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I'm going to agree with Faye. There are all too many Communists, especially if you set the album in the late world war II era (the atmosphere seems to convey such), as soviet russia was playing a large role in the war efforts.

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motnaibaf
04-29-2003

Rated 0 
To me, this song accurately depicts the life in any communist country. Growing up in one, the mindset of communism prohibits many things about your personal self but most of all sexuality and religion. However in this song sexuality is portrayed as a way for someone existing in a communist country to know that they are really alive and not just a machine working for the whole.

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empty_desk_seat
06-01-2003

Rated 0 
I think the song is about rape. when it says Proves that she must still exist, She moves herself about her fist i think it means that she is upset but has to move on.

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1 Reply
ataraxia37
06-24-2003

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maybe it's about the fall of communism. this girl is watching everything around her get ruined and defiled. maybe she is communism, as it fell, everything was ruined, you know? since it became obsolete in the span of a short period, the remaining communists "moved around her fist," which could be a metaphor for widespread violence.

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Janos
05-05-2004

Rated 0 
I like the way you think, ataraxia.

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Abex22
05-09-2004

Rated 0 
i totally agree with fayevalentine on most of it...but i would like to hear someones explanation on the sea-weed water and the cars careening

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Abex22
05-09-2004

Rated 0 
...cowboy bebop is god.....

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Lotus_Blossom
05-13-2004

Rated 0 
1. Cowboy Bebop is awful.
2. Maybe this song is about the whole Czar Nikolas/Anastasia thing and how supposedly Anastasia was saved... maybe this is Jeff's wayof telling his beliefs of how she went on to accept Communism and 'went forth and multiplied'?
"The bridges burst and twist around
And wanting something warm and moving
Bends towards herself the soothing
Proves that she must still exist"
Proves that she must still exist? I think that is what it means.

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Electrical_Cucumber
06-14-2004

Rated 0 
I like where you went with the communism representing sharing everything... the idea of a whore being used by everything... not so much.

To me, the communist daughter represents someone of communistic tendencies (one who shares everything) existing in a democratic society (partly represented by the mountain tops). The seamen that stains the mountain tops represents greed, lust, desire (concepts of a capitalistic society). I’d imagine the artist doesn’t feel this greed is a good thing – otherwise he’d have used less graphic, gory images than seamen. This idea of the folly of greed Vs the goodness of sharing everything can also be seen when the artist sings of the sweet communist daughter “standing in the sea-weed water”. The water again represents the idea of sharing everything as pure, the fact that it is seaweed water shows that the pure ideology is stained by the “sea-weed”, which is again representative of greed.

In the lines, “And wanting something warm and moving, Bends towards herself the soothing, Proves that she must still exist”, girl is searching for something good and wholesome in this society of capitalistic greed. “She turns towards herself for soothing” – she turns towards like-minded people, they share their troubles and hardships, and from the catharsis effect inherent in sharing, prove that her ideology still exists, and still has a place in a society dominated by an ideology of “greed is good”.

Anyways, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong… I wrote this at 4am on the late, late shift at work…

/Edit
Another interesting point I just considered, if you listen to the song, all the lyrics are sung in 2 or 3 breaths (it’s actually really hard to sing if you’ve ever tried). So the song is very flowing. Could this somehow be representative the nature of our society today – never stopping, always moving and changing. I’m not sure about this… kinda thin.

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man on tv
06-16-2004

Rated 0 
1.cowboy bebop is awesome you ass
2.no one cares if what you think abex
3.this song is beutiful

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davinox
11-24-2004

Rated +1 
fayevalentine is right. I think this song ties into the beginning of Oh Comely. It's about a sexually active, attractive girl who shares her body with others.

"And wanting something warm and moving
Bends towards herself the soothing
Proves that she must still exist
She moves herself about her fist"

She does it to"prove that she must still exist", giving herself up to passion and pleasure gives her a place in life.

The "cars careening from the clouds" and other stream-of-conscious literary devices are merely that, they sound good. You could interpret it as anything; I take it that the world changes for her, that guys will do things for her because of her sexuality.

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Christopher13
12-10-2004

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"Cars careening from the clouds the bridges burst & twist around"-WW2 or war in general-airplanes dropping bombs on strategic bridges-

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RainSong
12-14-2004

Rated 0 
I always thought it was "She moves herself WITH OUT her fist" not "about her fist"

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RainSong
12-14-2004

Rated 0 
Ok...I had a very different idea about this song, closer to Electric Cucumber's idea.

I think the communist daughter represents pure communism...the daughter being used to represent it because you might see a young girl as one who has not been corrupted yet. It is about an idealist trying to exist in a world of realism, capitalism, and greed and this idealist trying to hold on to the idea of communism, or at least a definition that includes peace, equality, caring about others, and sharing with everyone. During WWII, which if some of the ideas being said about Anne Frank being Jeff Mangum's muse makes sense that perhaps his songs take place during that time, I think the war is trying to chip away at the Communist Daughter, the Idealistic Representation of Communism and the Communist Daughter is still just their trying to exist when everything around her is falling apart.

To me the first part had the same effect of Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night 7 o clock news where Simon and Garfunkel are singing Silent Night over top of a news caster reporting on the conflict in Vietnam and the assassination of Martin Luther King and all these terrible things. There's cars crashing and bombs being dropping, competition and greed causing countries to fight against each other and then there's this idea...the communist daughter...all by herself untouched (she is an idea)

I always thought of the lines as just beautiful imagery but maybe it could mean more. I just can't think of Communist daughter as a slut because I don't think she would be described as sweet. Even if she did "share herself" with lots of people maybe she genuinely cared for them and it wasn't just a vulgar thing...although I agree with Elective Cucumber that the seamen could represent corruption (in more ways than one, obviously)

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1 Reply
ultraspamboy
12-24-2004

Rated 0 
The line here that interests me most is "with cocoa leaves along the border". The lyric sheet actually says "coca leaves", as in leaves of a coca plant, from which cocaine is derived.

The only interpretations I can think of for this line are of a war with some kind of drug involvement (dovetailing with the war theme in the album), Colombia and the war between the government and the communist rebels there who fund themselves with the cocaine trade, or the coca leaves mean that Communist Daughter is deluding herself, perhaps a teenage communist--"daughter" suggests youthfulness, and "sweetness sings from every corner" juxtaposed with "cars careening" and "bridges burst" suggests that she is a kind, friendly girl advocating a violent revolution.

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Electrical_Cucumber
01-19-2005

Rated 0 
I think the only useful thing my English teacher ever taught me, when I was doing poetry in high-school, was that after the poet has made his work public, it's meaning is no longer up to him. Whoever reads it creates the meaning - and the by-product of that is the fact that the piece is going to mean something different to everyone. The lyrics are going to have different connotations for everyone, and it's possible that Mangum is deliberately vague when it comes to explaining the meanings to his songs for this reason.

In the words of one of my favourite comedians, Dennis Miller, “The only thing separating holy writ from complete bullshit is your perspective. It’s your only weapon, keep the safety off”

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Electrical_Cucumber
01-19-2005

Rated 0 
Ohhhh, and Lotus_Blossom.... Cowboy Bebop rocks! But I guess if you're talking about the ones that are dubbed in english, then you're right, they are terrible. If you want to truely appreciate Bebop, learn japanese, or atleast watch the subtitled ones.

Off topic, but it had to be said.

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Sporkus
02-24-2005

Rated 0 
Alright, think about it this way:

This song immediately follows "Holland, 1945," which is generally considered to be about Anne Frank. Following with the same theme, I think this song is also about WWII.

I think the semen-stained mountain tops are referring to breasts, but are also an allegory to the Eastern Front of WWII. The Germans invaded Russia by way of the Caucus mountains, and hit them hard; the Russians suffered about 10 casualties for every one German. That might be where the rape reference comes in, as a depiction of the one-sided slaughter of Russians (as in the Rape of Nanking, when Japan "raped" China). The semen-stained mountain tops of rape can read parallel as the blood-stained Caucuses. That's what I think, anyway. Or Hitler's ideals are soiling the communist way of life. Something like that. What do you guys think?

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Snevik
04-08-2005

Rated 0 
I don't listen to Neutral Milk for the vague historical references. But its nice that those come standard.

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Putingrad
07-21-2005

Rated 0 
OK, one thing everyone who listens to NMH should realize by now is that Jeff Magnum does not write songs about completely literal or political subjects. There is no way that the mountains in the song refers to the Caucauses in WWII just because there is Anne Frank imagery throughout the album. There is no way that this is about the fall of communism and the political ramifications of that. And there is certainly no way that it's about the Colombian drug war. I'm sorry, but just think about who's writing these songs for a minute - Jeff Magnum.

Alright, with that said, I think it's a song about peaceful sexuality, quite likely masturbation "(she moves herself about her fist). I see nothing in the lyrics which would suggest it being about something violent like rape. For me, it is an utterly peaceful, soothing, and beautiful song.

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