Favourite Song Meanings/Lyrical Interpretations

Culture
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What are your favourite song meanings or lyrical interpretations? Below are some of my favourites.

LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Meaning/Interpretation:
Discovering about the death of someone close, the ensuing feelings of loss and the shallowness of everything else going on in Murphy’s life in comparison to his feelings.
Favourite Lyric: "I wish that we could talk about it/But there that’s the problem.’’

R.E.M. - E-Bow The Letter
Meaning/Interpretation: The absurdity of fame and adulation. Berry/Stipe describes brilliantly the physical manifestations of emotions and narcotics on the body. Supposedly written as a letter to River Phoenix and then turned into a song. One of very few R.E.M. songs where the lyrics were written before the music.
Favourite Lyric: “Aluminum tastes like fear, adrenaline pulls us near.”

The XX - Replica
Meaning/Interpretation: Is destructive repetitive behaviour as a result of the way our brains are made up/hereditary or a conscious choice?
Favourite Lyric:“They all say I will become a replica/Your mistakes were only chemical”

Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Meaning/Interpretation:I remember learning about the meaning of this song from my brother and being baffled by it. Fantastic lyrics from Wire about The Spanish Civil War and standing up against fascism.
Favourite Lyric: “Gravity keeps my head down/Or is it maybe shame/At being so young and being so vain.”

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Was only listening to this the other day

I wore it like a badge of teenage film stars
Hash bars, cherry mash and tinfoil tiaras
Dreaming of Maria Callas
Whoever she is

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Not a favourite song but The Weekends song “Can’t feel my face” is about taking heroin.

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Tool - The Grudge

I’m going to do the unspeakable, and attempt to provide an interpretation of a Tool lyric. The Grudge opens the Lateralus album, and on the face of it the track appears to be about not holding on to grudges.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate
Desperate to control all and everything
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen

Clutch it like a cornerstone, otherwise it all comes down
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end
Clutch it like a cornerstone, otherwise it all comes down
Terrified of being wrong, ultimatum prison cell

The most interesting part of the lyrics, to me, are the repeated references to Saturn and it “coming back around”.

Saturn comes back around.
Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone
To consume you till you choose to let this go
Choose to let this go

The orbital period of Saturn is just over 29 years. The suggestion is that if one fails to learn the art of forgiveness by the time they hit 30 years of age, they will face into a cycle of learning those same lessons over and over again until it sticks.

Give away the stone
Let the oceans take and trans mutate this cold and fated anchor
Give away the stone
Let the waters kiss and trans mutate these leaden grudges into gold

Let go

The alchemical symbolism here of turning lead into gold is again applied in the context of releasing grudges and learning to forgive. If you can master this art, the world instantly becomes a better place for you.

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Dungeon

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Surely one of your favourite songs on the Friday Night 80s thread has a special place in that cold heart of yours? Don’t be afraid to show your softer side mate. You can’t always play the hard-man Abba fan.

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Here Comes Your Man by The Pixies is supposedly actually about hobos and the San Francisco earthquake, but I always enjoyed the theory that it was about the Nagasaki bombing.

“Outside there’s a boxcar waiting” - The plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki was called Bockscar.

“Here comes your man” - the bomb was called Fat Man

The lyrics loosely fit them theme, for example third verse:
“Big shake on the box car moving
Big shake to the land that’s falling down
Is a wind makes a palm stop blowing
A big, big stone fall and break my crown”

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Follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night…

History.

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Golden brown, texture like sun
Lays me down, with my mind she runs
Throughout the night, no need to fight
Never a frown with golden brown

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Heroin?

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No that’s Golden Brown.

This is Heroin.

I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein…

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ABBA - The Day Before You Came

The narrator addressing ‘you’ and recalling her life ‘the day before you came’.

She’s sleepwalked throughout life, having difficulties recalling what actually happened but declaring they must have happened as her life is so mundane and never changed.

She is an office worker yet seems to have a rebellious streak which contributes to her depression into terms of her mundane existence.

Ultimately though it is the day before you came, which suggests that the individual never came as tomorrow never comes. She is a dreamer and uses this to mask her unfulfilling existence.

‘And still on top of this I’m pretty sure it must have rained’.

Genius.

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Until The End of the World by U2 is a post crucifixion conversation between Jesus and Judas. The reference to bride and groom is where they sat at the Last Supper - they dip bread in same dish

Haven’t seen you in quite a while
I was down the hole just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world

I took the money
I spiked your drink
You miss too much these days if you stop to think
You led me on with those innocent eyes
You know I love the element of surprise
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You
You were acting like it was the end of the world

Love, love, love
Love
Love, love
Love, love, love
Love (love)
Love, love

In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You, you said you’d wait
'Til the end of the world

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U2/Johnny Cash - The Wanderer

The apocalypse has happened. The world is a materialistic nightmare where the environment has been ravaged. A man wanders aimlessly searching for God. While he realises it’s not his time yet, it will be soon.

‘Jesus don’t you wait up. Jesus I’ll be home soon’

I went out walking
Through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones, saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul

I went out walking
Under an atomic sky
Where the ground won’t turn and the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah, I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went drifting
Through the capitals of tin
Where men can’t walk or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in

I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don’t want God in it

I went out with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went out walking
Down that winding road
Where no one’s trusting no one
And conscience a too heavy load

I went out riding
Down that old eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name

I went with nothing
But the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you

I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much as a man can
Before he repents

I went out searching
Looking for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father’s right hand

I went out walking
With a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one

Now Jesus, don’t you wait up
Jesus, I’ll be home soon
Yeah, I went out for the papers
Told her I’d be back by noon

Yeah, I left with nothing
But the thought you’d be there too
Looking for you

Yeah, I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

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The Pogues - A Pair of Brown Eyes

Two narrators. One guy ‘drunk to hell’ and another who starts telling the first guy about his experience of war, which the first guy doesn’t particular want to hear about,

‘I looked at him, he looked at me, all I could do was hate him!’

MacGowan draws comparisons between both experiences. The thing that binds them further together is them remembering someone with a pair of brown eyes that they yearn for.

When MacGowan was asked what the song was about he said ‘talking to an old bastard in a pub’.

One summer evening drunk to hell
I stood there nearly lifeless
An old man in the corner sang
Where the water lilies grow
And on the jukebox johnny sang
About a thing called love
And its how are you kid and whats your name
And how would you bloody know?
In blood and death neath a screaming sky
I lay down on the ground
And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed
Then prayed and bled some more
And the only thing that I could see
Was a pair of brown eyes that was looking at me
But when we got back, labeled parts one to three
There was no pair of brown eyes waiting for me

And a rovin, a rovin, a rovin I’ll go
For a pair of brown eyes

I looked at him he looked at me
All I could do was hate him
While Ray and Philomena sang
Of my elusive dream
I saw the streams, the rolling hills
Where his brown eyes were waiting
And I thought about a pair of brown eyes
That waited once for me
So drunk to hell I left the place
Sometimes crawling sometimes walking
A hungry sound came across the breeze
So I gave the walls a talking
And I heard the sounds of long ago
From the old canal
And the birds were whistling in the trees
Where the wind was gently laughing

And a rovin, a rovin, a rovin I’ll go
A rovin, a rovin, a rovin I’ll go
And a rovin, a rovin, a rovin I’ll go
For a pair of brown eyes
For a pair of brown eyes

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Banarama - Robert De Niro’s Waiting is about a woman being raped on a date and to cope she imagines and thinks of a movie with Robert De Niro

Hopes dashed to the floor
Like shattered teenage dreams
Boys livin’ next door
Are never what they seem
Ooh

… A walk in the park can become a bad dream
People are starin’ and followin’ me
This is my only escape from it all
Watchin’ a film or a face on the wall

… Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting

… I don’t need a boy
I’ve got a man of steel
Don’t come any closer
I don’t wanna feel
Ooh

… You’re breathing, you’re touching, but nothing’s for free
I never want this to happen to me
Don’t try to change me you’re wasting your time
Now I’ve got somethin’ much better in mind

… Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting

… Talk, talk, talk, talk (talk, talk, talk, talk)
Talking
Ooh
Talk, talk, talk, talk (talk, talk, talk, talk)
Talking

… A walk in the park can become a bad dream
People are starin’ and followin’ me
This is my only escape from it all
Watchin’ a film or a face on the wall

… Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (Italian)

… Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Talking Italian (Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting
Talking Italian (talking Italian)
Robert De Niro’s waiting

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There’s a mad podcast on this song about it being created and pushed by CIA pyscops in Russia

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Yeah listened to it. Interesting story, although probably bullshit but well told.

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I read somewhere that Black Francis was listing to REM’s early stuff including the song Carnival of Sorts which constantly references ‘boxcar’.

Maybe it was both.

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Tom Waits - Anywhere I Lay my Head

A song about the mother of all hangovers.

He had money (‘my pockets were filling up with gold’), went mad (‘set the Thames on fire’) and now must deal with the consequences (‘now I must come back down’).

The song describes feelings of paranoia and pure despair (‘the wind is blowing cold’). All he wants to do it lay down and die (in the hangover sense).

The instrumental outro references the type of music played at the funeral of a New Orleans jazzman. More reference to dying.

My head is spinning round
My heart is in my shoes, yeah
I went and set the Thames on fire, oh
Now I must come back down
She’s laughing in her sleeve, boys
I can feel it in my bones
Oh, but anywhere, anywhere I’m gonna lay my head
Oh, I’m gonna call my home

Well, I see that the world is upside-down
Seems that my pockets were filled up with gold
And now the clouds, Well they’ve covered everything over
And the wind is blowing cold
Well, I don’t need anybody
Because I learned, I learned to be alone
Well, I said anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys
Well, I’m gonna call my home

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