This morning I uncovered an ancient & buried treasure: My old self-titled The Living End CD. The friend I got to burn it for me back in 1998 was a tool and managed to change the burn speed at least three times during the process. The end result is CD that's totally unplayable tracks 1 through 4. That's fine, I never liked the big hits from that album anyway. Not even Prisoner of Society.
But listening to those punkabilly tracks bought back a lot of memories; skipping school, hanging out, drinking cheap vodka, making fairy bread. But most of all, it reminded me of that awkward habit of stupid teenagers - trying to make sense of the shithole that is life by reading and re-reading the lyric sheets that come with your favorite bands latest album, clinging to the hope that your ability to read between the lines is insightful, original, and was exactly what the songwriter was thinking when they wrote those very sentences. Maybe you could write to them and share your deepest feelings with them & they would ask you to come backstage, and then to tour with them, because you understand what no one else does. Or maybe - just maybe - the songwriter was completely off their face when they wrote it, and is far too busy living it up with hookers, beer and crack to be bothered with your snotty arse interpretation of some crap line that fit with some crap music with the only intended purpose being to sell more records. But I might be wrong.
I wanted to see if these people ever grew up. In fact, if the evermore cynical youth of today really were all that cynical, or have just been using the anonymity of the Internet to hide their shame - turns out it's the latter. Check out what I found here.
Song analysis #1:
The Offspring - Gotta Get Away
"This song is about superheroes who go through a lot of stress and just want to get away from everything."
"I like the song because it describes how I feel a lot of the time, just wanting to get away from myself."
Superheroes?! What the fuck!? What the hell are kids taking these days? Comment number two was far more insightful and correct, and wins a rantolotl Boo hoo hoo award for his efforts.
Song analysis #2:
The Killers - Andy you're a star
"Andy is a football player and attracts the eye of a girl Natalie. She likes him but he doesnt really like her but dates her just to hide the pain of Jenny"
"I don't know exactly where it says Andy is a football star, but the killers are from England and they don't play football, they play things like soccer and rugby."
I thought The Killers would be impossible to analyse, given their only clear quality seems to be that their singer sounds vaguely like Robert Smith - but clearly I was wrong. I thought they came out of Cali or somewhere too, but bah!, lets not let mere details get in the way! Maybe I should move to London and play rugby and stuff.
Song analysis #3:
Green Day - American Idiot
"Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. It's a song of rebellion (or at least critisism) against what's becoming the status quo in the U.S.A.
I've also heard the line "maybe I'm the Fagg*t America" is a reference to rumors about Billie Joe's sexuality. Don't take this as a fact, I just heard it somewhere. " blah blah blah...
It continues like this for paragraphs. Does this song even need analysis? Isn't it entitled to the group analysis of 'George Bush is a fucking moron'? , just like three fifths of what's been released in the last three years? Fucking hell.
If this is the best that the youth of today can come up with, then we're totally fucked. At least in my day we'd turn these things into a guide for better living, not a fucking gossip column on the songwriters lives. In 2006 even music is a tabloid magazine. So with that, I'll leave you with the humble words of Homer J Simpson:
"You can dance!
You can dance!
Everyone look at your pants!"
Analyse that.
But listening to those punkabilly tracks bought back a lot of memories; skipping school, hanging out, drinking cheap vodka, making fairy bread. But most of all, it reminded me of that awkward habit of stupid teenagers - trying to make sense of the shithole that is life by reading and re-reading the lyric sheets that come with your favorite bands latest album, clinging to the hope that your ability to read between the lines is insightful, original, and was exactly what the songwriter was thinking when they wrote those very sentences. Maybe you could write to them and share your deepest feelings with them & they would ask you to come backstage, and then to tour with them, because you understand what no one else does. Or maybe - just maybe - the songwriter was completely off their face when they wrote it, and is far too busy living it up with hookers, beer and crack to be bothered with your snotty arse interpretation of some crap line that fit with some crap music with the only intended purpose being to sell more records. But I might be wrong.
I wanted to see if these people ever grew up. In fact, if the evermore cynical youth of today really were all that cynical, or have just been using the anonymity of the Internet to hide their shame - turns out it's the latter. Check out what I found here.
Song analysis #1:
The Offspring - Gotta Get Away
"This song is about superheroes who go through a lot of stress and just want to get away from everything."
"I like the song because it describes how I feel a lot of the time, just wanting to get away from myself."
Superheroes?! What the fuck!? What the hell are kids taking these days? Comment number two was far more insightful and correct, and wins a rantolotl Boo hoo hoo award for his efforts.
Song analysis #2:
The Killers - Andy you're a star
"Andy is a football player and attracts the eye of a girl Natalie. She likes him but he doesnt really like her but dates her just to hide the pain of Jenny"
"I don't know exactly where it says Andy is a football star, but the killers are from England and they don't play football, they play things like soccer and rugby."
I thought The Killers would be impossible to analyse, given their only clear quality seems to be that their singer sounds vaguely like Robert Smith - but clearly I was wrong. I thought they came out of Cali or somewhere too, but bah!, lets not let mere details get in the way! Maybe I should move to London and play rugby and stuff.
Song analysis #3:
Green Day - American Idiot
"Yeah, the title pretty much says it all. It's a song of rebellion (or at least critisism) against what's becoming the status quo in the U.S.A.
I've also heard the line "maybe I'm the Fagg*t America" is a reference to rumors about Billie Joe's sexuality. Don't take this as a fact, I just heard it somewhere. " blah blah blah...
It continues like this for paragraphs. Does this song even need analysis? Isn't it entitled to the group analysis of 'George Bush is a fucking moron'? , just like three fifths of what's been released in the last three years? Fucking hell.
If this is the best that the youth of today can come up with, then we're totally fucked. At least in my day we'd turn these things into a guide for better living, not a fucking gossip column on the songwriters lives. In 2006 even music is a tabloid magazine. So with that, I'll leave you with the humble words of Homer J Simpson:
"You can dance!
You can dance!
Everyone look at your pants!"
Analyse that.
6 comments:
What Homer is trying to say here, note I say 'trying' because his subconscious is holding him back from a fully formed expression of his woes, is that life (as a concept) is more mallard than melody. In their purest form, his lyrics describe to us the tale of a man living the broken remnants of his life in quasi-solitude after trading his guitar for a duck.
Beautiful in it's simplicity, really.
o... no... no...no.
What homer is saying in line 1 is that if everyone were to believe beyond their won potential then they can achieve the greatest in life. ANd that they should celebrate this thought dance.
In line 2 he is directing this to the high achievers who are ultimately, materialistcally successful by stomping on the masses.
the thirdline suggests we should be ashamed of what our society has become, and the shame is shown through the idea of an unwanted erection.
I thank you.
NO COMMENTS???????
I was very proud of that!!!!
I do apologise, really (lie); obviously I got too caught up in the great pants debate of '06 to notice that someone else had replied here.
Well, proud you should be too! Proud that your clearly obsessive bent for pantle humour (pantle is a word, damnit!) shines through even the dankest of ... oh wait, I've got nothing here. Curse you, Beer! You false muse, you roguish fiend; undermining my arguments once again!
And I am hot as well!!!!!!
I can't believe that you don't understand the complexities of Homer's song. I mean, come on! we're playing with the big leagues. When he says 'you can dance' as in, you can use your personality and life and love to their full extent by expressing your hell through singing and dancing loudly, really just expressing yourself in whatever way possible.
The Second line 'everybody look at your pants' really means, let everyone see your life and insecurities so that they can love you fully.
Duh!
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