Questions About Lyrics

[sadchild]

Thread for lyrics where you want to know if they mean something, or if they're meaningless.

Inspiration for this thread:

Queen "Headlong"
"Now you've got soup in the laundry bag"

Does this mean anything? Is it an idiom? A personal experience?

Or is it just nonsense?

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

If it's an idiom, its a British one. The opinion on google seems to be split between nonsense and not.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Off the top of my head, these two Pretenders lyrics come to mind.

In Brass In Pocket, there's this line:

I got rhythm, I can't miss a beat
I got a new Skank, so reet

It makes no fucking sense to me, but apparently, it's some kind of slang term.

In Precious, she sings:

Now Howard the Duck and Mr Stress both stayed
"Trapped in a world that they never made"
But not me baby I'm too precious
I had to fuck off

Now aside from the fact you can't understand a goddamn thing she says in that song, plus it doesn't lyrically fit into the melody, there's an explanation. They are all Cleveland acts, the whole song is about Cleveland.

Bono said in an interview that Get On Your Boots by U2 is a meaningless song:

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blow with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?
Night is falling everywhere
Rockets hit the fun-fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But he won't scare you
Hey! Sexy boots
Get on your boots yeah!
Free me from a dark dream
Candy floss, ice cream
All the kids are screaming but the ghosts aren't real
Here's what we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity if joy is real
You don't know how beautiful
You don't know how beautiful you are
You don't know
You don't get it do you?
You don't know how beautiful you are
If some have stuff to blow it up
We're into growing up
Women are the future
All the big revelations
I got a submarine
You've got gasoline
I don't wanna talk about wars between nations
Not right now
Sexy boots
No! no no no
Get on your boots yeah!
Not right now!
Foxy boots
You don't know how beautiful
You don't know how beautiful
You are
You don't know
You don't get it do you?
You don't know how beautiful you are
Sexy boots
I don't wanna talk about wars between the nations
Sexy Boots yeah!

 

[Aaron]

From Carly Simon's You're So Vain....
She went for the more obscure "gavotte" instead of maybe "go by". It does rhyme better though.


You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte

 

[sadchild]

I got a new Skank, so reet

Might have an answer for this one. Skank = marijuana.....

‘Got new skank/It’s so reet’ is a little tip of the hat to famed US artist and satirist Robert Crumb. “I was a big fan of his comic books”, she says. “One cartoon of his had this pot gauge; a machine for measuring the quality of marijuana. If it was really, really good stuff they called it ‘reet petite’.”

The Story Behind The Song: Brass In Pocket by The Pretenders

Brass in Pocket was the first UK No.1 of the 80s, The Pretenders' biggest hit, and the first flowering of 'girl power'.

www.loudersound.com

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

From Carly Simon's You're So Vain....
She went for the more obscure "gavotte" instead of maybe "go by". It does rhyme better though.


You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte

That's funny. I think I have always heard it as "go by". Probably because I have never heard of gavotte.

 

[Channel98]

"I wanna really really really wanna zig-a-zig-ah," the Spice Girls sang in their 1997 number-one hit Wannabe. For 20 years I assumed "zig-a-zig-ah" was a euphemism for some type of sex. Then an article in Marie Claire
magazine explained that the word is a euphemism for "shit and cigars." I like my euphemism better.

The Spice Girls finally revealed what 'zig-a-zig-ah' really means

Wannabe amazed?

www.marieclaire.co.uk

 

[Aaron]

Yeah I'm with you Scotch, the line about "so reet" always confused me

 

[sadchild]

I like my euphemism better.

Me too!

I really really really wanna shit and cigars? That's stupid.

 

[scotchandcigar]

The pompatus of love.

/thread

 

[Channel98]

Ah yes, "the pompatus of love" – written by the same guy who penned these lyrics: "Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas. You know he knows just exactly what the facts is." Gak!

In 1996, there was a movie titled The Pompatus Of Love which included four schmucks discussing the meaning of the word. Roger Ebert gave the movie two stars. Leonard Maltin gave the movie two stars. Ebert and Maltin were overly generous.

 

[HecticArt]

I was going to say:

Hey! Sexy boots
Get on your boots yeah!

Stupidest frigging lyrics Bono has ever said.

Till I saw this.

The pompatus of love.

/thread

 

[scotchandcigar]

Everybody have fun tonight
Everybody wang chung tonight

But also, this is clearly a nonsense song:

In the time of chimpanzees I was a monkey
Butane in my veins and I'm out to cut the junkie
With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables
Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose
Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat
Someone came in sayin' I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
Yo, cut it
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Double-barrel buckshot)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare
Ban all the music with a phony gas chamber
'Cause one's got a weasel and the other's got a flag
One's on the pole, shove the other in a bag
With the rerun shows and the cocaine nose-job
The daytime crap of the folksinger slob
He hung himself with a guitar string
A slab of turkey-neck and it's hanging from a pigeon wing
You can't write if you can't relate
Trade the cash for the beef for the body for the hate
And my time is a piece of wax falling on a termite
That's choking on the splinters
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Get crazy with the cheeze whiz)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Drive-by body pierce)
Yo, bring it on down
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(I can't believe you)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Sprechen Sie deutsch, baby?)
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
(Know what I'm sayin'?)

 

[Aaron]

Singing Loser with Beck in concert was too much fun.

 

[sadchild]

this is clearly a nonsense song

Yes. And it's funny how people put meaning into it.

The verses of Beck’s breakout hit seem to be mainly a stream of consciousness consisting of nonsense while announcing to the world he’s just a slacker. But some feel he juxtaposes imagery of poverty with pop culture imagery, characterized by glamour and excess. Beck, however, has said that the rap began merely as an improvised poem recorded in his kitchen as a filler track.

 

[scotchandcigar]

Singing Loser with Beck in concert was too much fun.

When I saw him, he had a guy playing a giant sitar for that song.

 

[HecticArt]

There were probably 20-25% of those lyrics I didn't really know.
There's no way I'll remember them.

 

[sadchild]

Thread for lyrics where you want to know if they mean something, or if they're meaningless.

Listening to Queen again....

Queen "One Vision"
Just gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme fried chicken!

Here is video of the band performing the song in studio where Freddie is singing silly stuff, including talking about chicken. In Freddie's boyfriend's memoir, he claims he encouraged Freddie to leave the 'fried chicken' line in the song for fun.

 

[Channel98]

The Essex, a quintet formed by members of the Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina, had a number-one hit in July 1963 with Easier Said Than Done. Their second single, A Walkin' Miracle, reached #12 in September 1963 and includes one of the dumbest lines I've ever heard in a song: "I know how happy his clothes must be 'cause that's how I feel when he's close to me." Gak!

 

[HecticArt]

I kinda like that song.....