I'm fascinated at the way music tells stories in nuanced ways through lyrical composition. I always refer to lyrics as accessible poetry, and at times, lyrics have opened my mind and taught me about things I was never aware of before.
But I'm equally fascinated at the stories behind how these songs get made. I love the lore and even mythology surrounding certain iconic songs. It adds so much to my enjoyment of the music, or sometimes it detracts from how much I can truly enjoy the music.
Case in point: The Pixies are one of my favorite bands of all time, and the first song I heard of theirs was Here Comes Your Man. I enjoyed it a lot, so I decided to listen to the rest of their work, and boy was I surprised to find that most of their music didn't sound like this single. I was curious about this, so a while ago I went to the internet to look up history on the song and found out that it was written when Frank Black was only 14 or 15. It turns out that he was embarrassed by the song because he felt it was too pop and they referred to it as the Tom Petty song. The band didn't love the popularity of the song, so when they were asked to make the video, they did so slightly under protest, blankly miming the performance with open mouths and no expressions on their faces.
This information substantially reduced my enjoyment of the song. While it's still pleasing to the ear, I don't consider it to be a particularly great or noteworthy song by the band.
On the other hand, we have the Talking Heads. Their music has always been much more intellectual than their contemporaries, but when I read more about the motivation for some of these songs, I find it more compelling. I've always enjoyed No Compassion, but I've read rumors about the fact that it was aimed at an ex-girlfriend of Byrne's. He had dated Andrea Kovacs in college, and the lyrics of No Compassion are supposedly meant to represent her reaction to a period of depression that Byrne was going through. This makes the song a scathing retribution of what was perceived as an unsympathetic nature of Kovacs by Byrne. Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. It gives the song a lot more edge than it would normally have.
Lyrics behind spoiler
Spoiler!
In a world where people have problems
In this world
where decisions are a way of life
Other peoples problems, they overwhelm my mind
They say compassion is a virtue
But I don't have the time.
Heyoha!
So many people have their problems
I'm not interested in their problems
I guess I've experienced some problems
but now I've made some decisions
Takes a lot of time to push away the nonsense
Take my compassion
push it as far as it goes
My interest level is dropping
My interest level's dropping
Well, I heard all I've want to
and I don't want to hear anymore
What are you, in love with your problems?
I guess you've take it a little too far, its
not so cool to have so many problems
but don't expect me to explain your indecisions
Go
talk to your analysts
isn't that what they're paid for?
Uh, you walk, you talk.
You still function like you used to.
Oh, its not a question of your personality or style
be a little more selfish
It might do you some good
Or just in general, the subjects of some of their bigger hits. Whether it's Once in a Lifetime being inspired by frenetic televangelists, or (Nothing But) Flowers meant to illustrate the difficulty of adapting to life in a future where modern conveniences are gone following some catastrophic events, there is a lot of intrigue in their musical stories.
So, what are your favorite stories behind songs? Or, how did learning something about the lore and history of a song change the way you enjoyed it? Just one guideline, try to keep away from extremely obscure stuff unless it has a particularly interesting story.
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Sloan was in the Geffen records office at the height of Nirvana's fame and saw the stacks of fan mail for them. They wrote the song "PenPals" with lyrics pulled from the letters from fans around the world, who often wrote in broken English.
Lyrics:
Spoiler!
I write you from a far country
North of Africa
It is Algeria
And my city is Oran
I know you'll find this letter strange
That is because I am strange
My first name is Amal
And I'm a girl, I'm a girl, la la la
My first name is Amal
And I'm a girl, I'm a girl, la la la
My first name is Amal and I'm a girl
I am a Norwegian boy
Which have some question
I am only 13 years
And I am crazy of you
Can I have a souvenir?
And if you can, a wick of hair?
Send me documents
And a photo of you alone
Here's my photo dédicace
One of you would be canon
I worship all your handsome words
To me you seem giant
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So, what are your favorite stories behind songs? Or, how did learning something about the lore and history of a song change the way you enjoyed it? Just one guideline, try to keep away from extremely obscure stuff unless it has a particularly interesting story.
Good thread idea - but I don't know how to define "obscure". You might be surprised to know how many people don't know the Pixies.
I think you can still find many VH1 Behind The Music shows on youtube.
Kind of related. I don't know the inspiration for the lyrics, but A-ha completely transformed their biggest single with this version. I'd suggest this is probably closer to what the writer wanted to convey than the version that accompanied the famous video.
my band plays a TON of springsteen so i'm always listening to his stuff. one of my favourite songs of his is 'the rising'. he wrote it as a response to the attacks on sept 11. knowing that 'inspiration' and then reading the lyrics sure makes it an impactful song.
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I love this thread. I hope it gets filled up. Spirits in The Material World was written by Sting on a Casio...
Quote:
'Spirits in the Material World' was written on one of those Casio keyboards while I was riding in the back of a truck somewhere. I just tap, tap, tap and there it was, just by accident. That was the first time I'd ever touched a synthesizer, that album.
Can I do another one?? D'yer Mak'er....
Quote:
Plant has confirmed that the title "D'yer Mak'er" does, in fact, come from a rusty bit of Cockney humor, which usually goes something like this:
Cockney Man 1: My wife is going on holiday.
Cockney Man 2: D'yer make 'er? ["Jamaica," but pronounced quickly so that it sounds just like "Did you make her?"]
Cockney Man 1: No, she's going on her own accord.
The sly allusion to Jamaica made sense for the song: "D'yer Mak'er" is Zeppelin's reggae move
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Location: A simple man leading a complicated life....
Exp:
One of my favourite songs is from Harry Chapin called "Cats In The Cradle"
It's a story about a father who does a bad job balancing his time between work and his family. The son seeks his fathers attention but is always rejected and grows up to be just like his dad. Of course the father comes to realise the wrongs of his ways with the song teaching parents to live a balanced life with their kids
Chock full of fascinating information from the mind of one of the most brilliant songwriters of our time. No one else does what Master Partridge does. This book tells us why. ADRIAN BELEW
Andy Partridge’s body of work is the deepest, strongest, and most interesting of any songwriter of the last 40 years. He is intensely influential because he is a musician’s musician. We, the faithful, know this to be fact, and now have this set of probing interviews to dig into, to perhaps get a sense of how this brilliant madman thinks, works, and creates. On behalf of XTC fans, Partridge fans, Music fans—thank you for this book. DAVID YAZBEK
Ex. I love how he describes writing Jason And The Argonauts - how the music actually makes you picture a ship rushing through the waves (at least that's what I hear, not just a forward momentum but a rolling momentum too):
TB: Absolutely. So was that your basis for the song?
AP: Well, I'll tell you what started it. The actual song came out of finding the main, propelling [sings ascending/descending guitar pattern], which just fell into my hands. It was almost like a twitch -- it just fell into them so easily.
I mean, it's just a one-note figure, with another note in constant harmony, and it felt so good. I thought, "Wow, that's almost like the sound of traveling across the sea." And then of course, it's, "Who traveled across the sea? Jason and the Argonauts!" And bleagh! this whole idea came out.
TB: As you are wont to do.
AP: I've said many times that you can play a little figure or a chord, and as you're telling yourself what it sounds like, that frequently becomes the lyric. This little figure just sounded like traveling across the sea, and then for me it was a very short step to Jason and the Argonauts.
The Art of Process with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo is the newest artistic collaboration from legendary singer-songwriters Aimee Mann and Ted Leo. Every other week, Aimee and Ted talk to friends across the creative spectrum to find out how they work. And sure, they're friends with a lot of musicians, but weirdly not as many as you'd expect. So you'll hear from comedians, directors, novelists, show creators - ok, yes, some musicians - writers, producers and more, as they discuss the process of turning an idea into art.
Bowie doing so much coke he doesn't even remember making the album. Thanks cocaine, you did well.
Quote:
In 1975, David Bowie moved to Los Angeles, and his life descended into chaos and turmoil. He was consuming massive amounts of cocaine, remaining awake for days on end (“I hate sleep,” he said. “I would much prefer staying up, just working, all the time”), and subsisting primarily on a diet of peppers and milk. At one point, his weight dropped below 100 pounds.
His state of mind was agitated and manic – holing up in a rented house in Bel Air and burning black candles, he claimed to see bodies fall past his window and became obsessed with the occult. In interviews, he proclaimed his admiration for Adolf Hitler (“One of the first rock stars … quite as good as Jagger”) and called for “a right-wing, totally dictatorial tyranny.” The songs on the album he recorded that year, Station to Station, were born from this madness and ended up transcending it as well.
Bowie would later refer to this period as “singularly the darkest days of my life.” Describing the time during a 1999 taping of the VH1 Storytellers series, he claimed it was “so steeped in awfulness that recall is nigh or impossible.” Before performing Station to Station‘s melancholy “Word on a Wing,” he added that the song was “unwittingly … a signal of distress; I’m sure that it was a call for help.”
One of my favourite songs is from Harry Chapin called "Cats In The Cradle"
It's a story about a father who does a bad job balancing his time between work and his family. The son seeks his fathers attention but is always rejected and grows up to be just like his dad. Of course the father comes to realise the wrongs of his ways with the song teaching parents to live a balanced life with their kids
I just read Joni Mitchell's biography, and it sounds like the whole music industry was coked up for 10 years in the 70s. She tells a story about The Last Waltz and how Robbie and Neil were so high that they were way off key, and Neil had a cocaine booger dripping down his face that the director tried to airbrush out of the film.
I just read Joni Mitchell's biography, and it sounds like the whole music industry was coked up for 10 years in the 70s. She tells a story about The Last Waltz and how Robbie and Neil were so high that they were way off key, and Neil had a cocaine booger dripping down his face that the director tried to airbrush out of the film.
A murky guitar riff develops over a submerged bass line. Heated words and reconciliation unfold over the screams of men left to die at sea. The Tragically Hip created this sad, enduring and heroic rock ballad amidships. It developed in the middle of "New Orleans is Sinking" and its meaning became the most contested work in the Hip’s catalogue.
Many fans were sure their analysis of events was being relayed within the song. Dieppe, the defining Canadian tragedy of World War Two was suggested, as were the Titanic and Lusitania disasters of earlier years. Gord Downie told the authors of the Can-Rock tome "Have Not Been The Same" that the songs nautical theme is in fact based on the doomed German battleship Bismarck.
"...I had this dream where I relished the fray
and the screaming filled my head all day.
It was as though I'd been spit here, settled
in, into the pocket of a lighthouse on some
rocky socket, off the coast of France, dear."
The song opens as our narrator finds refuge in sleep after suffering –as the song later reveals– a hurtful development is his relationship with "Susan." As he begins to dream, our everyman is about to come face to face with the heartless reality of war at sea, off the coast of France.
On May 26, 1941 a squadron of British Swordfish torpedo planes broke through the Atlantic fog that had been concealing the Bismarck. One of the aircraft, flying at less than 50 feet above the water, dropped a 1,600-pound, 18-inch torpedo armed with 450 pounds of TNT. The projectile struck the Bismarck’s Achilles heel, the only part of the ship not encased with double thick armour: her twin parallel rudders. The attack did not harm the ship itself, but the Bismarck was now unable to steer, and headed straight into enemy fire.
While her steering capabilities were non-existent, her guns, which had recently sunk the British warship Hood, were still in perfect working order. A ferocious naval battle ensued and lasted more than ninety minutes. By 10:40am, British ships Norfolk, King George V, Rodney and Dorsetshire had blasted the Bismarck with torpedoes, aircraft fire and 2,876 shells. The firing became so intense that the paint on the Rodney began to blister; the vibrations of her guns ripped her deck. The British became frustrated with the Bismarck’s stubborn refusal to sink. Finally, it was the Dorsetshire –a boat that will play an important part with our dreamer– which fired the last torpedo into her side.
"...One afternoon, four thousand men died in
the water here and five hundred more were
thrashing madly, as parasites might in your
blood. Now I was in a lifeboat designed for
ten and ten only, anything that systematic
would get you hated. It's not a deal nor a
test nor a love of something fated. The
selection was quick, the crew picked and
those left in the water got kicked off our
pantleg and we headed for home."
As the Bismarck sank, many sailors dove headfirst over the rails, breaking their necks on the lower decks or the frigid, unforgiving Atlantic itself. While the song references the crew being “picked, in order” as part of a disciplined scuttling, this is pure poetic license. In reality, chaos reigned on the Bismarck as she sank. Some Luftwaffe pilots, armed with military issue pistols, shot themselves in mid jump rather than face the icy waters below. Other soldiers saluted the flag and sang the national anthem before leaping from the hulking wreck.
Once in the ocean, the Bismarck’s men found themselves immersed not in salt water, but in gallons of oil which had been spewing from the ship for over an hour. Some choked; others expended too much energy trying to find open water and simply drowned. At 48o ’09 north, 16o ’07 west, Captain Lindemann and thousands of his loyal seamen, technicians and soldiers, all fell into the Atlantic on board their ship. It took thirty secretaries, three full days to notify all the next of kin.
I'm still not entirely convinced that part of the lyric isn't inspired by Steven Spielberg's "Jaws." Gord was clearly a fan. He studied film in university, he quoted the movie on stage often, "swim, honey!" and "you say shark..." being the most common, he wore the t-shirt and he of course directly named the film in The Dark Canuck. Robert Shaw's line from the film: "So, eleven hundred men went into the water, three hundred sixteen men come out, and the sharks took the rest."
Regardless, it’s at this point in the song where our Nautical Disaster dreamer finds himself among the few sailors who managed to successfully commandeer one of the Bismarck’s lifeboats. He remarks: “I relished the fray/and the screaming filled my head all day.”
The Dorsetshire immediately approached to rescue the Germans who’d been lucky enough to survive the onslaught but were still left struggling in the water.
The Dorsetshire steered for the thickest concentration of survivors and let fly with lifelines, docking ropes and nets. Some Germans came achingly close to safety before being bounced off the Dorsetshire’s sides or losing their grip on a lifeline. Eventually, a small raft was lowered into the water. Men used it as a base, a spot to catch their breath before giving all their energy to one last ascension.
Then, in what many consider an unnecessary and uncaring act; action which German historians still vociferously condemn, the Dorsetshire began to pull away. Men screamed for one more chance at the lines. Sailors desperately scratched and clawed at the hull of their departing saviour. Nautical Disaster sums up the simple and inconsiderate manner in which the condemned were doomed for a second time: “and those left in the water/got kicked off our pantleg/and we headed for home.”
"...then the dream ends when the phone rings,
you doing alright he said it's out there most
days and nights, but only a fool would
complain. Anyway Susan, if you like, our
conversation is as faint as a sound in my
memory, as those fingernails scratching on
my hull."
So what could bring about a dreamscape of such horrific consequence? Well, the love of a woman, of course. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, history's most famous dream weavers, agreed that moving experiences and emotional trauma could evoke vivid dreams.
Freud believed that the unconscious would link up to the day’s residue once an individual had left waking life. Jung hypothesized that dreams were a projection of the soul, our deepest innermost feelings that could only be expressed by our unconscious. For our man to have dreamt such a dreadful scene, his waking moments must have been imprinted with some unforgivable deed.
Freud wrote that in dreams, hallow objects on water such as ships, often-represented women and the womb. Our woman, the "Susan" of the last verse, must have deeply scarred our dreamer.
The dream is interrupted by a phone call. It's her. Our man then interrupts his lovers appeal with a curt “Anyway, Susan…” having been illuminated by a tragedy, he has a new perspective. But just why exactly has he interjected, what does he have to say?
The interpretation of the final lines in Nautical Disaster have drawn many Hip Heads into interpretive arguments. He has obviously been hurt, the nature of his dream tells us that, and now he’s ready to speak his mind.
Some see the “…if you’d like/our conversation is as faint a sound/in my memory/as those fingernails/scratching on my hull” passage as proof that our man has decided to forget whatever was said, throw the past overboard, move full steam ahead with his relationship.
I’ve always heard a more unreceptive tone in the lyrics. My reading has our protagonist realizing that he’d be better off without "Susan." Her voice is like finger nails on his hull, and he's fully prepared to leave her in his wake. But my interpretation may simply be due to the striking and aggressive image of finger nails scratching on a hull –coupled with Downie’s angry delivery– breeding a hostile explanation of the lyrics.
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What's great about that period is that it likely led to one of my favorite Bowie songs: Ashes to Ashes.
Edit: in case it isn't clear, Bowie is explaining how he is consistently battling drug addiction.
Lyrics behind spoiler:
Spoiler!
Do you remember a guy that's been
In such an early song?
I've heard a rumor from Ground Control
Oh no, don't say it's true
They got a message from the Action Man
"I'm happy, hope you're happy too
I've loved all I've needed, love
Sordid details following"
The shrieking of nothing is killing, just
Pictures of Jap girls in synthesis and I
Ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair
But I'm hoping to kick but the planet it's glowing
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heaven's high
Hitting an all-time low
Time and again I tell myself
I'll stay clean tonight
But the little green wheels are following me
Oh no, not again
I'm stuck with a valuable friend
"I'm happy, hope you're happy too"
One flash of light but no smoking pistol
I never done good things (I never done good things)
I never done bad things (I never done bad things)
I never did anything out of the blue, woh-o-oh
Want an axe to break the ice
Wanna come down right now
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heaven's high
Hitting an all-time low
My mother said, to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom
My mother said, to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom
My mother said, to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom
My mother said, to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom
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Stories behind the music
