Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with music and lyrics

Though your confidence may be shattered, it doesn't matter.

e.e. coli — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:18:56 -0800

I love the Neil Young track "For the Turnstiles." It's a great performance of a great song. I walk around the house singing it, annoying my wife and frightening my children. But I've got to come to grips with the fact that I can't quite decipher whatever the literal meaning of the lyrics might be. Can you help me? All the sailors with their seasick mamas
Hear the sirens on the shore,
Singin' songs for pimps with tailors
Who charge ten dollars at the door.

You can really learn a lot that way
It will change you in the middle of the day.
Though your confidence may be shattered,
It doesn't matter.

All the great explorers
Are now in granite laid,
Under white sheets for the great unveiling
At the big parade.

All the bushleague batters
Are left to die on the diamond.
In the stands the home crowd scatters
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles,
For the turnstiles.

Welcome to Metafilter. You're a Mess.

benzenedream — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:34:33 -0800

What songs have sampled the philosopher Alan Watts? The Books' song "All our base are belong to them" has an Alan Watts sample, as does Giraffes? Giraffes! song "I Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Are Me And We Am I And I Are All Our Together: Our Collective Consciousness' Psychogenic Fugue". There must be a ton of other songs containing Watts' quotes. I thought there was a Lemon Jelly song as well, but can't find a reference to it at the moment.

Who'd you rather be; The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

Lorc — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:50:03 -0800

The song Gimme Sympathy by Metric has a line: "After all of this is gone, who'd you rather be; the Beatles or the Rolling Stones." What would you interpret that to mean? What characteristic of those bands is being contrasted here? Googling suggests that there was some Beatles/Stones dichotomy, but I'm not 100% clear on how it relates to that lyric.

I've sussed that the later lyric "play me something like Here Comes The Sun" is a reference to that Beatles song, so are The Beatles the "right" choice? Maybe?

Sorry for overthinking a plate of beans, but you know how when one line of a song sticks in your mind?

Full lyrics for the song are in the linked vid's description.

The fish part, I'm sure of.

Solon and Thanks — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:52:06 -0800

Argh! Please help me figure out this song fragment stuck in my head based on a clue or two. I heard it on the radio during a commercial. The song had an upbeat indie-pop sound. Male singer. I'm unsure of the lyrics I heard, but they involved blind/deaf/other disability blowfish (or other kind of fish.) I think the next part was "just doing their own thing" or "doing" something. I've tried googling a combination of the above lyrics, but clearly no dice.

I'm hoping that indie songs involving disabled fish are rare enough that the above will ring a bell.

What songs do you know about St. Louis?

AgentRocket — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:45:54 -0800

What songs are about St. Louis? Is there a list somewhere? I recently stumbled on this wikipedia list of songs about Boston, and it made me wonder if there is a list of songs about St. Louis. Assuming there is not, what songs are out there? This would make a good playlist.

By "about St. Louis," I mean ones that reference the City in some way (rather than just name check it once in a list of city names). The ones I can think of from the top of my head are:

Heavy Metal Drummer, Wilco ("...we used to go see, on The Landing in the summer")
Meet Me In St. Louis
Talkin' Baseball (St. Louis Cardinals Version)
St. Louie, Nelly (and a host of other Nelly/St. Lunatics songs)
Missing Missouri, Sara Evans (sort of: she talks about "the Cardinals playing on tv" in the bridge)

What is the earliest known use of "baby" to address or refer to a lover in American song lyrics?

Joe Beese — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:53:36 -0800

What is the earliest known use of "baby" to address or refer to a lover in American song lyrics? Here's Charley Patton using it in "A Spoonful Blues" in 1929 - but I assume it dates back to the teens or the aughts, at least.

Help me ID this song!

judomadonna — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:26:35 -0800

What's the name of this possibly 1970s adult contemporary FM radio hit? This song's refrain popped into my head last night, God knows why, and it's but one cheesy lyric I can remember:

And ooooooooooh, I love you.

The artist puts me in mind of Elton John but I'm pretty sure it's not him. Given that, I think the artist could be a one-hit wonder.

Toward the end of the song that refrain is sung again except the oooh is drawn out twice as long. It's a piece of cheese, surely, but I can't stop singing it and my wife wants to slap me. Help!

Lookout! Lookout! Lookout! Lookout!

Drasher — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:53:27 -0800

60s song filter: We are trying to find the song from the 60s (?) that is about a car/motorcycle crash. The song has singing and a narrative part if memory serves. At one point the girl screams: "Lookout! Lookout! Lookout! Lookout!"

Help ID a country song please!

inigo2 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:34:21 -0800

Country Song-ID help: very little to go on. A friend was in a bar in Nashville last weekend, and wants to ID a song she heard (DJ, not live music). The only lyric she remembers is "stay off my hit list". Not much to go on, I know. I assume it's a recent song, but can't guarantee that. Googling hasn't helped. Thanks for any help you can give! Hmm..posting at 7:30 on July 3rd might not be the best idea. Oh well.

What can I find lyrics for Bulgarian choir music?

zachawry — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:18:21 -0800

What are those Bulgarian women singing about? I love listening to Bulgarian women's choir music, such as this piece here. However, I haven't been able to find lyrics or even descriptions of what they're singing about (in general, not just this particular song). Anyone have a clue?

Identify a song about a blonde woman's hair turned red from blood

ictow — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:52:15 -0800

I'm trying to find a song I heard a couple of years ago on public radio. All I remember is that it was maybe folk/bluegrass, and it was a guy singing about the red-headed woman that he loved, but in the end he revealed that she was a red-head from all the blood pouring over her blond hair. So it was a pretty creepy song.

Also, because I researched it for this question, here's a factoid reward.

Seeing Elvis (Costello)

ambient2 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:11:22 -0800

Just a fun one (though I am serious in asking it): What one question would you ask Elvis Costello? I'll see him at a thing on Monday, want to ask a great question. I like him a lot, have some ideers, but surely the Hive Mind can come up with at least one question that's Beyond Belief.

The Wonderful Pig

benzenedream — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:54:49 -0800

My wife has become infatuated with a learned pig from long ago, and now wants to play a historical song from 1785 honoring it on the piano, but we have only a fragment of the full song. Where might I find the full score? The first page of the song is printed in Ricky Jay's Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, and is credited as "Sheet Music for 'The Wonderful Pig', circa 1785". There is no secondary source given in the bibliography or copyright page of the book.

The full title is "The Wonderful Pig who exhibits every day near Charing Cross, with new music, and sung at several convivial Societies".

The lyrics contained are as follows:
In this wonderful age, what strange subjects strive
To call our attention, amuse and surprise
Dancing Dogs are quite common
And Monkeys are found
Of wonderful parts as we travel around
The nation with learning grows...

Where would be the best place to look for it? Google books finds a few mentions of the song but no full scores. I do not have access to any academic libraries at the moment.

What is this song by the Ethiopian Elvis about?

cptspalding — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:11:45 -0800

Ethiopia/Amharic Filter: I created a vacation video of my trip to Ethiopia and used the song, Mekeyershin Salawq by the famous Ethiopian singer Alemayehu Eshete. What is the song about? (Link to song inside) While searching around for some background music for a video I'm creating of a recent Ethiopian trip, I ran across the song
Mekeyershin Salawq (Amazon Preview) by "the Ethiopian Elvis", Alemayehu Eshete.

I really like this song, but I'm curious what it's about. Anyone speak Amharic and can translate? If it's not possible to translate the whole song, can you give me the gist of it?

Feel the lovely vocoder

yourcelf — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:03:22 -0800

What are the lyrics to the vocoder chorus in Cut Copy's Feel the love? The various lyrics bot websites all omit the vocoder part. songmeanings.net comments have a couple theories, but they don't seem quite right.

The best I can come up with is:

When Romeo and I help you find what you're searching for
Put your hands across free your mind to your arms of love

Where do I go from here?

Spyder's Game — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:48:17 -0800

OldSongFilter: Help me find a song from my childhood! This is a song that I heard on a music video show when my family was traveling the world around 1982-1983. The lyrics of what I'm pretty sure was the chorus were (or were very close to):

"Oooo Ooooo Where do we go from here?
Oooo Ooooo Heaven seems so clear. Where do we go from here?"

Band could've been English or American. I remember very distinctly that one of the videos on the same show was Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?". Seventeen years later and I still haven't found this song. Various permutations of "Heaven" "Lyrics" and "Where to we go" has turned up nothing on Google searches. Can anyone help me find this song?!?

I just wanna know, where did this song go?

Metroid Baby — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:46:57 -0800

Name-That-Tune Filter: uptempo pop/rock, female vocalist, and the hook contains the lyric "I just wanna know, where did she go?" Or something like it… I heard this song once or twice in the 90s (possibly as late as 2000), and I think it was in a mall. It's the kind of song you'd hear in a mall in the 90s. Every now and then it gets in my head, and I try to figure out what song it is and who sings it, but I never ever find it.

The above line is the only one I remember, and I might have it wrong. The way I remember it, it was repeated a few times; the "I just wanna know" part was kind of faster and rhythmic and may have been all one note, and "go" was more drawn out, like "go-ohh-ohhhhhh." I am pretty sure it was sung by a woman – I recall sort of a bright, girly voice.

I've googled every possible variation of the words that I can think of, to no avail. Friends I've asked don't seem to recognize it.

It could be an unlistenably bad song for all I know, or part of a commercial jingle or something. But I really, really want to know what song this is. Any ideas?

Name this song?

Phire — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:00:09 -0800

Name-this-song-filter: Soft, acoustic, Augustana-esque song with vague descriptions of lyrics. From what I remember, the lyrics describe the singer beseeching his friend to, essentially, go outside and live. I got a vague sense of "I know it's them vs. us, but I won't let you waste away in here".

I thought this song was by Augustana, but I've browsed through their discography and it's not any of them, as far as I could tell. The title may have been something like Outside, Out There, though I could very well be wrong. The chorus definitely references "outside" as an abstract, not just a location.

Definitely a male singer, and it's a fairly soft, acoustic song. No power chords or any of that. I know it's not a lot to go on, but I have faith in the hive mind.

Thanks!

Help me with poetic devices....

griffey — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:13:12 -0800

In "Thunder Road", the lyric "Roy Orbison singing for the lonely, hey that's me and I want you only, don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again" can be interpreted differently depending on where you break the line, before or after the word "only". Is there a name for this particular poetic device? Do you know of other examples? There are other examples of this in songs, of course...the first that I remember is from Counting Crows, Round Here:

"Maria says she's dying, through the door I hear her crying, why I don't know"

You can parse the lyric such that Maria is crying, OR that Maria is crying "Why", with the rejoinder "I don't know" answering her...which is very different from the alternative.

There's a ton more examples that I don't know, I'm sure. I suppose it's easier to hear this in song than to see it in printed word, since you can choose to hear the grammar either way. Printed forces its grammar on you. But I find examples like these fascinating! Is this a named poetic device?

Name this tune...

aquariangirl06 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:48:01 -0800

What is the name of this song we used to sing in music class? I have this song stuck in my head. Its from music class when I was a kid. I used to love this song but I can't remember the name. I've tried to google the first verse but nothing comes up. It starts with...

{beginning}
The hunter sounds his bugle horn
To horse, to horse and then they go

{stuff in the middle}

{ending}
Dashing from yonder tangled thorn
A deer goes marching snow by snow
And louder rings the hunter's horn
March forward, forward
Hello hello

Please help me find a country music song

flyingcowofdoom — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:35:43 -0800

I'm looking for a specific country music song that I don't know where I heard. I'm looking for a country song by a male artist that is about growing up in different generations. I think he sings about the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc, from a young person's perspective and about the fads of the time. Anyone have any ideas what song this is? TIA!

Name that (Danish) tune!

blueberry — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:20:29 -0800

[Name-that-tune-Filter] Looking for the name and/or general translation of a Danish song my mother learned from friends as a child. So, I've posted the twenty-seconds-of-the-song that she remembers up on Vimeo as a video file.

The song was taught to her by her friends Donna and Karla when they were all about 8 years old (back around 1940), so it's possible that it's a nursery rhyme (?). Donna and Karla's parents (who also knew the song) had come over from Denmark, hence the assumption it's a Danish song.

Any ideas?

Mama's Got a Double Entendre

Clyde Mnestra — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:49:20 -0800

What modern song lyrics contain the best -- the cleverest, filthiest, most sustained -- sexual innuendo? Kids these days get a fair number of overt, direct songs like "Love in This Club" (Usher) -- there are others that are far dirtier that I can't recall at the moment -- and an occasional song like "If You Seek Amy" (Britney) that are more subtle, but basically one joke.

I can think of a few earlier songs, like "Squeezebox" (The Who), that are rather more elaborate, but I am trying to keep an open mind. What are the best (defined on main page as "the cleverest, filthiest, most sustained" -- but really, I'm most after subversive slyness and hilarity) from days gone by, or current stuff? My main interest is in post-WWII, esp. rock and blues; popular songs preferred.

Clumsy and awful, as points of contrast, would hardly be unwelcome.

Thanks!

P.S. I assumed this has been asked before, but the only general inquiries I could find had to do with bad and creepy songs, which aren't my main . . . err, thrust.

Carrot on a stick

splendid animal — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:18:06 -0800

I'm trying to track down a song I remember hearing on the local college station about 10 years ago (WDBM in East Lansing, MI). I think some of the lyrics were along the lines of "Consider / all the carrots you've been fed / and now they're your ______ ______ / And consider"....etc. I'm 95% sure it was a guy singing, and I think the song had something to do with being led through life by "carrots" of dubious merit. Google hasn't yielded the answer - thanks!

The Green on "green"

ecmendenhall — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:55:30 -0800

JayZFilter: In the beginning of "Roc Boys," exactly what do the boys in blue put before the badge? Here is the video. My ears and The Google say "greed," my poetic sensibility says "green." This has been bugging me forever, and may well be unanswerable, but give me your most persuasive interpretation.