Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Chill]

Lyric discussion time? There have been times when lyrics have confused me to no end (those times are still happening) so I hope this thread will help me and others with certain lyrics.

I'll start:

"What of this mongrel architect
a broken arm of sewers set
past present and future tense
clipside of the pinkeye fountain"
The Mars Volta - Inertiatic Esp

I know this probably isn't the best song to start with seeing as how NONE of The Mars Volta lyrics are decipherable, but I'm specifically interested in anyones thoughts on what "clipside of the pinkeye fountain" might mean.

[SeanBateman]

Your best bet here is to stop listening to the mars volta, grow up, and move on with your life.


Clipside of the pinkeye fountain is a metaphor for cumming in someones eye.

[Jackie Blue]

"We [Dadaists] are often told that we are incoherent, but into this word people try to put an insult that it is rather hard for me to fathom. Everything is incoherent...There is no logic...The acts of life have no beginning and no end. Everything happens in a completely idiotic way. That is why everything is alike. Simplicity is called Dada. Any attempt to conciliate an inexplicable momentary state with logic strikes me as a boring kind of game...Like everything in life, Dada is useless....Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates with the insistence of air into all of the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions."

- Tristan Tzara

[E. Spaceman]

I don't really think the mars volta are as much dadaists as simply atrocious lyricists and very poor speakers of both english and spanish.

[Jackie Blue]

Yeah, I was just pointing out that their lyrics probably don't have any "meaning" at all.  I think they just string together words that "sound cool".

Also, they suck.

I'd rather listen to the Spice Girls any day.

[Ballard]

I know this probably isn't the best song to start with seeing as how NONE of The Mars Volta lyrics are decipherable

I believe you've answered your own question there, mate.

[Jackie Blue]

LOL.

Oh my God.  LOL.

"If you don't know who The Fall is, you're listening to too much hip-hop and heavy metal!!!"

Yeah, At the Drive-In weren't that bad.

[Chill]

You guys really don't like The Mars Volta? I guess I'm on my own here.

[Cartilage Head]

 I think Mars Volta is okay. I like their vocalist.

[Jackie Blue]

I don't know anybody who likes The Mars Volta.

Literally nobody.

I don't know who's buying their albums.

[RyanT]

I don't know anybody who likes The Mars Volta.

Literally nobody.

I don't know who's buying their albums.

My pretentious indie roommates from this last year...

[Will]

Me.

[Johnny C]

I bought their first record and still maintain that it's decent maybe because they still knew how to write a fucking song.

Of course, it's also their last record because of the horrible tour bus accident.

[ScrambledGregs]

The Mars Volta are not indie. The Mars Volta is the kind of band that people who desperately want to be indie and/or music nerds listen to because they don't know any better. They sit around in their rooms thinking how underground and cool they must be because the Mars Volta don't get played on the TV or the radio, but the problem is equally that the Mars Volta aren't any good and there are many bands who do what they do much better.

For what it's worth, a lot of bands I like have garbage lyrics, so I normally don't try to figure out what it means.

[Valrus]

I kinda like TMV's first two albums, and I'm pretty sure I don't fit any of the generalizations that people have been throwing around here. I don't think TMV are indie, and I don't think it makes me cool or anything to like a lot of what they do. I am interested in hearing who, in your opinion Gregs, does what they do much better. This is not to imply that I think you're wrong, but because I'm genuinely curious but not curious enough to do my own research into the matter.

Perhaps we should start this thread over with a different lyric? I think Kieffer gave all the interpretation you're going to get out of that one.

[Thrillho]

Good to see that we aren't allowed to like this band since we um...like...the songs?

I got into Mars Volta in 2003. I'd heard of Mars Volta before I'd even heard of At The Drive-In, and I honestly like the Volta better, although the most recent album was wanky even by their standards.

So screw you guys! You're not my real mom!

[Chill]

Okay okay, enough of the (for some strange reason) controversial Mars Volta. Another lyric, this time it's modest mouse(old Modest Mouse) so nobody can argue that they suck because they are a sweet band(if anyone disagrees, take it elsewhere because I don't care).

"All night diner" - Modest Mouse (Building nothing out of something)
"I have sex, I'm always thinking about the pavement
So I can avoid premature ejaculation"

Other than the obvious meaning, are there any thoughts on why these lyrics are in the song?
This is one of my favorite MM songs, it always gets me pumped on nothing, haha, I hope somebody can relate.

[Dimmukane]

uneXpect - Feasting Fools


{ Drinking words from a bone catheter _Without consistence _Tasting
dominance as an appetizer _Ambitious platters spiced with numbers _My
thoughts wander as I stare at the talking fish... _ Giving sound advices on
how to silence my dish. }{ Billions of livings painting for the greedy _In
this summit of foam _Invited by naughty titans in their inhuman museum _To
share not-so mysteries and their would-be decorum. }{ Feasting fools on a
monstrous path _Feasting fools in a soiled bubble bath _Table is set for
tragedy _A misshapen mole in the face of decency. }{ Cybernetic fairies in
loss of power _Crushed by the work-till-death project _Sick as wingless
birds skewered on a numeric stake. }{ Look...the synthetic clown is smiling
_...and the children are starving _Ludicrous pawn of despotic tramplers
_Industrial monsters, jaws ripping the very fabric _of this physical
existence. }{ Elegant jackets, dragon-skin style; mandrake cigars fathering
tiny storms of snobbism, fresh cemetery juice and electro-nerves floating
rubba' things. _High educated horned giants worshipping shallow luxuries
_Boiling with a vain intensity just staring at the cyclic visual feast. }{
Descending to visualization vault XYZ after an exquisite dinner _Holographic
sceneries depicting The All _So many lives... _Frames no more, captured by
digital _Invisible bonds...but still...such nice colors... _Irregular
digitalis begging for guidance in his strayed life _A juggling feat for the
eaters _A struggling beat for the wired. }{ Just standing now in the middle
of a past _Marble still in the dead zone _The cemetery walking over me
_...and I wonder. }{ Are they stones or are they names _Am I stoned or just
ashamed _Just a human with respect in his pockets _Ready to share some with
the face of the worthy _Let the Grim be aware, _I won't be reaped without
guarantees _I like my eggs boiled and that's it. }

This, unlike The Mars Volta, is not words paired together because they sound cool.  I'm fairly sure they wrote it to make heads asplode.

[Beautiful Maladies]

"All night diner" - Modest Mouse (Building nothing out of something)
"I have sex, I'm always thinking about the pavement
So I can avoid premature ejaculation"

Not to be a overly technical asshole, but "All Night Diner" is originally off of Interstate 8.
Building Nothing out of Something was a compilation album.

I reviewed the lyrics of the whole song, and it went along with what was my original intuition from trying to break down the line. I think its talking about people's tendency to avoid the particularly interesting or unique experiences in life, out of an effort to stay safe or avoid risk. He's saying that even when he's having sex, he's not really enjoying it, he's thinking about something ordinary and boring so that he doesn't embarrass himself.

This is just the first impression that I got from it, and as I thought about it further, it held up pretty well. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's impressions.

[Scytale]

Lyric discussion time? There have been times when lyrics have confused me to no end (those times are still happening) so I hope this thread will help me and others with certain lyrics.

I'll start:

"What of this mongrel architect
a broken arm of sewers set
past present and future tense
clipside of the pinkeye fountain"
The Mars Volta - Inertiatic Esp

I know this probably isn't the best song to start with seeing as how NONE of The Mars Volta lyrics are decipherable, but I'm specifically interested in anyones thoughts on what "clipside of the pinkeye fountain" might mean.

I'm a pretty big Mars Volta fan so just ignore all the wanker hipsters. They are a great band.

You can download Cedric's book which explains the story better then the album

Clipside of the pinkeye fountain is a euphemism for being whacked out on heroin. The whole album is set in a world created by Cerpin Taxt (It's an Anagram, first word is Prince forget what the second word is). At the start of the album he OD's and begins to enter a fantasy world. The events occurring are purely in he's head hence he's the creator or "mongrel architect" of whatever is happening. Hence controlling the past, present and future.

Eventually the real  world begins to impinge on he's dream world (which is what the song 'Eriatarka' is about.

Eventually he wakes up and begins to miss the dream world so he commits suicide by jumping off a highway overpass (which happens in 'Televators'). The last song "Take the Veil" is about he's final triumphant return to the "dream" world hence the line "The Gates of Thanatos are spread eagle wide" (Thanatos being the Greek personification of death).

The lyrics are actually quite clever, just very abstractly written, which can make them hard to follow. The events are loosely based on a guy the band knew "Julio Venegas" who OD'd woke from a coma and then committed suicide, obviously the part about the fantasy world is all Cedric's imagination. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerpin_Taxt that explains it much for succinctly then I just did.

[Valrus]

I'm fairly sure they wrote it to make heads asplode.

Well, the formatting certainly practically made my head asplode. And it looks like just as much nonsense as Mars Volta lyrics to me.

[Dimmukane]

That's how it's written in the CD booklet, pretty much.  It's not total nonsense, but I still can't figure out how it fits in.  There's only one song with coherent lyrics, and this one isn't it.  But I see one song referencing another in several tracks, so I'm trying to figure out how it all goes together.

[ScrambledGregs]

If you need to read someone's book to better understand and appreciate their album, with its bullshit wannabe Dada lyrics, then you should not be listening to that band. Here's a song I just wrote, but you have to go read my book 'I Stopped The Sun So The Moon Could Get Off' to understand it:

Pixels, pixels in the grinder maze stream
autochoking bandits eat the LSD
maybe tea timers, maybe concrete cancer

user interface set, non-denominational
erotic hands man the procrastinational

Delaware downs syndrome fuck to click tracks
garbage tundra eating up the vitals
tic tac lost his toe to frostbite closet

user interface set, non-denominational
into wards thrust the erection correctional

butcher butcher beat, trees spark spanking
rape the gully, rap the bully, rage against the deus ex machina
abortional, contortional: get thee to a gunnery


Here's a hint: the song is about this guy I knew who was addicted to World of Warcraft and he got put into a mental institute, ironically only becoming truly insane via the brutality of living in a mental institute. The idea was inspired by that one episode of Futurama where Fry gets put into the robot nut house and when he's released he thinks he's a robot because the conditions were so bad in there. It's an homage, god damnit.

[MadassAlex]

If you need to read someone's book to better understand and appreciate their album, with its bullshit wannabe Dada lyrics, then you should not be listening to that band.

For fuck's sake this is art, not T.V.

[Will]

I was going to just make a snarky comment that contributed nothing beyond possibly pissing someone off, but instead I decided to go on a tangent.

It seems like we get into this roundabout discussion every now and again...so, I will postulate once more, is there anything inherently wrong with liking a band just because you happen to like them?

I like the Mars Volta. I don't think I am making a statement about my perceived "hightened intellectualism," I'm certainly not more-indie-than-thou, I just like their music. It is pleasing to my ear when I hear it, and it is an enjoyable experience that leaves me feeling satisfied and content with my lot in life for the next hour or so. That's all I am asking of the band, and that's all I am getting from them.

Gregs, I'm growing to appreciate and respect your contributions to the music forum - about 95% of the bands you discuss, I couldn't possibly care less about, but I am happy to see someone adding a thoughtful discourse on the music they listen to, rather than mindlessly ape on one liners about how "so and so is pretty awesome." Nonetheless, I'm getting a vibe of outright hostility when it comes to this band. It could just be that I'm misreading your intent, but it seems like you're a few posts short of outright saying "Anyone who listens to the Mars Volta fails at life." To me, this just seems unfair.

I'd like to know why it's acceptable to like certain things "ironically," or why there's a general acceptance of someone like Justin Timberlake because his music is "fun," but the gloves come off when someone says they like TMV? At this point, I guess I'm speaking more in generalizations than about you specifically, but my point remains - is it so wrong to just like what you hear? I'm all for showing someone that 'if you like (A) then you should check out (B),' and it may be a proven fact that (B) is a vastly superiour band, but if someone still likes (A) then what harm comes of it?

Don't take this as a personal attack, please..this is just a string of thoughts I've had while reading this thread.

 

[Valrus]

If you need to read someone's book to better understand and appreciate their album, with its bullshit wannabe Dada lyrics, then you should not be listening to that band.

That's a pretty bold claim, champ.

What if I just like the music? I don't really give much of a shit what TMV's lyrics are supposed to be "about," I just think the songs sound pretty good. For me, the purpose of the lyrics is to convey a mood, and I think that they do that well even if I don't have a clue what the writer intended to say with them. The lyrical content includes a lot of menacing and/or unsettling imagery that I think works well with the disjointedness of the music, even if you totally disregard how much of it may be intended as metaphor. Perhaps I would "better understand and appreciate" their music if I made a serious effort to understand what the fuck the lead singer's on about all the time, but TMV is hardly the only band I could say that about.

Also, you've totally ignored the question in my other post. I'm still curious who you think is comparable to (and better than) TMV. Again, I'm not skeptical that such a thing is possible, not by a long shot. I'm just interested in hearing the stuff that you mentioned earlier on.

[amok]

I think the entire post was meant to be funny, I don't think he was making a judgement of the band or their fans.

Yeah that post cracked me up. A+ would read again.

[jimbunny]

The point has been made before, but if making sense was a necessary criterion for song lyrics, music as we know it would be fucked. Since they do apparently make sense on some level (see above-referenced book), more power to 'em.

[Scytale]

A load of shit

See now your just being a tool, you can dislike the band more power to you, but please stop trolling. I mentioned it before when the last round of TMV bashing was passing through but I think Will summed it up pretty well the double standards some Hipsters display is fucking shocking, it's ok to like stuff like Justin Timberlake and Gwen Steffani, but god help you if you start a post about Marylin Manson or The Mars Volta.

[Dimmukane]

I do like the band...actually, that's their bassist in my avatar.  I just like weird-sounding shit, and they do a fuckton of it.  The nigh-incomprehensible lyrics are just a bonus.  I think they're just trying to make singing along as confusing as possible.  I dare someone to try to cover them, because the way they sing it all out is a mindfuck.

As for The Mars Volta hate, I'm not a huge fan of their music, however, it's definitely better than 'a load of shit'.  But you have to admit, the way they write their lyrics and name their songs is laughably over-thought-out.

[Johnny C]

Man we have one Mars Volta thread a month. How you people manage to find material for these threads from just one album is beyond me.

[fish across face]

See now your just being a tool, you can dislike the band more power to you, but please stop trolling. I mentioned it before when the last round of TMV bashing was passing through but I think Will summed it up pretty well the double standards some Hipsters display is fucking shocking, it's ok to like stuff like Justin Timberlake and Gwen Steffani, but god help you if you start a post about Marylin Manson or The Mars Volta.

Just curious, which users have said it's OK to like stuff like Justin Timberlake and Gwen Stefani but not Marilyn Manson or the Mars Volta?
If someone has said that, in what sense is it a "double standard", rather than just "a set of standards"?
Why did you use the word "hipster"?

[Scytale]

Compare the responses in threads about the various artists, I am of course being subjective here, but The Mars Volta has much more artistic merit then the former of those bands mentioned. For double standards look at Gregs  He was getting all riled up about Khar in the Fugazi thread he started, yet he's come in and has done the same thing. That smacks of double standards and hypocrisy to me.

As for the hipster thing most people that post here seem to wear that term as if its some kind of badge of pride (at least thats the impression that I get) In truth I think it just makes them feel superior for the fact that they can look down there noses at people for liking bands Pitchfork magazine deems to be of inferior quality.

I'm sorry to go on a rant, because 90% of the stuff on this board I really enjoy and I usually find this place to be quite tollerant, its just recently there have been a few incidents that have really irked me and I just needed to vent.

edit: I typed this before Tommy posted, I still think it needs saying.

[KharBevNor]

No hipster calls themselves a hipster, and no hipster can ever express delight to being called a hipster. It's kinda like goth in the 80's, but with different colour jeans.

[MadassAlex]

Tommy don't bring out the fatster pic again. 

[Misereatur]

[Valrus]

So back to the original topic of this thread, has anyone tried to make any sense out of, say, Deerhoof lyrics? They seem to be all about vague impressions rather than well-thought-out ideas. How about MF Doom? Are his raps just a series of non sequiturs, or are all the references he drops tied to some central theme? I can't usually identify more than like ten percent of them in any given song.

[KharBevNor]

The Bloodbells Chime

Sell all You have: give it to the kittens
And pour the milk on Louis' grave
And Catland, Sometimes Called Pussydom
Opens for You instantly-It's the Inmost light!
It's the Inmost Light
Somewhere over the rainbow
On the goodship Lollipop...

Therohthere-
(Goodnight)
The Inmost Light
The Happy children rise all from their pools
Eyes still sealed
(sleeptight)
With mud and night
It's their Inmost Night
(Goodnight)

And yet still I wish I could dream as when young
(Sleeptight)
As She came to me so young and honest
(Goodbye)

(Yet the bloodbells chime:
I do not notice them I shall not notice them
Yet the bloodbells chime)

Tommy Katkins still send his regards,
frozen for ever on some animal Somme.
The last thing on his mind is marriage,
But the call of Home and Heart

Yet the bloobells chime
Yet the bloobells chime
Yet the bloobells chime

Most C93 songs I understand. Its heavy going, but I can catch just enough of the obscure theological and occult references to get it (Anyone who hasn't read the Thunder: Perfect Mind, The Book of the Law and the Apocrypha might be a bit stymied), not to mention having read sundry details from interviews etc. that shed light. The full meaning of this song still eludes me though. The imagery is incredible, however.

[amok]

Oh come now. Deerhoof's lyrics make perfect sense-

If I were a man and you a dog
If I were man and you a dog
I'd throw a stick for you

The singer guy beats his children. He thinks they are all dogs and throws sticks at them.

Next!

[Jackie Blue]

The Mars Volta are not indie. The Mars Volta is the kind of band that people who desperately want to be indie and/or music nerds listen to because they don't know any better.

OK, now this kind of thing gives us reasonable music nerds a bad name.  Don't be that guy, Gregs.

[ScrambledGregs]

I think most of the bases have been covered by other people, except that I find Mars Volta and Justin Timberlake equally wretched. It's like choosing between somebody sticking a fork in my eye or up my ass. I guess I would have to choose the ass, but it still isn't a preferred outcome.

Did I fly off the handle and say some over the top things?? Yes, but it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. I just don't like Mars Volta, and I find the idea of trying to make sense out of their lyrics by reading a book patently ridiculous. It's not like I genuinely think nobody should like or listen to the Mars Volta. Hell, when their first album came out, I was a big fan of it and At The Drive-In. I want to say I've 'grown' out of it, but that will start all kinds of more arguments, so I'll just say that I don't like them anymore.

Per what bands I think do what Mars Volta does better, it's more that they basically try to cram prog rock, latin music, jam bands, kraut rock, and post-hardcore into one band. To be sure, there aren't any bands who do exactly what they do and do it better. On paper that sounds amazing, but I've never found the results to be worthwhile. I'd much rather listen to a band who does one of those things really well than one who does them all below averagely.

[negative creep]

i think this thread is over.

[Jackie Blue]

Thread was over when Gregs pulled the "I used to like Mars Volta, but now I know better" card.

Ugh.

[KharBevNor]

Don't worry guys, you'll grow out of liking shit like fugazi when you become real men.

[RefD]

He also does a remarkable impression of a tiny asian woman!

Satomi!

HURRR!!

[ScrambledGregs]

Don't worry guys, you'll grow out of liking shit like fugazi when you become real men.

I don't wanna grow up, cuz if I did, I wouldn't be a straight edge kid.