Lately, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time reading up on song meanings at this one website. Most of the posts are by illiterate idiots nattering on about how much they love or hate various artists and songs, but some of them are actually researched and intelligent. And it saves me from having to look up info on the songwriter's love life/regional slang/political leanings. There's little to no way of knowing if what's on there is what the songwriter actually meant, but it's interesting to find out what other people are getting out of the lyrics.
I love looking up lyrics; I tend to do it for most songs that I fall for. I don't often get into the life stories of artists. It's kind of fun to find out that such and such song was written after so and so's horrendous break-up with whatshisface, but I treat it like it's movie trivia (which I'm also a big fan of. I read the trivia page of every movie I look up on the Internet Movie Database). Neat to know, but not a deal breaker when it comes to enjoying it.
Perhaps it was my encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars that ruined me for other obsessions. The New Jedi Order books sucked harder than the prequels, and those two in combination killed my blissfully nerdy childhood. Here's a good one for you: when the Phantom Menace was coming out, my local Chapter's had a trivia contest for a hardcover copy of the novelization. Three contestants showed up: two weedy ten year-old Asian boys and me, sixteen and broad-shouldered from being the butterflier on my high school swim team. I KICKED THEIR ASSES! Is it sad that I'm still kinda proud of that? I think they gave all three of us copies of the book, but we all know who the winner was.
But the new additions to the series just killed it all. The authors were pretty much fighting each other (I come squarely down on the side of Timothy Zahn, if you're wondering) and refusing to accept other work as part of the canon. It was already going downhill before Han and Leia's kids started having ridiculous adventures, but that was the final straw. And I, proud owner of various guides to the Star Wars universe, was left bitter and disillusioned.
Anyway, the point of all this rambling WAS that song meanings = fun, but I think could have lived without someone explaining that Chelsea Dagger is a tranny hooker (The Fratellis... you already love them, you just don't know it yet. Go download Flathead and tell me I'm wrong). Man, I shouldn't write things when I know I can't possibly be coherent. I still love the song, I just think I liked my version better. Not that it made much sense, when I think about it. Tranny hookers it is.
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2 comments:
You'd be surprised how many songs are about trannys. For instance, there's "Walk on the Wild Side" by Lou Reed, "Lola" by the Kinks, and "Transvestite" by Blink 182.
Well, that last one might not be so surprising, in retrospect.
I was pretty surprised when you posted all that stuff about "Turning Japanese." Turns out I'm not very quick on the uptake. As for all the tranny related songs, I smell a mixed cd. PROJECT!
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