What the hell are “clouds in my coffee”?
WAG; “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee”
Her mind wandered to higher soaring dreams while she did mundane things like drink her morning coffee??
<<Can you tell me what the meaning of the phrase “clouds in my coffee” has in the context of your song “You’re So Vain”? I can’t quite pin down the metaphor. What are the “clouds” in your coffee? Samantha - Dearborn, MI
“Clouds in my coffee” are the confusing aspects of life and love. That which you can’t see through, and yet seems alluring…until. Like a mirage that turns into a dry patch. Perhaps there is something in the bottom of the coffee cup that you could read if you could (like tea leaves or coffee grinds). Carly Simon 5/17/01>>
I used to be confused about this until I “figured out” it was “properties of love”. Yup, that’s it. Mystery solved. All the poor souls that have been perplexed by this no-nonsense phrase should have just asked me :rolleyes:
Seriously, I thought no way could it be “pompitous” (even though that’s *exactly * how it sounds) so I had to assign a real word to it. “Properties” even makes sense. Imagine my deflated I was when I saw Cecil’s column on it several years later.
- ** WOOKINPANUB**, who likes to make shit up.
This one has made me chuckle every time I’ve heard it since I was a kid:
It Stoned Me, by Van Morrison
And it stoned me, to my soul
Stoned me like a jelly roll
It just makes me laugh, to picture a stoic guy like him writing such a goofy-sounding lyric. Although, maybe he’s saying “it stoned me. [oh, by the way-] I’d like a jelly roll.” Which, considering the way he looks these days, wouldn’t surprise me.
Frankly, I think “Drops of Jupiter” by Train is one of the worst songs ever written, AND it’s pretty much entirely nonsensical. The part that drives me craziest:
Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always stickin’ up for you
even when I know you’re wrong
That’s right, Train, “chicken” and “stickin’” rhyme. Ass-hats.
I’m fully appreciative of songs like Beck’s “Loser” that are nonsensical on purpose, but I honestly think Train thought they were being really deep with this song. I’d like to roundhouse kick them all to the face.
My take on “I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee” was that the woman in the song had illusions about the relationship that were shattered in the clear light of the morning. In other words, she discovered the answer to the cliche question “Will you still love me (respect me) in the morning?” was “no.”
Basically, the same as the mirage that turns into a dry patch, only a little less cryptic.
I think Mr. Morrison was referring to Jelly Roll Morton, a pioneering New Orleans jazz piano player whose music could very well have put him in a stoned-like state.
“Jelly roll” is a common blues expression that pops up in a number of Van Morrison songs. The most delicate way to translate it would be “sweet lovin’.” (More often in blues songs, it’s used as a synonym for “pussy,” either in the anatomical sense, or as a substitute for “sex,” as in “jelly roll ain’t hard to find.”)
Of course, given Van the Man’s physique, he may after all be referring to his craving for real jelly rolls…
I like that phrase, because of the combination of the sacred and the mundane, and good deep-fried chicken is right up there in the pantheon.
This is probably another one of those things I was way off base on but I thought the “clouds in my coffee” image was used because of either the cloud-like wisps of steam that rise out of a newly poured cup or to the cloud-like shape cream makes when you first add to your coffee. In both cases, the “cloud” quickly dissipates into nothing much like when one’s illusions are shattered by reality.
To make it on the radio, they cleaned up the old phrase, “she’s built like a brick shit house.” Lemme 'splain. Outhouses are temporary things; you dig a hole, and you put a little room over it. When the hole is full, you either build a new one, or move the old one over a new hole. You can’t move a brick one, so you’ve built a very sturdy thing that’s useless after a few years. It is built better than it has to be. So, a woman who is outrageously shapely, is built better than she has to be, so she’s built like a brick shithouse. 
Anybody know what the hell this means? (from “bang a Gong”
-…“well, you’ are built like a car, you got a hub cap diamond star haloe…(unintelligible) you dirty frikin are my girl…get it on, bang a gong…”?? :eek:
I was going to post the definition of “Jelly Roll” from urbandictionary.com, but some of the alternate BS definitions are just too disgusting. I can’t bring myself to do so. However, the first two definitions on the page agree with this. It’s “female genitalia” or, more abstractly, “sex.”
Now why “it” (and what exactly is “it” for Mr Morrison? The water?) would stone him like pussy, I know not.
The one that springs to mind now only because I just had the displeasure of hearing it is No Doubt’s You Really Love Me (or is that a Gwen Stefani solo?). Anyway, the line “You give me the most georgeous sleep that I’ve ever had” is as cryptic as it is stupid and irritating. Certainly anything Mr. Rossdale gives her would be gorgeous by association, but how does he give her sleep and what’s so gorgeous about it? Man oh man do I hate this song, mostly because of that Jamaican bitch’s litte rap or whatever you call it. I usually to like the sound of Jamaican accents but for some reason she makes my blood boil.
Well, you’re built like a car
You got a hubcap diamond star halo
You’re built like a car, oh yeah
Well, you’re an untamed youth
That’s the truth, with your cloak full of eagles
You’re dirty, sweet and you’re my girl
OK, yeah. It’s a Madonna-whore thing. She’s built like a car=she’s got junk in her trunk, a nice back-end. At the same time, she has an innocent ethereal beauty, with a glow like a halo of stars.
The cloak full of eagles I can’t help you with. Or this part:
Well, you’re slim and you’re weak
You got the teeth of the hydra upon you
Just a guess: good sex results in good sleep. That metaphor is often used in movies/tv so I’m assuming that is the point here as well.
You’re probably right. I guess I kind of figured that might be it, but it’s such a stupid way to phrase it. Gorgeous just does not fit here.
Thanks for the link. I was always confused by KT Tunstall’s Black Horse and the Cherry Tree.
I always felt kind of sad for that poor horse she didn’t want to marry, and I hoped he found someone else who would really love him. I didn’t want him to get stuck with that old grey mare. Then I found the interview referenced in one of the comments and decided I was taking it a bit too literally. It’s more of a piece of imagery inspired by a black horse she saw in Greece. Oh well.
I will always have my image of the cute talking horse proposing to her 
.
Did you know that a whiffletree is not a type of tree?
We examined that phrase in a thread years ago, which is how I discovered that Carly Simon got the imagery when she was flying in an airplane and had just been served coffee. She looked into the cup and saw clouds reflected in the surface of the coffee from out the window. She used it as an image of evanescent illusion… like love sometimes… as insubstantial as clouds are, what could be more insubstantial than the mere reflection of clouds in a liquid that’s about to be consumed?