We all have a particular song that baffles us. Confuses us. Makes us wake up despairing in the night with the sort of existential ennui that is only too prevalent in arty French films.
I’ve got a couple; anyone else care to share? (NB: I’ve got tons of pop-up blockers, so I’m praying the links below are reasonably pop-up free. If not, I heartily apologize.)
Kanye West’s “Through the Wire”, which is a moving song about West’s serious car accident that caused him to have his jaw wired shut. As a matter of fact, at the time the song was actually recorded, his jaw was still wired shut. The song is worth hearing just for the opening lines:
However, what I find really problematic are the following lines:
Um. What? I don’t understand. At all. Are Jamaicans particularly prone to blood clots? Is “Jamaican, man” used simply because it’s a fair-to-middling rhyme for “make a band”? I’m so confused!
Rufus Wainwright’s “Greek Song”, which, incidentally, is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. Don’t you just wish someone would tell you, “Your body heals my soul?”
I don’t know…I don’t get it, though. The opening lines are obviously a conversation between RW and a fellow during a Greek holiday. RW is being seductive (“you who were born with the sun above your shoulders”) and the fellow is being bisexual and aloof (“you turn me on, you turn me on, but so does she”). Then we get to
at which point we no longer intrude upon the privacy of these nice young fellows, and Rufus belts out the immortal lines,
I confess myself baffled. Any reasonable explanations?
This is a HUGE reach, but “claat” or “rass claat” is an insult in Jamaican patois. That’s my best guess. It’s pronounced the same way we’d pronounce “clot” in American English.
I’ve seen a bunch of dopers have made excellent and hilarious posts about the meaning of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl,” which is either obscure or nonexistent.
Ditto Neil Diamond’s “I am I Said,” which features the immortal lyric
It’s a play on words. The word "bloodclot " is a Jamaican curse word. The word clot in Jamaican patois is similar to fuck in English. You may hear variations of this such a “bumba clot” or “rass clot”. The definition of clot is as follows:
Boost and Ensure are liquid diet supplements. Weight lifters drink them and they’re a popular jailhouse commodity. Sizzurp is probably syrup.
Blood clot is a Rastafarian insult. Supposedly black people are the real people God created and white people grew out of some blood clots that God threw out.
I read an interview where Neil was asked what that meant. He basically said: “Good question, man. I know I must have had something in mind there, but I’m damned if I know what it was. That’s why I stopped doing the song live, I didn’t know what I was saying.”
Of course, this is one of the most misheard lyrics ever (and commonly assumed to be about feminine hygiene).
Imagine yourself in a cheesy James Dean era “racing for pinks” movie (or American Graffiti). The young hoodlums with not much going for them in life are only into working on and racing their cars, which certainly include Deuce Coupes. Imagine one of these cars, the song’s “deuce”, is barreling down toward you, cut loose, revved up, and its headlights certainly blinding the holy heck out of you. I think that’s the intended image. The disenchanted youth of the song and their tricked out cars.
Sinead Lohan’s “People and Tables”, most of it I can make out, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what kind of guy she’s waiting for:
…
oh for a man with no lock on his gate
…
oh for a man with no back to his chair
…
oh for a man with no stories to tell
What kind of man has lockless gates, backless chairs and is really boring?
This is just a guess, but the line about “save the poison for a lover on your side” might possibly be a reference to the mythological Greek character Herakles (latin name = Hercules) who was commonly known to ancient Hellenics to be bisexual. Herakles’s wife was tricked into killing when a jealous centaur told her to sew him a tunic and preparing with a magical tonic that actually turned out to be acidic poison.
I don’t know about the backless chair but I’ve always believed that the lockless gate was a metaphor for a man with no defense mechanisms from prior relationships. The part about stories to tell means, I think, that she’s looking for a man that won’t tell her lies.
I’ve always been mystified by ‘The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight’. I’ve come up with my own interpretation that’s nothing like any of the SongMeanings proffered explanations of the song.
