24 replies to this topic

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

Hey Patches, I didn"t quite get your last point. But I would be happy if you could explain a little further.

To come back to the initial point for a second: The only other example I know of where the lyrics change drastcially by means of the way they are not quite understood and thus lead to different and contradictory interpretations is not a song by John Frusciante. It is one of my all time favorite pieces of music: "The Turn of a friendly card (Part 1)" by Alan Parsons Project.

The Corus goes like this:

"But the game never ends
When your whole world depends
On the turn of a friendly card"

But when I listen closely I cannot help but unterstand defends instead of depends sometimes. It might be just me, hearing more then there is. Nevertheless, the "new" word could give the whole chorus another and contradictory meaning:

"But the game never ends
When your whole world defends
On the turn of a friendly card"

[Automatic Writing]

patches, on 19 February 2012 - 07:19 PM, said:

the main lyric i think of about the writings not staying there was this!
when your leader's gone?
he means to make you strong,
he never went away!
(what you need you are)

leader can be a confusing word but i guess, think of it as meaning elder or friend or helper or teacher.

I actually brought this lyric up in a presentation for a class on leadership and business.
A leader doesn't make people better than they are, someone is only going to be able to do what it is they're going to do. What a leader does is place people in positions to be able to perform to their highest capabilities.
The leader never made the person what they are, they simply were in instrument of that person's discovery. Even when the leader's gone, whatever they brought out of the follower/worker is still present, it was within them the whole time, i.e. "what you need you are."

I haven't joined this discussion yet but I've been loving the insights. With our unique personal experiences and makeups, we're obviously going to tailor or apply lyrics to what we know, and I think that's something all of you understand. Nonetheless, I think there's a lot of wisdom to be derived from his lyrics, whether universal or personal.

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

I found an interesting quote. Weird, but interesting. It`s fairly old (1994). Nonetheless relevant to the topic. It shows quite an "open-minded" attitude towards contradictions which - to such a degree - seems to be less than seldom in the western world:

"Did you ever just try to disappear, actually be in another universe, when you shut your eyes?... But there's fun places you can be in the midst of all that too... Like you don't have to totally turn off your brain... Like ah... I used to do things... on stage like things to trick myself... contradict myself... like I'll tell myself I'm gonna start this solo on this fret on this note... and then right when it gets to the last second... I'm not allowed to go to that fret... and I have to start somewhere else... or I'll tell the audience that this song is dedicated to the baby born right now... right when I say it... but then when it gets to the solo... I think about the first baby born right when it gets to that solo... so the audience thinks they're thinking about the same baby as me but we're really thinking about two different babies... that kinda thing."

Why do you think someone would want to do that?

As is obvious from the quote above, the contradictory for John is (or was) not only a matter of poetic expression. But something more...

[Fenix]

Maya____and the Cosmic Dance, on 14 March 2012 - 10:46 AM, said:

Why do you think someone would want to do that?

Because they are a genius .

Actually that is really interesting. I sometimes do something similar as well, like plan a whole chain of events and then go with the plan right until the last step and suddenly don't do it. It's a way to stimulate your creativity and will at the same time I think.

[Maya____and the Cosmic Dance]

Hey, Ricky is not the only example. Here is another (possible) one. Whenever I listen to "God" my ears are playing a strange trick on me. When it comes to the second line I understand simultaneously "dying" and "time". Seeing them written, they seem to be very different words. But the way John sings it/them, dying and time seem to be interchangeable. Both terms suite the context, but are somewhat opposed to each other:

"So each day would be new I build you to sleep
That’s the idea of dying/time but you’ll just have to see"