Yeah, it's bizarre how people can manage to miss the point so thoroughly. Never has there been a more concise, straightforward song about emotional abuse, and yet—
I'm pretty sure you could make a song or show or book called "this is abuse and not a relationship model" and people would still without irony compare themselves to the couple
I can understand why people don't know that Walk The Dinosaur is about nuclear armageddon or that Aqualung is about a slowly dying pedophilic bum, but The One I Love does not have a whole lot of lines, and the lines it has are not obtuse.
Like I never paid attention to the lyrics too much but my takeaway certainly wasn't "this is a song about a healthy loving relationship."
Reminds me of all those Actually These Happy Sounding Songs Are About Sad Things articles. I mean, you get songs like Hey Ya whose meaning gets lost in early 2000s cultural soup, but who the fuck listens to Pumped Up Kicks and thinks "this is a happy sounding song about happy things?"
I mean, it's catchy and in a major key with mellow, vaguely retro production, so I guess that makes it happier than most modern hits? It's not particularly up-tempo but it's not exactly dour either.
I actually rather like "Pumped Up Kicks", for the record, for all of those reasons.
I mean, it's catchy and in a major key with mellow, vaguely retro production, so I guess that makes it happier than most modern hits? It's not particularly up-tempo but it's not exactly dour either.
I actually rather like "Pumped Up Kicks", for the record, for all of those reasons.
Theory: Mellow songs are more effective when they're about dark or heavy subjects.
I mean, it's catchy and in a major key with mellow, vaguely retro production, so I guess that makes it happier than most modern hits? It's not particularly up-tempo but it's not exactly dour either.
I actually rather like "Pumped Up Kicks", for the record, for all of those reasons.
Theory: Mellow songs are more effective when they're about dark or heavy subjects.
I'm pretty sure you could make a song or show or book called "this is abuse and not a relationship model" and people would still without irony compare themselves to the couple
i mean, people do it, as mentioned, with romeo and juliet
I mean, it's catchy and in a major key with mellow, vaguely retro production, so I guess that makes it happier than most modern hits? It's not particularly up-tempo but it's not exactly dour either.
I actually rather like "Pumped Up Kicks", for the record, for all of those reasons.
Theory: Mellow songs are more effective when they're about dark or heavy subjects.
I listened to After Laughter last night and wanted to cut myself by the end of it so you may be on to something here.
Like I never paid attention to the lyrics too much but my takeaway certainly wasn't "this is a song about a healthy loving relationship."
Reminds me of all those Actually These Happy Sounding Songs Are About Sad Things articles. I mean, you get songs like Hey Ya whose meaning gets lost in early 2000s cultural soup, but who the fuck listens to Pumped Up Kicks and thinks "this is a happy sounding song about happy things?"
My mom thought it was about cool new shoes, and posted it on facebook to celebrate the beginning of the school year one year, back when she was a teacher's aid.
Yeah, it's bizarre how people can manage to miss the point so thoroughly. Never has there been a more concise, straightforward song about emotional abuse, and yet—
see, this interpretation never quite seemed right to me
Yeah, it's bizarre how people can manage to miss the point so thoroughly. Never has there been a more concise, straightforward song about emotional abuse, and yet—
see, this interpretation never quite seemed right to me
I mean, Michael Stipe has been very forward about what kind of person he was describing in the lyrics and how he felt deeply disturbed by the idea that that kind of person might identify with it in a positive way.
Comments
I can understand why people don't know that Walk The Dinosaur is about nuclear armageddon or that Aqualung is about a slowly dying pedophilic bum, but The One I Love does not have a whole lot of lines, and the lines it has are not obtuse.
Like I never paid attention to the lyrics too much but my takeaway certainly wasn't "this is a song about a healthy loving relationship."
Reminds me of all those Actually These Happy Sounding Songs Are About Sad Things articles. I mean, you get songs like Hey Ya whose meaning gets lost in early 2000s cultural soup, but who the fuck listens to Pumped Up Kicks and thinks "this is a happy sounding song about happy things?"
I actually rather like "Pumped Up Kicks", for the record, for all of those reasons.
"This one goes out to the one I love..." must be a super-romantic love song!
Case in point.
(I had to.)
I'll have to talk to Edlyn about that. :v
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
to me it seemed kinda
y'know, when you just
run out of emotions
and doing people things, even with people you ostensibly care deeply about, is just automatic maintenance
wow, I've been listening to that song for... almost literally my entire life