Favorite Lyrics

[Maniakkid25]

The song is very definitely about America, specifically the Second Gulf War (the Bush Jr. lead invasion that toppled Saddam). The name of it literally stands for "Bring Your Own Bombs". The band has been well-known to be critical of America and its decisions both foreign and domestic. "Spiders" is about how the government and media controls our thoughts, "Prison Song" is about mass incarceration and the CIA, and it does NOT take a lot of digging to find this out. It would probably be easier to list which of their songs AREN'T protest songs.

[Moonface]

Huh. I knew their stuff was generally protesting things but never cared enough to look into it to know it read about what America does rather than what their home country does.

Had this song play the other day and remembered how much I like this silly lyric:

I like songs with distortion
To drink in proportion
The doctor said my mom should've had an abortion

[Maniakkid25]

I'm actually a big fan of the opening line of that particular song, myself.

Stormin' through the party like my name was El Niño
When I'm hangin' out drinkin' in the back of an El Camino

Been listening to Money Store (the album by Death Grips), and goddamn does MC Ride have some lines! The problem is a lot of them are graphic and explicit, and I'm not talking about the swears. Swearing in a Death Grips song is like blood in a Mortal Kombat game: after a while, you barely even notice. See, a lot of his lyrics revolve around paranoia, drug use, violent and sexual imagery, mental illness, self-injury and all the good makings of a moral watchdog panic. So, with great trepidation, and CWs, some of my favorite lines from that album include:

My existence is a momentary lapse of reason
Got the DNA of gothic lemons
Shred it thirteen times out of eleven
Your bad ideas are the ATM, shed my skin
Leave it for the homeless to sleep in
Prodigal, fuck that, nautical
Teachin' bitches how to swim

Guerilla bass, straight from the trenches
Posers impaled on picket fences
How to rest your head in roach-infested basements and smoke punk weight for breakfast

Everybody's knowin'
Where ya think you're goin', ain't goin' nowhere
Satellite, handle that
With a lead pipe

Get Got -- Death Grips (CW: Self-harm)

Get-get-get-get, got-got-got-got
Blood rush to my head lit hot lock
Poppin' off the fuckin' block knot
Clockin' wrist slit watch bent thought bot
(I highlight this chorus because he's doing the entire thing in straight 8th notes at 170 BPM. Goddamn!)

The Fever (Aye Aye) -- Death Grips (CW:suicide imagery)

Let me off, screeching halt, concussion blinding, not my fault
Ankles tied to cinder blocks, ayy, ayy
By any means necesserated, blade cut me, sewer drain grated
Bubonic plague spreaded faceless, lurking in the deadest spaces
On your knees, black goat anus, christo anti-clan of shameless
Came to whip those into shapeless, here we go, devastated

Forged in the flames, said it before and I'll say it again
Quazar game maximum vacuum rotation spin s-s-s

Run up bitch to the death get gripped, my steeze is ballin' out
Of control; what you know 'bout bubblin'
Hustle bones comin' out my mouth

All those lines out in the open don't do MC Ride justice, though. The best part about him is his delivery. When he says something, you don't just hear it; you FEEL it. To explain his delivery correctly, I think Hacker puts it best:

Grab your fucking chain and drag you through the bike lane
While everybody's like (Nooooo!)

...I will never not look for a reason to quote that song.

[Moonface]

I'm actually a big fan of the opening line of that particular song, myself.

Stormin' through the party like my name was El Niño
When I'm hangin' out drinkin' in the back of an El Camino

I have zero clue who or what any of this is referencing to really get any deeper meaning behind it other than it just sounded good/punky for an opening set of lines. XD

[Maniakkid25]

El Niño refers to a global weather pattern caused by a cycle of warm and cold water in the Pacific. It's frequently associated with increased thunderstorm strength and frequency, hence the line. An El Camino is a vehicle made by Chevrolet, which has an open trunk much like a Pick-up Truck, but is otherwise a normal car. This particular vehicle is often associated with "white trash" people, especially if you're drinking alcohol in the back of it. It's a great set-up to the kind of person Sum 41 is illustrating with the song.

So, a while back, I mentioned in the "song you're listening to" thread that a cover of Bloc Party's "Luno" has a lyric change in it. The original lyric is this:

And you're tired of your mum and you're tired of your dad
Got you jumping through hoops, got you shaving your legs
Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass over you
And you're tired of your face and you're tired of your nose
Got you jumping through hoops, got you shaving your legs
Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass through you

And the Death From Above 1979 cover changes it to this (I've bolded the lyric changed):

And you're tired of your mum and you're tired of your dad
Got you jumping through hoops, got you shaving your legs
Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass over you
And you're tired of your face and you're tired of your nose
Got you jumping through hoops, got you changing your clothes
Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass through you

This line flows so much better with that lyric change. I've always found the repeat of the "shaving your legs" was stilted and awkward in the original, like Kele couldn't think of another lyric, so he just used it again.

This ends up balancing out, however, because the cover also changes the last verse for the worse. The original is this:

I can heal the blind, I can cure the sick
I can heal the blind, I can cure the sick
I can say the right things, I can say the right things

And the cover removes the "I can cure the sick" line, opting to repeat "I can heal the blind" as a call-and-response lyric. Which works for the second half of that verse (Where it repeats "When did you get so cruel?"), but given the over Jesus reference in the original lyric, it kind of needs that second half! *shrug* So yeah, a perfect cover of this song would use the DOA1979 first verse, but the Bloc Party final verse.

[Moonface]

El Niño refers to a global weather pattern caused by a cycle of warm and cold water in the Pacific. It's frequently associated with increased thunderstorm strength and frequency, hence the line. An El Camino is a vehicle made by Chevrolet, which has an open trunk much like a Pick-up Truck, but is otherwise a normal car. This particular vehicle is often associated with "white trash" people, especially if you're drinking alcohol in the back of it. It's a great set-up to the kind of person Sum 41 is illustrating with the song.

Ah. I knew an El Camino was a car but had no idea what type of car or what it was associated with at all. I had a vague idea the song was about some punk teenager or young adult who acts like a bit of a dick or is just a trainwreck of a person but understanding the opening better from your explanation makes me no longer view those opening lyrics as just something that sounded cool in a punky rock song a rebellious teenager would probably vibe with back when the song originally came out. XD


Also, these lyrics just became a favorite of mine because I never knew until right now this verse actually mentions ADD. I'd just seen it quoted in a post on Reddit in a thread about ADHD and thought someone had taken the original lyrics and edited them to make it about ADD, so I looked up the lyrics to see what they were supposed to say and learned that what I read was actually the real lyrics and not an edit.

I took her out, it was a Friday night
I wore cologne to get the feeling right
We started making out
And she took off my pants
But then I turned on the TV
And that's about the time she walked away from me
Nobody likes you when you're 23
And are still more amused by TV shows
What the hell is ADD?
My friends say I should act my age

[Maniakkid25]

Another set of lyrics I seriously like comes from a song that's basically impossible to listen to legally. It's a song called "Anytime" by Eve 6, and you will quickly find that it's not on any of their albums. This is because it's an exclusive song for the movie Out Cold, and can only be found on that soundtrack. And before you ask, no, it's not available on Spotify. Anyway, enough complaining, here are the lyrics.

There's a place where I go to take the edge off the day
When the radio's up, your face fades away
Flicker, flicker, dim and fade to black

With a backpack packed and a mark on the map
Gonna drive too fast, gonna not look back
Light the night with a blow torch and a match

This song is actually a good choice for the movie. I've actually watched it (it's...fine. That's really all you can say about it), and one of the major plot threads is the main character is still smitten with a girl he met on vacation. This same character is out snowboarding when the song is playing in the film, so it shows his mental state without hammering it in (yet; that comes later).

[Moonface]

I've never listened to the original song but know of this from a streamer who sometimes performs it on stream and they were just singing it right now, so decided to look up if they were singing a real song and turns out they are: Talk to Me - Stephen Lynch

I was almost tempted to put this in the silly songs thread instead but chose here because I just really like the lyrics. XD