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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2019 6:29:07 GMT -5
Let’s get some lyrical interpretations to fill out Genius
You Did Good, Kid
Title seems to come from a viral piece of fan art of Spider-Man leading Stan Lee into heaven, which fits the New York themes
“When your low serotonin's got you brittle and glitchy” - this is what happens when you forget to take your antidepressants, especially SSRIs like Effexor or Lexapro. The official name is ‘antidepressant withdrawal syndrome’, but sufferers often call it brain zaps (which is what I called my band & it’s signature song), cranial zings, or we literally say it’s ‘glitching out’. This lyric hit me like a punch
Epaulets:
I looked up ‘ocelot coat’ and none of the coats looked anything like the one in the song. But when I looked up the Metal Gear Solid character Revolver Ocelot for the meme, most of his outfits are long dictator chic coats with epaulets like the song. If this sounds far-fetched and absurd, remember that Franz has been in multiple steampunk bands & Craig is friends with uber-nerd John Darnielle, who peppers his songs with videogame references....
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Post by Emily Harris on Aug 23, 2019 13:00:18 GMT -5
Let’s get some lyrical interpretations to fill out Genius “When your low serotonin's got you brittle and glitchy” - this is what happens when you forget to take your antidepressants, especially SSRIs like Effexor or Lexapro. The official name is ‘antidepressant withdrawal syndrome’, but sufferers often call it brain zaps (which is what I called my band & it’s signature song), cranial zings, or we literally say it’s ‘glitching out’. This lyric hit me like a punch Huh, I was just thinking about the brain zaps today. Solid catch. |
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Post by andconick on Aug 23, 2019 16:04:42 GMT -5
Let’s get some lyrical interpretations to fill out Genius Epaulets: I looked up ‘ocelot coat’ and none of the coats looked anything like the one in the song. But when I looked up the Metal Gear Solid character Revolver Ocelot for the meme, most of his outfits are long dictator chic coats with epaulets like the song. If this sounds far-fetched and absurd, remember that Franz has been in multiple steampunk bands & Craig is friends with uber-nerd John Darnielle, who peppers his songs with videogame references.... The lyrics have Ocelot capitalized, which you wouldn't do if it was just a coat made of ocelot fur, so you might be on to something here. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2019 20:31:22 GMT -5
According to Reddit, someone asked him about it, and he said he’d never heard of MGS. Weird.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Aug 25, 2019 9:24:07 GMT -5
The lyrics have Ocelot capitalized, which you wouldn't do if it was just a coat made of ocelot fur, so you might be on to something here. Good point, which got me looking. I think the answer is that it's a reference to an actual designer coat by Coach, named the "Ocelot Leopard Short Trench Coat." Not sure how you say "make and model" when you're talking about clothes (just found this by googling) but that would explain why it's capitalized. Here's a pic:  Epaulet shoulders: check; makes her look just like a general: check ... |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 2, 2019 4:13:59 GMT -5
Clicks And Hisses have operated with band verified lyrics in the past, and in their text "ocelot" is written without capital O. I still haven't got my physical copy. Is there a lyric sheet? If so, does it state "call the guy, and meet him on Manhattan" or "call the guy, you need a Long Manhattan"? I read the latter in the Google Music lyric, and though it sounds like a strange phrase, it's really hard to tell from the recorded version what he actually says.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Sept 2, 2019 7:26:45 GMT -5
There is a lyric sheet and it's capital-O Ocelot. (I hadn't noticed it either, which is why andconick's note got my attention.) It also has "Call the guy and meet him on Manhattan." Which seems likely to refer to the street in Greenpoint?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2019 22:21:47 GMT -5
Update: apparently someone asked Craig about my Metal Gear joke & he said he doesn’t play videogames so that’s not it
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Post by eyepatchgary on Oct 11, 2019 5:53:21 GMT -5
Let’s get some lyrical interpretations to fill out Genius “When your low serotonin's got you brittle and glitchy” - this is what happens when you forget to take your antidepressants, especially SSRIs like Effexor or Lexapro. The official name is ‘antidepressant withdrawal syndrome’, but sufferers often call it brain zaps (which is what I called my band & it’s signature song), cranial zings, or we literally say it’s ‘glitching out’. This lyric hit me like a punch Huh, I was just thinking about the brain zaps today. Solid catch. Glitchy is a great description of that effect. For me, it's the sound your eyes make when you flick them quickly from side to side. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2019 17:31:51 GMT -5
Like Craig, I also wrote a song about it
I just yelled the words ‘brain zaps! Cranial sings and stranger things!’ (Not a tv shoe reference) in the world’s dumbest punk band.
His is way better
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Post by orzelc on May 31, 2020 18:44:18 GMT -5
My immediate impression of "You Did Good, Kid" was that it's a song about a guy who's turned informant (possibly to protect his house on Sycamore St.). He's wearing a wire to a drug buy (strapped into a harness by "wolves," "they made a movie starring you," etc.), which is why it's all nervous and tense (hyped-up, jokes not landing, etc.), and the title is what the cops tell him afterwards.
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Post by kayfaberaven on Jun 1, 2020 11:25:19 GMT -5
If you're trying to draw connections between songs, is "The General" in Blackout Sam the girl with the coat in Epaulets ("And her jacket makes her look just like a general")?
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 2, 2020 5:52:27 GMT -5
My immediate impression of "You Did Good, Kid" was that it's a song about a guy who's turned informant (possibly to protect his house on Sycamore St.). He's wearing a wire to a drug buy (strapped into a harness by "wolves," "they made a movie starring you," etc.), which is why it's all nervous and tense (hyped-up, jokes not landing, etc.), and the title is what the cops tell him afterwards. That's an interesting take. And there's plenty of references to wearing a wire in older Craig lyrics as well. From Southtown Girls ("This two-sided tape gets way to sticky") to Lifter Puller ("Those guys got me wired", "got a tape deck/ it's not the regular kind"). And you could even read "the news came through the wire" part of T-Shirt Tux into that. |
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Post by kayfaberaven on Jun 18, 2020 10:27:21 GMT -5
*The lines in DH that it wasn't a date, not sure what to call it are perhaps the FUNNIEST lines in THS canon. Though I'm sure everyone's got their candidates. My vote for funniest lines is always: "She said you remind me of Rod Stewart when he was young/You've got passion, you think that you're sexy/And all the punks think that you're dumb." |
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Post by kayfaberaven on Jun 19, 2020 12:09:48 GMT -5
One example of why Craig is such a genius is the almost throwaway lines in Star 18, that I keep reconsidering and re-interpreting:
"And she was chewing through her cheek at the National Zoo / And the dress she was wearing made a nice case for natural selection"
As indicated on genius.com, "tooth grinding is what the amphetamines do" (i.e. a reference to the preceding line of the song). But is the National Zoo actually the National Zoo in Washington, or is it a name for a club or party place? So, two potential meanings there.
Assuming she is actually at the National Zoo, then I can think of so many different readings of "And the dress she was wearing made a nice case for natural selection":
1. In my mind, the dress is an animal print of a species near the top of the food chain (say, leopard).
2. Or, it could be an animal print of a species that is prey not predator (say, zebra). And, building on this, wearing a print that makes you look like prey isn't that smart if you go to a zoo, so it makes a case for natural selection in two different ways.
3. Or, it's not an animal print at all, and it means that the dress made her look sexually attractive, especially to the opposite sex.
4. Building on #3, "case" could also have two meanings: (1) made the argument for natural selection; or (2) literally a case for her body, which embodies the concept of natural selection.
5. Or, it means the dress makes her look silly or stupid or unattractive (so, negative aspects of natural selection).
Yes, I've thought about this too much. And these are just two lines in one song.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2020 18:02:53 GMT -5
Denver Haircut:
So I was listening to the And Introducing podcast, about musician memoirs. They did an episode on Dave Mustaine, who’s still so obsessed with Metallica he sees them everywhere. I was listening to a podcast Craig was on where he talks about seeing Some Kind of Monster, the hilarious Metallica documentary Dave Mustaine is in. I read somewhere that one of the members of Megadeth is from Minneapolis.
Draw your own conclusions....
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 28, 2020 13:26:16 GMT -5
Because he's not only shaved his head to look like a skin, but to appear as someone specific. The line therefore has several pretty clever implications. Ordering the usual would both be a test who could confirm if the actually appears as the one he'd like to appear as, and he is also genuinely curious about what "the usual" actually turns out to be.
Becuase of the stains, I would assume. And also a way to describe the people you deal with at this point: If someone's answer to a dirty matress is to spray paint it rather than replace it, I guess that says something.
My take: The exact thing the object of the protetcion and highs is requesting. It's a way of rephrasing what (s)he's actually saying, in some sense. "I need someone who can protect me and get me high".
I think the intricate deal is the thing you're trying to resolve here. Everything connected to people going undercover to save someone, in what turns out to be a suicide mission.
It's "distant systems". For these new songs, trust Clicks & Hisses. We've got it confirmed here earier that they have lyrics straight from the band.
American Ruse.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 28, 2020 13:46:37 GMT -5
*Wondering if the guy with the T-shirt Tux is the same guy making the bad jokes in The Last Time That She Talked to Me. The guy in TsT makes everyone roll their eyes and he's with some girl from his work You could try cross checking it with a previous line who explicitly mentions jokes and eye-rolling  |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jun 29, 2020 8:25:49 GMT -5
Thanks, some of those lines I could have read for years and not come up with the insights that you share here. I'm by no way certain on any of these readings, but that's my inital takes. I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty influenced by everything skepticatfirst has layed out in the Here Goes thread, so that could enlighten, but also cloud my readings. One thing I feel pretty sure about (at least to a point where I would like to hear a completely and coherent different version to steer away from it) is that Gideon is infiltrating the skins, appearing to be Charlemagne. And when I heard Denver Haircut, I think it sort of made that part of the story even stronger. |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 5, 2020 3:27:35 GMT -5
*On with the Business: bloody carpet Blackout Sam: carpet (at the party house) taken out. If you dig back, there's plenty of carpets in the lyrics. Stevie Nix and Positive Jam springs to mind. |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 11, 2020 16:08:27 GMT -5
*Epaulets: moccasins...buckskin...restroom...bandages ... * There's some weird shit on mattresses in THS songs ( blood, mud, spraypaint), not to mention the (ahem) "fluids" on Navy Sheets. A-ha! I see there are phrases about sleeping in shoes in both T-shirt Tux and Oaks. ... The dead body found bleeding through bandages on a dirty mattress in Spectres-- does it connect to the story arc in Thrashing...? (I mean this particular part of the larger story running though all the albums, if you will). Perhaps very much so. I think there's plenty of stuff in Thrashing who corresponds pretty good with the main story, as laid out by skepticatfirst. I must admit I think 90% of what he's written about the story to be very believeable, and that could obviousy cloud my reading of these new songs too. There's a few things on Thrashing I can't seem to fit with any of the big storylines. One example is large parts of The Stove And The Toaster, who is hard to hear as something else than a story of a robbery/heist gone wrong. It could be related to the feud between Charlemagne and The Skins about drugs, but it doesn't quite add up. Blackout Sam is another weird one. It has a lot of the motifs and moods from songs about Mary/Gideon leaving the world behind, but it also sounds pretty different. But for what it's worth, here are my loose thoughts about Trashing vs the narrative. And as a disclaimer for people dropping by: I get that people don't believe the story stuff and all that. I do believe a lot of it. And the rest of this post is written with a big "if it's true" underneath. To me, digging through the lyrics and the narrative have become an almost separate (but yet so integrated) way to appreciate Hold Steady, and I think threads like this is a nice place to entertain that appreciation. DENVER HAIRCUT To me, this sounds a lot like Charlemagne-disguising-as-Gideon during their two weeks of infiltrating The Skins. "Transitional time", "like his new haircut", this guy ordering "the usual" and being excited about what he's served. The "strap on my saddle" part corresponds really well with the theme The Skins-as-cowboys (see Saddle Shoes), and the undercover operation, where they act as part of The Skins, is what they saddle up for. Everything about how the Residence In is described, sounds like the metal bar/party house/club. And the drugged out finale is quite similar to other descriptions of how heavy those two weeks were on the crew. There's lots of things I don't get here (the date, the lost wallet, the Metallica references), but it sounds like a Charlemagne-told song from that two week period. EPAULETS This has Charlemagne vs Jesse written all over it. It's so similar in style to other songs where Charlemagne expresses affection, confusion and generally what's-up-with-this-girl kinda vibe about this chick who he really likes, but also wants to protect from going down the same path as Holly. The cigs (Hurricane J), the texting (Magazines), hiding away in a house she has to her disposition (We Can Get Together), references to heart functions (Sketchy Metal) and references to her eventually getting out of the Twin Cities and get to New York City (Spinners, 212 Margarita). It sounds to me like portrait of a wild, whimsical, bohemian girl hungry for everything life has to offer. But it's also some weird references to things who sound very Mary-like here, like the toothbrush and the bandages. But it's also pretty clear that Jesse sees Mary as competition, to a point where she tries to be like her, and the bandages could be a part of that. The toothbrush too - maybe it's a reference to Jesse still being a few steps away from getting completely sucked into that lifestyle. She still brushes her teeth, they haven't all fallen out due to heavy meth use. YOU DID GOOD KID I think this is one of the best lyrics from the album, and one I find a little hard to unpack. A lot here reminds me of tales about Charlemagne almost beaten to death at the Metal Bar, again by cowboys (drifters). At surface it sounds like a tale about a drug deal gone wrong, trying to sort it out, and getting heavy beating as a result. But there's a lot of stuff here who indicates that this is The Narrator speaking too. Maybe this is The Narrator speaking of/to Charlemagne? The "they made a movie starring you" is pretty straight up, and almost too good of a fit to be hear literally. Who's the girl who come around with a crystal container? She must be setting them up in some way (which make me think of Stove And The Toaster). And what's that part about the wire? Anyway: If we read this as a part of the narrative, I'm pretty sure we hear more about Charlemagne here, from The Narrator's point of view. TRADITIONAL VILLAGE I think this is a nut to crack too, but my inital impression was that it relates to the planning of the crucifixion. The band getting back together to perform their last show, preparing for the entire undercover operation and the grand finale. There's a lot of familiar mapping of the characters here. Charlemagne is casted as Jesus so many times that it's natural to think of him as The Lord. It's a little bit more unclear to me who the thief to the left of him is. It's obviously a reference to one of the thiefs crucified along with Jesus, but is this Mary? Gideon? I should probably be able to crack this, but I'm not sure. And I don't get the IT metaphors in the latter part of the song, but I still think it sounds a lot like preparations for what's about to go down in the Party Pit. BLACKOUT SAM This is also a tough one. There's plenty of references to people dying and the party house emptied out, so it could be an eulogy or an afterthough from The Narrator, long after what happened (or even not that long ago, I read "spent the summer wishing it was spring" as longing back to the time before they joined The Skins). But the entire language and spirit of this song seems a littel removed from everything we know up till now, I just can't connect the dots. Is it a euolgy for Gideon? A sentimental goodbye to the party house, where they experienced so much pain? Don't know. ENTITLEMENT CREW Skepticatfirst have described this in detail, and I think I agree with most of it. It has a very The Narrator-and-Mary feel to it all, but it's both dense and vague. And I still think it's a bit hard to tell who the entitlement crew really is. T-SHIRT TUX If you believe that most of Hold Steady lyrics is connected to a bigger narrative, the opening line of this song is pretty amazing, in all its not-very-glorious glory. It casually establishes that to get what happens in this song, you need to identify four people: 1) The one who's voice we "hear", the narrator of the story, 2) the female "girl from your work", 3) the guy she's entering along with and 4) the "you" of the song, in other words a person who works with the girl in 2). I'm pretty confident that the guy (3) is Charlemagne, in all his goofiness. The girl he's coming with is probably Jesse. I'm guessing that the narrator here is Mary. She's likely to refer to Jesse in with a smirk, dismissing her but still seeing her as a threat. The "tonight I feel my sensors aren't recieving at their best" supports this. It's also plausible that she's talking to The Narrator, which explains "that girl from your work". "Work" here should probably be in big quotation marks, but she could talk about his job as a muscian. After all, that's where they first got in touch with Jesse (Sketchy Metal). But it doesn't make sense that Mary would describe Charlemagne in neutral terms, like seeing him for the first time. She, of all people, have seen a lot of him allready. The part about "We'll all be doomed" sounds like a dark and accurate precursor to what will happen at the Party Pit. And the final part sounds like Mary from the other side, sort of making a sad summary of what their lives could have been. STAR 18 This is another tough one, and we get a similar me/he/you riddle ("Now let me (1) hold the money cause he (2) wants you (3) to wait in the car"). I can't quite figure out who anyone in this song is, neither what the geographical references is supposed to mean. Star 18 and the creep with a camera sounds very Holly-like, but what does the phone reference *-1-8 really mean, and why is the rotary dial central here? The telecommute part rings the Mary bell, the skimpy outfit too, but other things doesn't add up that good. So many clues here (Donna Summer, Hemingway x2, Mick Jagger, Pete Tosh) that I don't know what to do with. STOVE AND THE TOASTER I know this sounds like a stand-alone heist, but I still think it's Charlemagne getting screwed by The Skins in some way. Not just because it ends bloody, but also because of all the kitchen references. But I'm not sure. CONFUSION IN THE MARKETPLACE The reference to "princess" in the first line, is a good indication that this has something to do with Mary. And the rest of the song just keeps spilling familiar themes and words. The static in the stereo, hornets, medicine, and multiple references to an operation involving a car. I might sound like a broken record, but this too reminds me of preparations to the operation in the Party Pit, and also the getaway. To me it sounds like a The Narrator and Mary thing, where they talk to each other like ordinary people about what's going on, and how everything will turn out afterwards. I've always thought that "she won't miss the city..." lines a especially melancholic, underscored by how the music turns strange right after it. And while they were done dicking around, they sure did devestate. There's plenty of interesting stuff in the songs left out from the album too. I think The Last Time She Talked To Me have some especially intricate lines, which I can't seem to figure out. Esther is pretty interesting, and must have something to do with Mary, either before or way after the crucifixion. Eureka still sounds like a Holly-went-to-Hollywood song to me, but it could be something entirely different. And Snake In The Shower is eerie and dark, and there's a Jester And June vibe there ("remember when we though this was better"). Something about innocence lost and a longing for what was before. |
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 12, 2020 4:48:42 GMT -5
The girl in Epaulets could easily be Mary. But using Skepticatfirst's way of mapping characters by looking at signifiers or patterns in characteristics/behaviour, I think she sounds more like Jesse than Mary.
Yes, Jesse and Charlemagne have a sort of father/daughter thing going on, but I don't think it means that he's the powerful in the relationship. There are multiple situations where Charlemagne seems rather powerless to Jesse's urges and wishes. In Hurricane J he's sort of patronizing, but also kind of begging her to stay away from the harbour bars and the druggy crowd. She's gonna do what she want to anyway. And in Magazines, it's clear that she's got "boys on board and boys on deck", she's not gonna obey Charlemagne in any major way.
And does really the Epaulets girl come from a wealthy family? It looks to me like the only thing pointing in that direction is the "her parents are in Paris" line, which I sort of doubt is to be read literal. We have seen that geographical references usually means something other than the literal place, and it would be a pretty wide broadening of the THS universe to bring Europe to the table. I agree that it's more likely that "parents" in this sense is Mary's parents, but I think way more points towards Jesse.
- The texting: The only girl involved in texting in the lyrics up till TTTP is Jesse in Magazines. It looks to me that this separate her from Mary, who frequently is mention along with "telephones", but never with texting as such.
- Similar interests/similar problems: Do really Charlemagne and Mary have similar interests and similar problems? I'm not so sure about that. On the other hand, Jesse and Charlemagne obviously share something, both the "restaurant" business and the way they get together listening to records.
- Cigs/smoke: Cigarettes is one of the first (Hurricane J), and later frequent (Big Cig), signifiers of Jesse. "Sometimes all that smoke can make you sick" mirrors "don't all the cigs get you tired?". Then there's "neon cigs". Why would Craig suddenly let Mary be the one associated with numerous references to cigarettes, when this clearly is a a characteristic of Jesse in the past?
- The wind/storm pattern: We've seen plenty of examples of Jesse associated with the storm/wind theme. Hurricane J mention her "crashing into the harbour", in Magazines she's bathing in maritime and naval metaphors. And here in Epaulets we get "once a stronger wind comes in we both know what will happen". To me, this sounds exactly like Jesse crashing into the harbour (bars) and the sailors - in other words, going down the same path as Holly.
Everything about "the general", Delors, "dictator" and the ocelot coat is unclear to me, but I don't see anything tying it closer to Mary than Jesse. The bandages and toothbrushes count for Mary, but as we saw in Criminal Fingers, Jesse's not shy of imitating Mary to please Charlemagne.
(And as a digression: I would love to map war references in earlier lyrics too. "General" is mentioned in Blacout Sam as well, and that "war on attrition" is a thing i T-Shirt Tux. Don't what to make of it, but it's natural to think of it in the context of The Skins (see I Hope This Whole Thing Didn't Frighten You)).
So in short: I'm not sure at all who the girl is. But if we cross check the lyrics against what we ACTUALLY know from the other songs, there's way more things pointing towards Jesse than Mary.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 12, 2020 13:12:19 GMT -5
Yeah, it's always an interesting discussion. And as I said, I really don't have big stakes in this - I'm not sure. I just try to apply skepticatfirst's method to what I hear, and I hear more Jesse than Mary.
Charlemagne wasn't at the prom with Mary, at least not in a physical sense. That was The Narrator. Charlemange arrives in Twin Cities along with Holly years later, if we believe the timeline. That doesn't really make a big difference, though.
And in general: I have to disagree on a few points here. I don't think Craig just throws out Paris as "background conversation". Every single lyric he's written the past 25 years have been incredible layered, meaningful and seemingly thought-through. Paris COULD be just another city, but I highly doubt it. And I really don't buy that line at face value.
Another general objection: I really don't see the point in trusting those signifiers if they can be disregarded as easy as you disregard the cigs/smoke in this song. The first time Jesse's mentioned by name, it's in a song where her cigarette habit is adressed directly numerous times. She's probably the main female character in a song literally named Big Cig. So when I hear Craig sing about a girl smoking till she gets sick, and referencing "neon cigs", I assume we talk about Jesse. Again: That's doesn't mean I'm not open for discussion here, it's just I think tbe bar should be high for disregarding those signifiers who are explicitly connected to actual names in the lyrics.
Same thing with texting. Yeah, of course everyone's texting in 2020. But they don't in the narrative universe of Hold Steady. In that universe pagers still exist, and telephones are explicit mentioned as an instrument to talk through. Except one song, where Jesse features. It could be that Craig suddenly have left these stringent ways to portrait characters, and just decided that Mary now is the type of girl who texts rather than call, I just doubt it.
This is a really minor issue for the greater scope of the narrative, though. To me, Epaulets doesn't seem to contain big clues about anything, it's a character portrait of a wild female character who have a relationship with the narrator of the song. If it's a Mary/Charlemagne thing, something to do with The Narrator and Mary or Charlemange/Jesse, isn't all that important. But I think it's an interesting test/bar for how we approach these songs in general.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jul 12, 2020 13:14:36 GMT -5
Then again, if you Google around a bit about Delores, things quickly turn the other way "A biblical name, it is derived literally from the word 'dolores' meaning pain. The name refers to one of the many Spanish titles for the Virgin Mary, Maria de los Dolores, which means 'Mary of the Sorrows'" |
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Post by kayfaberaven on Jul 16, 2020 17:31:14 GMT -5
I'm not sure if the specifics of how the album was recorded has been addressed in this thread yet. I believe the first five songs on the album were all recorded in one session, which was the last of the recording sessions for the "album". So it makes sense to more easily consider the first 5 songs as part of a cohesive unit. Conversely, the last 5 songs were recorded over a number of different, previous sessions, and I believe that during those sessions the band didn't even know they were going to make an album. So those last 5 songs may share things, thematically, but they may not necessarily form a cohesive narrative with one another or with the first 5 songs. Unless Craig had the overall narrative in mind before the very first session, which is possible. I also guess that whatever "story" is included in this album is not part of the Charlemagne, Gideon, etc. narrative, although the themes are similar. That's just a hunch, mostly based on how talented Craig is. I figure that if he was creating an over-arching narrative he would want to create a new narrative. |
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