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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 25, 2021 13:43:25 GMT -5
Oh boy, if we start applying numerology to the lyrics this is gonna go even deeper hahaha. I'd be fascinated if there's something there, but there's another way to think about $900 -- even without any hidden/symbolic meaning, it still actually tells you a lot about the characters. $900 is a good amount of money for these ne'er-do-wells in the 90s/00s. But we also know that she's not really risking it, because of the clairvoyance -- it's a sure thing. So if these people had access to more money, there's no reason they shouldn't throw down five grand or whatever. So we can assume that's basically all she has. $900 works perfectly because it's enough that your winnings would let you live high on the hog for a while, but at the same time, if you only have $900 to your name, you're not doing super-great in the big picture. With you 100% on this. Same is true of "gonna have to come up with seven grand some other way" --- that's an amount that Charlemagne could sort just by getting a job, but dude doesn't see an alternative to pimping out Holly. Awesome. I think most of the prices of things (including the $100/day habit of Sketchy Metal) are reflective of a story world based on, as you say, the very real world of the 90s/00s. (That consistency is interesting to me because of how much it tells us about what's happening, but more on that elsewhere.) Finally, numerology and Craig Finn sounds like "run away" to me, but it's also true that you kind of want to stay open to whatever new thing he may decide to do. The weird letter-play with his initials on the cover of Clear Heart Full Eyes (which he himself talked about) is something I wouldn't have expected, but apparently it's there. And there's the Number of the Beast in "6 6 6 am on the weekend" [ILtL], which isn't numerology as such, but isn't too many steps removed from it, either. I've missed stuff often enough that I guess I prefer an official position of "Craig could surprise us." :-)
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Post by star18 on Mar 26, 2021 8:50:00 GMT -5
Yeah, I should have been a little more specific there. Obviously Craig finds meaning and symbolism in a lot of unexpected places, so if there's an argument for finding resonance in a particular number, I'm all ears. (We know there's lots of numerical symbolism in the Bible, so. ) Where I bristle is the type of numerology where people concoct equations and plug-and-play different factors that seem unrelated. ("Well, you take the 5 from the fifth horse and multiply it by the 6 from the sixth race to get 30, and 30 squared gets you to 900, and then you divide 900 by ten -- the number of tracks on AKM -- and you get nine, which is exactly the number of letters in "CRAIG FINN.")
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Post by star18 on Apr 5, 2021 16:19:49 GMT -5
This doesn't deserve it's own post so I'll just stick it here . . .
Was listening to "Me & Magdalena" and thinking about the "first they're into Kiss, then they're into crust" line. The first few times, I assumed "crust" was a generic reference to the crust-punk scene as a whole. But someone (maybe on the FB group, maybe here?) pointed out that "Crust" was in fact also a band. I'm not familiar with that band so I started poking around, and didn't have to go far at all for a connection:
From Allmusic.com, it sounds like Crust were exploring some of the same lyrical ideas as THS:
But this is even more interesting connection, from Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crust_(band)), emphasis mine:
So if we apply the Skeptic method of interpretation, in which "first [x], then [y]" usually works as a symbolic extended metaphor, "kiss/crust" could easily symbolize a relationship that started romantically but ended in violence. Alternately, it could be a comparison between something that seems dangerous/scary (KISS makeup/armor/etc.) but is ultimately harmless, versus something that's actually dangerous.
One strike on this theory is that the official lyric sheet (with the vinyl) has "Kiss" capitalized, but "crust" in entirely lowercase. Not sure if that's meaningful or just a mistake.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 6, 2021 1:34:55 GMT -5
Sounds like a legit possible double meaning to me. This pattern is everywhere (lovely -> druggy -> bloddy, recreational -> medical, kiss -> fist), so it wouldn't be weird if it's replicated here.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 17, 2021 12:09:43 GMT -5
One strike on this theory is that the official lyric sheet (with the vinyl) has "Kiss" capitalized, but "crust" in entirely lowercase. Not sure if that's meaningful or just a mistake. The faith and the void isn't capitalized in The Smidge (I don't have the official lyric sheet, and I'm going by clicks and hisses version which it is my understanding usually follows the official lyric sheet) and those are almost certainly references to the hardcore bands The Faith and Void from D.C. that put out a split album together in 1982. Also note: I used to be interested to fint the "right" spelling of some of these lyrics too at some point, but lately it semms less and less relevant. It's pretty clear to me that all of these lines could mean both A and B - and most likely they mean both A and B, with a obscure releveance for C, and maybe even X and Y too. Craig is like his own characters. When he starts to talk about the ice cubes, he ain't talking bout the frozen water - except he usually does that too. And when he says black and tans, he mean the kind from the cans - but it's not restricted to that.
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lizzyg
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Post by lizzyg on Aug 22, 2021 20:11:15 GMT -5
What I wanted to express is how disarming Craig is sometimes in songs like wcgt, and Lord, and this song. In them, there are no names. She’s just a “she”, but she comes off as the SHE. Skeptic can maybe tell me why the “she” is holly here. Minneapolis girl “born into” the sad moniker of “queen of the lakes”. What astonishes me is whoever she is, in those finished songs which may have been inspired by something totally different, he sets a place and time and tone such that you can hear her play her records for him, see her breath on a bus window, and understand the certainty that it’s never going to be that innocent again. And it’s just because we all know how this all ends, that there’s such a sinking depth to a line like “all the things they wanted for their daughter” that made it hard for me to breathe. With just a few words on top of a simple song, he can fit all the puzzle pieces in and show Her arc from a shy girl at a parish dance downward to a trainwreck at an Easter mass a decade later. Poisoned grace in a bottle.
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lizzyg
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Post by lizzyg on Aug 22, 2021 20:15:08 GMT -5
Lanyards.. “ When you're stuck out in the middle you just figure that there's something you're missing. But it turns out that California is just tripping and disinterested kissing. Back in my hometown there was nothing but the hum of the locusts and the rest of my life to get used to being washed out of showbiz. I was down around the docks but I never saw anyone surfing, from a distance it looked pretty much perfect but it's different in person” Just something to add to the list.
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lizzyg
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Post by lizzyg on Aug 22, 2021 20:26:17 GMT -5
I've also made a quick guide to lyrical references to other songs in the catalog. Hi Muzzle. Ive only just started doing the reference hunting after just trying to listen for a few days, and Im not very good at it, but the first really obvious one seems to be Lanyards giving a heavy nod to the Curves and Nerves/Modesto period... C&N... “holly went to hollywood. it looked nothing like she thought it would. she didn't get to the part with the studios. she went straight to video” Modestos not that sweet “ I heard that kid from california turned out to be an asshole I think I could have told you. You left with burning bridges but you never saw the beach. You had stars in your eyes but modesto's not that sweet. When you only know one guy and he disappears for days at time Lanyards.. “ When you're stuck out in the middle you just figure that there's something you're missing. But it turns out that California is just tripping and disinterested kissing. Back in my hometown there was nothing but the hum of the locusts and the rest of my life to get used to being washed out of showbiz. I was down around the docks but I never saw anyone surfing, from a distance it looked pretty much perfect but it's different in person” Just something to add to the list.
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lizzyg
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Post by lizzyg on Aug 22, 2021 20:29:22 GMT -5
Hey I posted this previously with regards to background to Lanyards So Lanyards is definitely not about Holly.
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bigontheinside
Midnight Hauler
If you don't know the words, don't sing along
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Post by bigontheinside on Aug 23, 2021 19:10:51 GMT -5
Hey I posted this previously with regards to background to Lanyards So Lanyards is definitely not about Holly. Incoming ramble (cw: suicide/self harm) I haven't put too much thought into this, and I'm sure it's been discussed elsewhere in this thread, but I think: - the narrator in Lanyards is a new character - the girl "from the Genesee Cleaners" in Lanyards is the girl from Unpleasant Breakfast - the girl from Unpleasant Breakfast is Sapphire ("says she's crazy bout horses still") - this is backed up with the nosebleed reference, that's a classic sign of psychic abilities - She ends up in St Catherines in Family Farm ("Hospital security...") "That girl in last year's picture Is now haunting her own hallways" That implies she's dead, but maybe he is just referring to her being "a shell of what she once was" aka depressed "depression isn't kidding man". It sounds like she ends up at St Catherines after self harm/a suicide attempt maybe, something had to cause all that blood. Someone certainly dies at that party with the python in the shower, but I don't think she dies in Lanyards at least.
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Post by kayfaberaven on May 24, 2022 23:01:51 GMT -5
I don't know anything about musicianship or music production, but how good are Bobby's drums on ODP? They're the highlight of the majority of songs on the album, with so many stand out moments. I wonder if the recording set up was different than for TTTP?
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