Farrar lyrics
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Long Slow Fade
- Posts: 506
- Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2003 7:17 am
- Location: Oxford, MS
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professor_squishy
- Posts: 231
- Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2003 12:21 pm
- Location: Berkeley, CA
Yeah, that Waydown Watson tune kills me. Could anyone but Jay make you feel like crying for a demolished hotel? Of course, he's so good at weaving everyday, mundane observations into transcendental metaphors that that song could be about anything you wanted it to be about. I might have to have that one played at my funeral.Talus wrote:That's the way the hinge turns, just halfway around
Call it off to make amends
This life burns down from both ends
(Actually all the lyrics from Left a Slide )
Put Whiskey on the wounds
salt the glass and say goodbye
Brings tears to my eyes even if it is about a hotel...
Of course, then I'd have to lighten up the mood with some New Orleans funk and turn it into a party.-
Antelope850
- Posts: 1364
- Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 5:42 am
- Location: Up the Hudson Valley
Fifteen Keys
[quote="criminals"]here's my two cents on Fifteen Keys...
...15 keys where do they go? (all those keys you carry on a big key ring related to work, etc, who cares about them right now, let's go grab a cold Stag).
I'm not sure if that's right, but at least some it makes some sense (to me at least!)
I'm open to rebuttals.[/quote]
Jay's explanation of Fifteen Keys (from the website in Sharon's email):
3. This is probably my only chance. What is "Fifteen Keys" about?
I think the point of origination for that song was from traveling and doing shows with a pocketful of keys that you realize are useless until you get home. I'm now down to about 10 keys.
...15 keys where do they go? (all those keys you carry on a big key ring related to work, etc, who cares about them right now, let's go grab a cold Stag).
I'm not sure if that's right, but at least some it makes some sense (to me at least!)
I'm open to rebuttals.[/quote]
Jay's explanation of Fifteen Keys (from the website in Sharon's email):
3. This is probably my only chance. What is "Fifteen Keys" about?
I think the point of origination for that song was from traveling and doing shows with a pocketful of keys that you realize are useless until you get home. I'm now down to about 10 keys.
STRANDS
these words haunt me , particularly towards the end when the beat kicks in.... bizarre dreamlike stuff that makes perfect sense when you hear it....
weirdly enough sometimes i think it's a dying man talking to g-d or something that strange.
ECHO FAREWELL TO MIDNIGHT TO THE LONELINESS OF THE CHASE
TO THE MINUTES PASSED AS RED-LETTER
TO ELYSIAN FIELDS DEFACED
NO PANGS PROVIDE DELIVERY
BREAKING OUT OF THE THROES
NO REVERIE DECIDED
JUST A WIDE SWING TREMOLO
NO MERCY IN A POKERFACE
LEND AN EAR BEFORE YOU GO
NO SENTENCE YET DECIDED
JUST A WIDE SWING TREMOLO
these words haunt me , particularly towards the end when the beat kicks in.... bizarre dreamlike stuff that makes perfect sense when you hear it....
weirdly enough sometimes i think it's a dying man talking to g-d or something that strange.
ECHO FAREWELL TO MIDNIGHT TO THE LONELINESS OF THE CHASE
TO THE MINUTES PASSED AS RED-LETTER
TO ELYSIAN FIELDS DEFACED
NO PANGS PROVIDE DELIVERY
BREAKING OUT OF THE THROES
NO REVERIE DECIDED
JUST A WIDE SWING TREMOLO
NO MERCY IN A POKERFACE
LEND AN EAR BEFORE YOU GO
NO SENTENCE YET DECIDED
JUST A WIDE SWING TREMOLO
Fifteen Keys
This is my first post here. This board, at least in my opinion, is way more useful than the way things became on the old Warner Son Volt site. And this has been a really satisfying, maybe even inspiring, discussion to read. Oddly, as a longtime Farrar fan whose favorites remain Uncle Tupelo and early Son Volt, it's been really cool to see so many people appreciating Jay's more recent stuff.
Anyway, I felt compelled to post after reading people's thoughts on Fifteen Keys.
I have often wondered whether Fifteen Keys is some kind of modern murder ballad. When I was in college (in Grinnell, IA), Uncle Tupelo played there a few times, and I'd be surprised if Jay didn't see news coverage of the following incident. In 1992, a Grinnell student was murdered, apparently after she had car trouble and was picked up by a trucker. The car trouble happened in Illinois; her body was found in Missouri.
I didn't know the murdered student, Tammy Zywicki. But someone I knew was friends with her, and was very involved in a group that was organized in response to Tammy's murder. The group was called Fearless. (See, for instance, http://www.ndcaws.org/projects/campusviolence/guide.asp; and see http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/seekinfo/zywicki.htm and http://web.grinnell.edu/sandb/archives/ ... wicki.html for more info on the still unsolved case.)
Sorry to take the discussion in such a dark direction, but Jay does write some about the horrible things people can do. And Lilli Schull is, of course, a murder ballad, though not one written by him.
By the way, this is not really far from other folks' analogy to "Falling Down," just more specific. But I freely admit this is my own -- perhaps wild or completely off-base -- speculation.
I also want to say that I am not trying to stir up any kind of personal or political issues. Anyone who has any understanding about tragic loss knows the importance of dealing sensitively with others' losses, which we often feel as our own even if we didn't know the person. That's part of being human. Jay's writing has more than demonstrated his moral center and depth. And I don't think writing a song about the perpetrator, or from the perpetrator's perspective, dishonors the victim. I think the murder ballad tradition is about people trying to understand or come to terms with horror and tragedy.
I would be interested in hearing if other people have information supporting or against my own speculation. I know that Jay has a lot of fans at Grinnell and around the Midwest. I had just graduated and moved away right before Tammy was murdered, so I'm hardly the most informed person.
Thanks everyone for bearing with me on this long post.
Caleb
Oakland, CA
Anyway, I felt compelled to post after reading people's thoughts on Fifteen Keys.
I have often wondered whether Fifteen Keys is some kind of modern murder ballad. When I was in college (in Grinnell, IA), Uncle Tupelo played there a few times, and I'd be surprised if Jay didn't see news coverage of the following incident. In 1992, a Grinnell student was murdered, apparently after she had car trouble and was picked up by a trucker. The car trouble happened in Illinois; her body was found in Missouri.
I didn't know the murdered student, Tammy Zywicki. But someone I knew was friends with her, and was very involved in a group that was organized in response to Tammy's murder. The group was called Fearless. (See, for instance, http://www.ndcaws.org/projects/campusviolence/guide.asp; and see http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/seekinfo/zywicki.htm and http://web.grinnell.edu/sandb/archives/ ... wicki.html for more info on the still unsolved case.)
Sorry to take the discussion in such a dark direction, but Jay does write some about the horrible things people can do. And Lilli Schull is, of course, a murder ballad, though not one written by him.
By the way, this is not really far from other folks' analogy to "Falling Down," just more specific. But I freely admit this is my own -- perhaps wild or completely off-base -- speculation.
I also want to say that I am not trying to stir up any kind of personal or political issues. Anyone who has any understanding about tragic loss knows the importance of dealing sensitively with others' losses, which we often feel as our own even if we didn't know the person. That's part of being human. Jay's writing has more than demonstrated his moral center and depth. And I don't think writing a song about the perpetrator, or from the perpetrator's perspective, dishonors the victim. I think the murder ballad tradition is about people trying to understand or come to terms with horror and tragedy.
I would be interested in hearing if other people have information supporting or against my own speculation. I know that Jay has a lot of fans at Grinnell and around the Midwest. I had just graduated and moved away right before Tammy was murdered, so I'm hardly the most informed person.
Thanks everyone for bearing with me on this long post.
Caleb
Oakland, CA
I agree on Windfall...what a song.
One passage that I've always like from "Looking For A Way Out" (I especially like the acoustic version on the Anthology):
Remember when you didn't have to look ahead or behind you
...there was always something right there to do
then there's"
Liquor and guns, the sign read quite plain
Somehow life goes on in a place so insane
Going to see Jay tonight in Tally...can't wait!
One passage that I've always like from "Looking For A Way Out" (I especially like the acoustic version on the Anthology):
Remember when you didn't have to look ahead or behind you
...there was always something right there to do
then there's"
Liquor and guns, the sign read quite plain
Somehow life goes on in a place so insane
Going to see Jay tonight in Tally...can't wait!
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Coffee Creek
- Posts: 1473
- Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 9:19 pm
- Location: The Woods (Carbondale, Illinois)
I hear ya, Prof!professor_squishy wrote:
"Ain't it hard
When the spirit doesn't catch you
Gravity's the winner
And it weighs you down
It weighs you down"
I'd put the whole thing up here --
Wipe the Clock
hunted down
someone said, no story, no gain
wipe the clock right now
I despise what you crave
I remember you
when you wore a different face
never heard a story of anyone
who drove the blacktop insane
leaning on a stoplight
waiting for eventual change
what's it matter right now
it's not so easy to gauge
every time
that you ask for more
it's the sound that makes the colors go blind
and everything comes in threes
but your face shows two
lost in the watershed
way out of tune
ain't it hard
when the spirit doesn't catch you
gravity's the winner
and it weighs you down
it weighs you down
What would you leave out?
I'd highlight the good parts ... or put them in caps ... but, it would look like I was yelling the whole song.
One of so many.
We're lucky.
-- CC
Farrar Lyrics
You're really not mad at anyone, you're just mad at the world
Vitamins
Bear the glare of Cold War trash, put it on the table
Staying the course, leaking workaday degradation
With the ballot box open; the flowing information;
the temperature warming and all the cloning nonchalance
Greenwich Time
Walking along downtown L.A. Streets, sidewalk homes of makeshift shanties
Recall the sight of the old growth standing... thinking of a dark Encinitas moring.
California
Waves of Adverts that promise Revival; trinketware that batters the brain...
Barstow
Vitamins
Bear the glare of Cold War trash, put it on the table
Staying the course, leaking workaday degradation
With the ballot box open; the flowing information;
the temperature warming and all the cloning nonchalance
Greenwich Time
Walking along downtown L.A. Streets, sidewalk homes of makeshift shanties
Recall the sight of the old growth standing... thinking of a dark Encinitas moring.
California
Waves of Adverts that promise Revival; trinketware that batters the brain...
Barstow