No. Not number 2. Look at the lyrics in Chinese Blues. He's saying "It's the gun in your back, it's the heart attack, it's the way you look back before you step out in time to see the number of the bus that's running you down"
What is he saying??
The last line of is "There was nobody keeping him here"
It's all in the lyrics.
This is turning into English class...or Scottish class
Maybe have a look at the poem Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns.
Good luck.
Hellöuu!! so nice to come across =)
Well, English (idiom) classes for me, for sure!!! i'm so so bad... anyway..
Thanks for the tips, Fran. :) I've taken many a creative writing class in my day, so I'm looking very forward to analyzing Ode!! I think it's genius that the songs on the album follow a story line and you've mixed them up for the listener to figure out. How cool is that?!?! And the album artwork taken from old books? Awesome! It all makes sense now. This is all so exciting! I just wish Amazon would ship the bloody thing!!!
I think Get Up must follow J Smith. J Smith, Get Up. He's sent back to earth and even though he doesn't want to get up he's 'gotta wake up to the situation.' ;)
No. Not number 2. Look at the lyrics in Chinese Blues. He's saying "It's the gun in your back, it's the heart attack, it's the way you look back before you step out in time to see the number of the bus that's running you down"
What is he saying??
The last line of is "There was nobody keeping him here"
It's all in the lyrics.
This is turning into English class...or Scottish class
Maybe have a look at the poem Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns.
Good luck.
Thanks Fran. I'd like to take English/Scottish Class from you! Heheh. :)
Thanks for the tips, Fran. :) I've taken many a creative writing class in my day, so I'm looking very forward to analyzing Ode!! I think it's genius that the songs on the album follow a story line and you've mixed them up for the listener to figure out. How cool is that?!?! And the album artwork taken from old books? Awesome! It all makes sense now. This is all so exciting! I just wish Amazon would ship the bloody thing!!!
I'm anxious to try and figure it out myself! It'll be all solved by november 4th, so I'll have to avoid this thread :oP
Damn! i'm bad at english, imagine about scottish!.
But well, here's my opinion.
Today on the bus, was hearing the whole Ode to J Smith, trying to put it on it's order. But i have lots of theories.
I was wondering some things. Is Fran talking always on third person? i mean, is always some character but not Fran, or is sometimes Fran himself? I dunno, Fran looking at J Smith.
So, J Smith suicide, but i'm wondering, what happened first? J. trying to change his hell into something better, or he never did.
I don't know, but in ode to j smith, there's two characters, or at least i think so. The girl who talks on Friends, and J Smith. So, is it really that girl talks about J.? And is she used to love him?
Because, i would put Before You Were Young as number 1. And could be, or not, the girl starting the story. Talking about she and him, when they used to sit in the morning sun, and before they grown, when everything was good. That, or is j. bi his own, realasing, and thinking about his life, feeling sorry about everything. But i think is the girl.
It's just a posibility for me.
If not, i would put Long Way Down in number 1 too. The long way down that J. will live until he dies. His life going down. "Papa i'm too young to die" he started thining about diyng, then "they're never taking me alive". So, number 2.
Something anything. About needed something to keep breathing. But now, J. has changed, he changed and his friend knew it. so, next Broken Mirror, he broke that mirror in which he was looking at him self. The eyes looking at him, and pointing at him too. his very alone. And now "i never want to be alone, i never ever wann go home" he don't want to return to his hell anymore, he will suicide.
Now, i have a doubt about this. I think is fran who is the one on Quite Free, describing the two characters, the boy J. and the girl, the boy with his padded cell, the girl whit his dirty mind. But both want to be free. And J. wants to be free, he see that he will never be quite free on bis hell, so, he's free to change his fate. Suiciding he will be quite free. Oh no, but thinking it well, this could be before Broken Mirror.
Then, he's about to doing it, in this case, he's singing a song to himself, "by the time you hear this i'll be gone" this is his own ode, his song about saying goodbye, 'cause he don't belong any longer, he has to go. And at the same time, that song, is his last words. The words that is hanging on his phone. The last thing he will say. Then, J Smith (the song) The suicide. He's on the street. he's about to complete his plan, he swears at the sun, and curses the moon for his shadow. And he prays to hig god that his plan (suicide) let him be quite free. But in the middle of this song, he don't complete his plan. until the sun came down, and it's snowing. And begins Chinese Blues, but then again, J smith (the song) and he finally suicide when the sun couldn't watch him. And again, Chinese Blues, he's dead, there was nobody keeping him here. And begin the latin, he goes to heaven, where he was not welcome yet, and sent him to hell, where he was not welcome either. and sent back again to earth "hail, pious soul, you're work has not been completed, but by the gods! get back! i can't see your name anywhere" So, the same beings teeling him that, tell "you gotta get up" and J. says "but i don't wanna get up" he has a second chance. Maybe friends could be the last song, but dunno where to put it, or even BYWY too, the first one or the last one.
This is my opinion, forgive me for write a lot XD
Oh by the way, in J Smith, i don't know, but, "there's a man on the street and he looks at his feet from his window" is Fran on the window looking at that man? or is another man on the window looking at J.? or is it J. looking at his feet from his window (his eyes)?
This whole thread is both exciting and scary to me. Everybody rushes to analyze the lyrics but what about the melodies? Can we divorce those lyrics from the melodies? In fact wouldn't it be possible to decipher a story just from the melodies, which express moods, emotions, etc.? Maybe it will not be one "correct" version of the story but multiple ones as correct and as meaningful for each person. And this freedom makes it way too exciting than an English class:) So I'll say why get tangled in what makes sense what does not, just enjoy knowing that Chinese Blues is a perfect beginning for a story and Before You Were Young is the perfect ending (with fireworks!) and everything in-between.
This whole thread is both exciting and scary to me. Everybody rushes to analyze the lyrics but what about the melodies? Can we divorce those lyrics from the melodies? In fact wouldn't it be possible to decipher a story just from the melodies, which express moods, emotions, etc.?
I like your thinking :) That would make Quite Free the 2nd song because of the pure naive sound. Not a clue abou the lyrics, I'll have a read today.
I like to thing of J. Smith as the guy in the Parrable of the Good Samaritan who's left beaten, and helpless hoping for somebody to stop. Only this time nobody stopped to help him!!
This is only from this line:
The snow was falling on his shoulders by the side of the road
and how it might tie in to Friends.
Fuck it, it's way of the mark but it's my story and hell, it's up to all of us to interpret the album and hear it as I want!! That's the beauty of the subtle ambiguity of it all!! The story is what you want it to be!!
I think it's time y'all got busy with your personal story lines.
Yes! Yes, yes. Wise wise quote out there! Its really time to say: I am mad as hell and I am not gonna take this anymore! We all should got busy getting to know ourselves instead of devoting our attention the bulk of our entire life mostly to outward world. Its time to really start developing mentaly and not stagnating or even regressing in this consumption supporting society. Its time to get up from sleeping, time for Living. And it starts with every single one of us.
Sometimes I seriosuly struggle with the limits of this ordinary life.
Thanks for that message, says a lot about you Fran.
I'm well looking forward to tring to find out the story now! I do Journalism and English Lit at uni and I'd love it if Fran was one of my lecturers! I'd always do my homework and be early all the time lol, I could see that module being very very popular!
