Posts: 268 |
MariaMak Posted Thu 09 Oct, 2008 11:56 PM |
Arghhhhhh *tears hair out*
Fran, what are you doing to me!
I hate not understanding something and if I can't figure a 'puzzle' out it will bug me until I do. So anymore when I listen to the album (mostly in the car) I'll end up scrutinizing it to the point i'll veer off the road into the ditch. And it'll be all your fault!!
I was always crap at english *sighs*
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Bryn Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 12:29 AM |
the boy with a cryptic name wrote: Typing to Reach You wrote:
Hehe, don't worry you're trying. 
I believe Friends is actually quite a bitter song. The thing is, on the surface is does seem to be a perhaps over-sentimental and slightly cheesy song about friendship (I think this is the danger about releasing it as a single, people can get the wrong impression). But actually I think it's about the person in the song (the 'girl') being kinda angry with old Johnny boy, saying " real friends don't desert you or deceive you." It seems maybe he has abandoned her and she's bitter about it? I could be barking up completely the wrong tree though.
Said Fran back in January. Looks like you're right, I'd always thought it was a song about how lovely friends are being sung to make a point, but no - it's about how lovely friends should be but actually aren't. *sigh* Maybe I'm a natural optimistic! *is happy again*
I think I missed the point of it till right now -- I thought it was a nice song about friends being there for each other! *dawning comprehension* I get it now... |
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Kimmy256 Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 12:59 AM |
| In Chinese Blues i think someone's telling the story of J. Same in J.smith. Then i think in Something Anything and Song to Self, J. is singing about himself. |
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Fran Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 1:10 AM |
| What if it actually means what it says. Like before you were born... |
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Fran Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 1:11 AM |
Kimmy256 wrote: i think i figured out Chinese Bules. not sure.
J.Smith is dead and on his way to heaven, thats why in the last verse "And he watched as the lights came on below" he saw the light. And like Fran said "There was nobody keeping him here" (here = Earth)
Nope |
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minnmess Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 1:14 AM |
Fran wrote: What if it actually means what it says. Like before you were born...
I was causing trouble even before i was born. |
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Fran Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 1:15 AM |
Typing to Reach You wrote: Nikki wrote: Ok, I don’t have the album yet, but this is way too intriguing not to participate! :)
Some of you were wondering about what Fran said the first and last songs were in the story and some of you are already coming up with ideas for what’s first and last that aren’t right and it’s gonna throw you off so…Fran said in his Blog that Chinese Blues is first and BYWY is last, so that’s sorted. “The first song is the first scene and the last song is the last scene.” -Fran
Jesusaremus, you asked if Fran is always singing as J. Smith throughout the album or if there’s another character (which you were theorizing might be the girl singing in Friends). You might be on to something here because Fran did say back when he first posted the lyrics to Friends that it was written from a girl’s point of view. So, I agree with you that some songs are sung from J’s point of view, but a few may be sung from this girl’s point of view – his friend and lover. BYWY is one of the songs I HAVE heard and I thought right away that J isn’t singing this song. J is already dead and someone is singing about him and his days before, when he was young and used to sit in the sun, turn the radio on, etc. In the part where the gong comes in, this other person (probably the same girl singing on Friends) is yelling out in frustration – “If you ever need me call, you know I’ll be there when you fall, you know I will, l love you I love you..” So, she’s saying she would have been there for him, he didn’t have to kill himself and she loved him, but it’s too late…he’s gone.
That’s all I got so far…I’ll have to wait until I actually have the album to fill in the blanks, lol.
Yep I'd go with all of that. I always thought that Before You Were Young was a weird phrase though... surely before you were young is before you were born?! lol. Can someone explain that one to me...
J is singing before you were young. |
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Posts: 539 |
minsidesoutside_lds Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 2:01 AM |
Fran wrote: What if it actually means what it says. Like before you were born...
=) i was wishing to hearing (or reading) that.
even is the melody like a tender thought about "before we were young"... =D
(me and my clear english...)
bye, wish you Good
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Posts: 157 |
Bryn Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 2:02 AM |
Fran wrote: What if it actually means what it says. Like before you were born...
lol, so are we missing the mark by trying to make the words say more than they say? Would you say we should look at the words as being more straightforward? Sorry, I am guilty of coming up with really out-there theories :)
Edit: Hopefully that didn't sound mean... I seriously am asking, should we look at the words more literally? |
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minsidesoutside_lds Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 2:04 AM |
bye again, wish you Good
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RaZzZ Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 2:14 AM |
I dont understand at all!!!
Then all the album is like a history?
But then, who is J Smith? |
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jesusaremus Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 3:53 AM |
Oh shit!! i think i'm understanding a little, but not that sure! So, before you were born, so... is J. used to live, dunno, another life before that hell?.
So, my theorie become this:
J Smith Suicide, and he's sent to heaven, but he's not welcome there, so, they sent them to hell, but they sent to his own hell, earth. BUT... "i can't see your name anywhere" he's on another life, he's a nameless character, that is called just J Smith. He's always J. Smith, he suicide and start another life, reencarnation.
Just a little theory, but... what Fran said about "before you were born" was an example, or it it really BYWY really means Before you were born?
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Posts: 55 |
cartoonmatrix Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 3:56 AM |
Fran wrote: In the song J. Smith he dies, goes to heaven and is sent to hell. But for J, earth is hell so that's where he ends up at the end of the song.
I think it's time y'all got busy with your personal story lines.
This is kind of reflective of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce in that hell is in a sense no different from earth and is earth, and also in some sense the people in the story are alive and it is the battle within their souls. I am sure this is nothing related to what is in the songs but I thought I'd throw it out there
I might add that Last Words seems like a transitional song to me.
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cartoonmatrix Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 3:59 AM |
Love that poem by the way. great stuff.
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RaZzZ Posted Fri 10 Oct, 2008 5:12 AM |
The art cover is a clue?
Something anything = Hearth
Song to Self = Mouth |
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