― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 19:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Shooz (shooz), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 19:22 (twenty years ago) link
(though i do suppose that's what i'm here for. ;) )
― janni (janni), Friday, 13 February 2004 17:50 (twenty years ago) link
but wasn't the p.e. leland song "don't believe the hype," not "bring the noise"? and i dunno about the prince song mentioned above, but the obvious one that comes to mind is "all the critics love you in new york."
― chuck, Friday, 13 February 2004 18:05 (twenty years ago) link
― chuck, Friday, 13 February 2004 18:13 (twenty years ago) link
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 13 February 2004 18:23 (twenty years ago) link
― ben, Friday, 13 February 2004 18:38 (twenty years ago) link
the dictators' "borneo jimmy" is about r. meltzer.
r. meltzer, chrissie hynde, neil tennant, patti smith, lester bangs, metal mike saunders, george smith, john petkovic, falling james moreland, wendy case, stephin merritt, l.d. beghtol, frank kogan, deborah frost, and sundry other critics have presumably written many songs about themselves.
― chuck, Friday, 13 February 2004 18:43 (twenty years ago) link
I always thought nobody knew what P4S is about. Did Dylan ever say?
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 13 February 2004 18:47 (twenty years ago) link
i've always heard it as an intentional double-entendre, though the way he pronounces it is closer to NME than to enemy, at least to my american ears.
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 13 February 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 14 February 2004 06:02 (twenty years ago) link
Haha, I put that song right before "Frederick" on my 1979 MP3 CDR without even knowing that!
― nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 14 February 2004 06:13 (twenty years ago) link
Taylor Swift, "Mean" (maybe)
― xhuxk, Saturday, 6 November 2010 00:58 (thirteen years ago) link
Gary Numan, "I Die: You Die"
― margana (anagram), Saturday, 6 November 2010 07:39 (thirteen years ago) link
"Go to Hell, Miss Rydell"
― the who cares (okamax), Saturday, 6 November 2010 08:21 (thirteen years ago) link
"Pinball Wizard" was written after an early version of The Who's Tommy failed to impress critic Nik Cohn. Pete Townsend knew Cohn was a pinball fanatic, so he decided Tommy would be a pinball champ and quickly wrote the song to appease him (it worked.)
Serious pinball junkies (myself included) will discern that the lyrics reflect Townsend's unfamiliarity with the nuances of pinball.
― Lee626, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Honestly think that "Mean" is about bullying and not necessarily about music critics.
― kkvgz, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Ben (Keith?) mentioned "Ambulance Blues" six years ago, but he got the aimed-at-critics verse wrong; it's "So all you critics sit alone/You're no better than me for what you've shown/With your stomach pumps and your hook-and-ladder dreams/We could get together for some scenes." I'm guessing Neil meant critics in the more general sense of people who criticize, not the Lester Bangs variety.
― clemenza, Monday, 8 November 2010 01:28 (thirteen years ago) link
pinpointing what a song's "about" is a mug's game (despite taylor being annoying and tempting everyone to focus on it) but "mean" is so obviously set in her pre-fame days, before she lived in a big city, so whether it's referring to the first critical audiences she performed to or high school bullies...it's certainly not national rock critics.
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Monday, 8 November 2010 02:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Sting - "Epilogue (Nothing 'Bout Me)"
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 8 November 2010 02:34 (thirteen years ago) link
Let's just say "Mean" works on a few different levels, and there's no requirement to take it as autobiography at all, when you get down to it. I definitely don't think it's mainly a song about critics, but it's not "obviously" anything. (Not even bullying -- could be child abuse!) And it will certainly be heard as being about people criticizing her singing in the here and now -- given that's when it's been released, and all. And it's a stretch to think that didn't Taylor didn't realize that, when she included it on a 2010 album. So it's kind of nit-picky to suggest it doesn't belong here.
― xhuxk, Monday, 8 November 2010 03:09 (thirteen years ago) link
oliver wang, you don't know what gangsta is
― my sex drew back into itself tight and dry (abanana), Monday, 8 November 2010 04:12 (thirteen years ago) link
Which leads to this.
― the who cares (okamax), Monday, 8 November 2010 04:43 (thirteen years ago) link
G'n'R "Get in the Ring" ownzzz― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalinkespecially cuz Axl refused to back it up.― Shakey Mo Collier, Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:22 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Did any of his targets actually challenge him?
― billstevejim, Monday, 8 November 2010 04:58 (thirteen years ago) link