Stone Roses - Waterfall (live on British TV, 1989)

[highplainsdem]

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Free from the filth and the scum this American satellite's worn ...

Or is it 'won'?

Either way, I love that line ... and this song, and this album, and 1989 in general

The drum work is also pretty genius.

[highplainsdem]

2. It's "won" - and it's a great line, and a great live performance by the Roses.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. I love subtle, allegorical lyrics like this song has ...

I mean it's not that obscure, 'she' is pretty obviously England and all that, but (esp) for a catchy pop song, the intellectual depth of the lyrics in this track ... and most of the songs on The Stone Roses ... is always a breath of fresh air.

Another fave couplet from this tune ...

Stands on shifting sands
The scales held in her hands
The wind it just whips her and wails
And fills up her brigantine sails

[highplainsdem]

4. Ian Brown could write some really great lyrics. This is from a retrospective

by NME a couple of years ago:

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/stone-roses-debut-album-dissected-765093

But, really, the most timeless aspect of the album is the lyrics. Ian Brown gets a lot of shit for his vocal ability, but that’s like slagging off a great author for their handwriting. The important things here are the mood and the message, and the Roses singer is an underrated philosopher. Many great songs contain a meaning that’s poignant whenever and wherever they’re played because they speak to fundamental aspects of the human condition: Pulp‘s ‘Common People’, LCD Soundsystem‘s ‘All My Friends’, Bruce Springsteen‘s ‘Born To Run’. On ‘The Stone Roses’ there are 11 of them. Optimism and hope reign supreme.

-snip-

Throughout ‘The Stone Roses’, Ian Brown softly delivers lyrics that combine anger at the Monarchy (“It’s curtains for you, Elizabeth my dear“) and the government (“Every member of parliament trips on glue“) with sacrilegious arrogance (“I am the resurrection and I am the light“) and the unbridled optimism of talented youth (“Sometimes I fantasise, when the streets are cold and lonely and the cars they burn below me“). These are mood-lifting and perspective-changing anthems. Best of all, from ‘She Bangs The Drums’: “The past was yours but the future’s mine“. Any young person who doesn’t have that attitude is doing it wrong.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. Someone else noticed besides me ... cool :)

For the longest time I thought the line was 'the first one's yours but the future's mine'.

Didn't change my perspective when I eventually reckoned the proper lyric

[highplainsdem]

6. Had to listen to it again just now, since I'd never heard that lyric the way you

heard it first...but now I guess I can see why someone might have heard it that way.

Not the clearest singing there...

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. It's not like it's IRS-years Michael Stipe

But it's a bit hard to make out a lot of the words on this album for sure. I'm sure I still hear many of them ... incorrectly

After Murmur and Reckoning, I think 'the hardest to make out the lyrics, ever' album is In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs. Which rather perfectly has Michael singing on one song.

HOWEVER that one actually came w/a lyric sheet, so ... I pretty much knew every word on that album by heart within a few weeks ... but before I read the words? I was like what the hell are you mumbling about Natalie?



Edit: wait, what am I saying ... Cocteau Twins were the absolute kings (errr ... queens) of inscrutable lyrics ... everyone else is behind them lol.