ET Awful
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:19 AM
Original message |
I was down at the New Amsterdam |
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Edited on Fri Jul-08-05 10:25 AM by ET Awful
staring at this yellow-haired girl Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation with this black-haired flamenco dancer She dances while his father plays guitar She's suddenly beautiful We all want something beautiful I wish I was beautiful
So come dance this silence down through the morning Cut up, Maria! Show me some of them Spanish dances Pass me a bottle, Mr. Jones
Believe in me Help me believe in anything I want to be someone who believes
Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales Stare at the beautiful women "She's looking at you. Ah, no, no, she's looking at me." Smiling in the bright lights Coming through in stereo When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely
I will paint my picture Paint myself in blue and red and black and gray All of the beautiful colors are very very meaningful Gray is my favorite color I felt so symbolic yesterday If I knew Picasso I would buy myself a gray guitar and play
Mr. Jones and me look into the future Stare at the beautiful women "She's looking at you. I don't think so. She's looking at me."
Standing in the spotlight I bought myself a gray guitar When everybody loves me, I will never be lonely I want to be a lion Everybody wants to pass as cats We all want to be big big stars, but we got different reasons for that
Believe in me because I don't believe in anything and I want to be someone to believe
Mr. Jones and me stumbling through the barrio Yeah we stare at the beautiful women "She's perfect for you, Man, there's got to be somebody for me."
I want to be Bob Dylan Mr. Jones wishes he was someone just a little more funky When everybody loves you, son, that's just about as funky as you can be
Mr. Jones and me staring at the video when I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me
We all want to be big stars, but we don't know why and we don't know how But when everybody loves me, I'm going to be just about as happy as I can be
Mr. Jones and me, we're gonna be big stars...
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gollygee
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:20 AM
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it's funnier since I learned what "Mr. Jones" refers to :D
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ET Awful
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:25 AM
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3. Well, in this case, Mr. Jones refers to Marty Jones . . . |
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Adam Duritz (the singer and writer of the song) says - "It's really a song about my friend Marty and I. We went out one night to watch his dad play, his dad was a Flamenco guitar player who lived in Spain, and he was in San Francisco in the mission playing with his old Flamenco troupe. And after the gig we all went to this bar called the New Amsterdam in San Francisco on Columbus and we got completely drunk. And Marty and I sat at the bar staring at these two girls, wishing there was some way we could go talk to them, but we were too shy. We kept joking with each other that if we were big rock stars instead of such loser, low-budget musicians, this would be easy. I went home that night and I wrote a song about it. I joke about what it's about, that story. But it's really a song about all the dreams and all the things that make you want to go into doing whatever it is that seizes your heart, whether it's being a rock star or being a doctor or whatever. Those things run from 'all this stuff I have pent up inside of me' to 'I want to meet girls because I'm tired of not being able to.' It is a lot of those things, it's about all those dreams, but it's also kind of cautionary because it's about how misguided you may be about some of those things and how hollow they may be too. Like the character in the song keeps saying, 'When everybody loves me I will never be lonely,' and you're supposed to know that that's not the way it's gonna be. I knew that even then. And this is a song about my dreams."
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Shell Beau
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #3 |
4. Interesting! I never knew that. |
ET Awful
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:31 AM
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5. I always thought that's what made the song so cool . . some of the |
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best songs are just straightforward storytelling from personal experiences.
I don't know if you're a Deadhead or not, but look at some of their best stuff for examples, The Other One (about Neal Cassady), Birdsong (about Janis Joplin), Might As Well (about the Festival Express train tour across Canada), Truckin' (all kinds of little road stories based on their experiences in that song). Like I say those are just examples.
But yeah, the simplest concepts can sometimes make the best songs, you don't always need imagery or metaphors :)
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Shell Beau
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:42 AM
Response to Reply #5 |
6. You are absolutely right! |
Shell Beau
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Fri Jul-08-05 10:22 AM
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2. Their best song by far! And it reminds me of high school! |
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