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Dust Bowl Dance Mumford & Sons – Dust Bowl Dance
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A jarring and emotional song that demonstrates Mumford & Sons’s storytelling ability. We are told the story of a young man who has lost his plains property in the dustbowl of the Dirty Thirties.

The song is told with theatrical flair that belies Mumford’s affinity for the theatre. It’s a Disney villain’s explanatory number; that song in the musical that really knocks it out of the park. As such it’s been the band’s live closer for years.

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513856e16dff224555483c20169b6b47

105

6 years

Listening to this album I see a struggle. A struggle for a man who wants to be dedicated to God but the world continues pulling him in whether it be material possessions or women or doubt. Reading the lyrics it makes sense with most songs to differentiate between the speaker for specific verses because many songs are a dialogue and some with three or more speakers. I see especially in this song how Marcus views Christ. He is almost reluctant but the undertones show that he knows that apart from Christ, man has no hope. Yet, the world keeps pulling at him.

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D8f22dfe6eedcf30b605470dbf85e0df

5,043

5 years

This song is a result of direct inspiration from John Steinbeck’s Grapes Of Wrath. Dustbowl Dance combines the perspective of the main character, Tom Joad and the preacher Jim Casy. In the novel, Tom and the Joad family are forced off of their farmland in Oklahoma during the dustbowl era of the 1930’s.

They are driven by the prospect of work to California. Tom immediately prior to the novel is released from prison, and along the way home bumps into a former preacher, turned spiritual pioneer, Jim Casy. Casy reacquaints himself to Tom, and explains the current situation of men and family’s abandoning their farmland and heading west for work. Jim joins Tom back to his farm, where Tom connects with his family right before their own departure for California. Tom joins his family to California, going against his parole, and convinces them to bring Casy along.

The latter part of Dustbowl, the religious struggle, comes from the perspective of the preacher, Jim Casy (or is at least directly inspired by his drama in the novel). When the Joads arrive in California, they find the state has been overridden with other families trying to escape the dustbowl. They are driven to refugee-style camps, and have a brief stint on a Government-run camp. Casy becomes separated from the group after a run-in with police, and, during the time apart, becomes directly involved in the Refugee-headed labor organizations. Fearing a full-blown strike or revolt, the State of California and its people react aggressively against the labour movement. Casy ends up in a fight with officers after an organized protests near the camp where the Joads reside. Tom, responding to the commotion of the protests, witnesses a California officer beat the former preacher, Jim Casy to death. In response, Tom picks up the officer’s tossed shotgun, kills him, and is forced into hiding.

Dustbowl is the second song on Sigh No More to be directly inspired by Steinbeck’s work. The first, Timshel, is a word taken from Steinbeck’s novel, “East of Eden”

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If I move, this could die
If eyes move, this could die Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
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Kapranos is slightly paranoid, believing that any sudden statements or actions could ruin their relationship.

Alternatively, this may be describing the tension in the confrontation between Franz Ferdinand and Gavrilo Princip. If even one of them moves, Princip could shoot, thus ending Franz Ferdinand’s life.

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1 year

The part about Franz Ferdinand really sounds like a stretch – Gavrilo went out to kill the Archduke, didn’t he?

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I say, don't you know?
You say you don't know
I say: take me out Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
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They are in some kind of game. He says, “don’t you know”– kind of like, “hey, don’t you know how I feel?”

The girl might reply coyly, as if she has no idea what he’s talking about.

They are young, playing this vague game of feelings without too many words. But the message is clear, the guy wants the girl to want him.

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22c42e1ff394c7d8f4b068418ed269ea

110

5 years

Franz Ferdinand was associated by by Garillo pricp or something like that but that what caused WW1

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Adam
7 years

Could also be referencing the assassination​ of Franz Ferdinand WWI

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Mike
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8 years

“Take me out” carries the double meaning of wanting her to date him and egging her on to shoot him, referencing the crosshair metaphor from the first stanza.

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And if you leave here, you leave me broken, shattered I lie
I'm just a cross-hair, I'm just a shot, then we can die Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
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If she ignores or rejects him, his heart will break. Metaphorically, he’s at a vulnerable position where his heart is within her aim; she is free to shoot him down.

And by “we can die”, he means that if she shoots him down, any chance of a potential relationship will be destroyed.

On the other hand, the lyrics can also be interpreted in the context of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination. When Gavrilo Princip fired two shots at the Archduke’s car, the second of which killed Ferdinand, the first of the two struck Ferdinand’s pregnant wife in the stomach. Ferdinand’s last words are written as being “Sopherl [nickname for wife Sophie Chotek], Sopherl, don’t die. Stay alive for the children!”

Therefore, the song tells of a reversal where the Archduke is begging his killer, Princip, to shoot him so he can join his wife and unborn child, or alternately be ‘shattered and broken’ if he leaves.

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16f5ce07bee1d2021279e6fe109c7c4e

189

1 month

The lyrics where it says “You leave me broken shattered a lie”. The lyric is actually “You leave me broken, shattered alive”. There is a video of him singing the song on the acoustic guitar and the captions say shattered alive, not only that but it makes much more sense.

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1 year
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9863290d2546938e6e5e5d0adb24565e

149

1 year

Take me out is NOT about The Sarajevo Incident, Alex Has Revealed that the line “I’m just a crosshair” was because of the ‘romantic’ image of 2 snipers about to shoot each other

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s.c.
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3 years

What evidence is there that the Archduchess was pregnant at the time of her assassination? On her Wiki article her last pregnancy is mentioned as having been with a son stillborn in 1908, 6 years earlier. No mention of pregnancy at the time of assassination. She was 46 years old at the time of her death, an age at which conception, while certainly possible, is highly unlikely for most women.

She WAS shot in the abdomen, he DID say “stay alive for our children”, but it doesn’t mean she was pregnant.

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So if you're lonely, you know I'm here waiting for you
I'm just a cross-hair, I'm just a shot away from you Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
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The narrator is checking out a girl at a party. The guy is a “crosshair” (referencing how one uses a rifle’s crosshair to aim at someone) away from her.

This means that the girl is nearby and and can keep an eye on him. Furthermore it’s up to her to make or break his heart; the gun is in her hands.

On the other hand, this song is also about the assassination of the Archduke for which the band is named. The assassin who killed him was drinking in a bar, alone, after he was part of a failed group attempt to assassinate the archduke, when his target just happened to show up outside in his car.

If the assassin only takes the shot, he will no longer be lonely, as he will be a legend among members of Young Bosnia.

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559348dd77f1e1b60a7fc4443e6df743

99

3 months

Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated with a thrown bomb, which typically do not have cross hairs

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0ebadf0aeaf4ed539ab75c88de6cffc8

845

2 years

Gavrilo Princip was a Serb born in Bosnia and considered himself, from his own words, a “Yugoslav nationalist”.

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Default_avatar_100

295

2 years

The phrasing “just a shot away” exactly mirrors the lyrics of The Rolling Stones' ‘Gimme Shelter.’ That song, which was written in protest against the Vietnam War, reminds us that war is “just a shot away.” The archduke’s assassination demonstrated that, in fact, war may be just a shot away.

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4b7825b48ec8b006692bb6409bafefc2

118

2 years

yes exactly the assassin is a serbian nationalist according to history

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2 years

The band is named after the racing horse Archduke Ferdinand, not directly after the actual Archduke.
According to Kapranos, one of the writers of this song, the lyrics try to convey both a romantic situation and the war movie Enemy at the Gates, in which two sharp shooters are waiting for the other to move so they can take the other one out.

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Dffd8884f0c32c72a54a80eb0edec51e

105

3 years

Double entendre. “I’m just a crosshair” “I’m just across here”

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Aidan
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4 years

What really occurred is similar to how the original poster claimed, however rather than sitting in a bar drinking alone, Gavrilo Princip was outside of Schiller’s delicatessen. He had heard of his accomplices' failed assassination attempts with explosives and decided to change locations to meet the Archduke further along in the motorcade. The driver realized he had been driving in the wrong direction so he stopped (where Princip happened to be standing) and that is when he approached them point blank and killed the Archduke and his wife. This action did bring him fame among the Republika Srpska and Serbia where he is considered a hero to this day.

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Liz
8 years

The assassin – Gavrilo Princip (1895-1918) – is identified as a Serbian nationalist, not a Bosnian, assassinating Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 starting a chain reaction that led to the beginning of WWI one month later.

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Don't stray Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
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“Don’t cheat on me.” Stray being slang to cheat on someone, go out/have sex with someone else.

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Maps Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps
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“Maps” is a single by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs from their debut full-length album, Fever to Tell (2003).

It was released on February 10, 2004, and the band performed the song at that year’s MTV Movie Awards. It reached #9 on Billboard’s hot modern rock chart and was included in the popular video game Rock Band.

The song is about the relationship between Liars frontman Angus Andrew and Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen O.

Karen O’s tears in the music video were quite real as she explained:

They were real tears. My boyfriend at the time was supposed to come to the shoot – he was three hours late and I was just about to leave for tour. I didn’t think he was even going to come and this was the song that was written for him. He eventually showed up and I got myself in a real emotional state.

While there have been suggestions that the title of the song is an acronym for “My Angus Please Stay”, there continues to be no confirmation from Karen O or any of the other writers of the song.

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50ea89a58ed94a12baaa79ce0910f35a

394

5 years

Ranked (#386) on the Rolling Stones Magazine’s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time…

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Your eyes to the ground and the world spinning round forever Jeff Buckley – Dream Brother
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A stunning image describing the disorientation and despair a child feels when abandoned. Perhaps this line was directly from Buckley’s experience.

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Cause they're waiting for you like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came Jeff Buckley – Dream Brother
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Dowd’s children are going to be waiting for him the same way that Buckley waited for his father, and how “nobody ever came”.

Jeff Buckley never really got to know his father, Tim Buckley. Buckley said he only met his dad once at the age of eight.

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Don't be like the one who made me so old
Don't be like the one who left behind his name Jeff Buckley – Dream Brother
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This line is is a warning to Buckley’s good friend Chris Dowd, his “Dream Brother”, from walking out on his pregnant girlfriend in a similar way to Jeff’s own father.

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2 years
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4240daa0bd13ef0fe0e9cffe1aeafb7b

120

5 years

The only thing Tim ever gave Jeff was his last name

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4240daa0bd13ef0fe0e9cffe1aeafb7b

120

5 years

Doesn’t properly explain the lyrics.

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8 years

“…Who made me so old” implies that he had to mature quickly despite his youth.

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