Mercer's side project-turned-career went on to achieve multiple Gold-certified albums, a Grammy nomination, and general indie rock immortality. What transpired between the late '90s and 2001, when The Shins' unveiled their debut album Oh, Inverted World, is a well-trodden but nonetheless fascinating account, especially when detailed by Mercer in his own words.
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Given the elegiac nature of the song’s lyrics, the mention of blue eyes could easily be in reference to the underlying sadness in the subject’s eyes.
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Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation. A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work.
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Digital Underground was an alternative hip hop group from Oakland, California.
Heavily influenced by the various funk bands of the 1970s, Digital Underground sampled such music frequently, which became a defining element of West Coast rap. As “Rackadelic”, Jacobs designed album covers and cartoon-laced liner notes, in homage to Parliament-Funkadelic album designs. Digital Underground is also notable for launching the career of member Tupac Shakur, as well as spinning off side projects and solo acts including Raw Fusion, Saafir, and female singer Mystic.
Baltimore School for the Arts
Jeff Weiss – 2pac: Victory Is Merely a Matter of Making it to the Golden Land
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The Baltimore School for the Arts (locally BSA) is a public arts high school located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., and is a part of its public school system. BSA offers art concentrations in vocal music, instrumental music, theater acting, theater production, dance, and visual arts. The school has produced numerous “Presidential Scholars” in the Arts and its students have gone on to attend major conservatories and Ivy League Schools.
There doesn't seem to be
Anybody else who agrees with me Zero 7 (Ft. Sophie Barker) – In the Waiting Line
Anybody else who agrees with me Zero 7 (Ft. Sophie Barker) – In the Waiting Line
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Ah, the alienated artist. Some musicians build entire careers out of this philosophy.
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3 years
“Prison stripes. When you notice the things that are permanent parts of your personality, that you’ll forever deal with, was my thought.” -James Mercer (
)
5 years
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Mercer compares waking up from morning sun with a hangover/comedown as a wild animal clattering throughout his house, sunlight crashing violently and painfully. This ties in with the next line’s realizations and regret of his actions the night before.
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This line underscores the multiple meanings of the song’s “graceless” refrain. In this case he’s highlighting the religious dimension of the word “grace” (that is, unmerited mercy) and just how little of God’s grace he’s experienced.
“Jesus loves you” is one of those meaningless stock phrases people give to someone who’s down, so “don’t remind me” might be his resentful reply.
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Of course this song is about passion and sex, but darker territory is probed. The relationship of sex and death is examined in this song. Sex is a brush with annihilation, and orgasm is at once the center of creation and the feeling of complete disconnection from the world. Indeed, the french sometimes call orgasm “la petite mort” or “the little death.”
The metaphor is explicit with the line “And our love become a funeral pyre.” He uses the image of fire here and in the chorus to express this duality of passion and destruction, two impulses which in fact have much in common. But rather than a violent destruction (the subject of another discussion), his appears to be a more nirvana-like and ascendant end, declaring, though he says it is a lie, “we couldn’t get much higher,” and evokes the image of his ashes blowing away in the smoke.
What does it mean by “sex is a brush with annihilation”?