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I'm not the only heart you've conquered David Byrne – Miss America
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‘conquered’ is the key verb here.

To conquer a heart suggests to win love, but it kind of suggests the enforced ‘love’ that can be taken forcibly by an oppressor. Byrne makes it clear that we are all susceptible to the charms/ forces of super America.

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1 year

This could also be a reference to the imperialist and interventionist policy of the US, e.g. its invasion of Iraq, and the destabilisation of foreign socialist governments by the CIA

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Although you have a reputation David Byrne – Miss America
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Clever how the second stanza now addresses America herself in the 2nd person (as opposed to the 3rd person of stanza 1). Byrne is almost putting himself in character her, talking to the figure that he knows well, after telling us that he knows her darkest secrets.

The effect is that we, the listener, get the impression that even he is not entirely sure of the details of her ‘reputation’. Like us, he knows that bad stuff has gone down in the past, but the extent of the corruption and degredation is unspecified. Very subtle stuff.

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Oh super-girl, you'll be my super-model David Byrne – Miss America
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The superlative ‘super’ is repeated with irony, sounding almost banal in its connotations of basic pop culture. There’s also a neat contrast between ‘girl’ and ‘model’, the former suggesting innocence, the latter suggesting at least a sexual maturity. These undertones continue throughout the song in later references to pants around ankles.

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William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3” Unseen Flirtations – William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act 1 Scene 3”
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The witches are back from doing their thing: killing pigs, placing curses on a sailor whose wife pissed them off, etc. They encounter Macbeth and Banquo on the heath as the two soldiers return from battle. The witches, a.k.a. the Weird Sisters, make three prophecies:

1) Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor. Promotion!
2) Then he’ll become king. Details here are vague.
3) Banquo will never rule in Scotland, but he’ll father a line of future kings.

The witches disappear. Ross and Angus arrive with the message that the king has given Macbeth the thaneship of Cawdor. Macbeth and Banquo can’t believe it: the first prophecy has come true.

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William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act I Scene 2” Unseen Flirtations – William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act I Scene 2”
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William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1” Unseen Flirtations – William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth Act 1 Scene 1”
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In this scene, the three witches, or Weird Sisters (possibly Shakespeare’s version of the Fates?) convene and decide when to approach Macbeth and Banquo with their prophecy. They call on their “familiars” (companion spirits) and depart.

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Where I want to start telling J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (Chap. 1)
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Holden signposts his insecurity by not being able to take control of his narrative. He WANTS to start at a particular place, but doesn’t just do it. He has to tell us that he ‘wants’ to, which makes us aware of the artificiality of his narrative.

Arguably, this is more natural and conversational than a direct, controlled, ‘it all started when…“ On the other hand, it could be read as jarring and uncomfortable. You decide.

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8 years

After comparing D.B.’s writing with prostitution (in other words, writing to please others), Holden tells the reader how HE wants to tell HIS story.

As Salinger writes in a letter to one of his lovers: “Some day, Joyce, there will be a story you will want to tell for no better reason than because it matters to you more than any other. You’ll give up this business of delivering what everybody tells you to do. You’ll stop looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re keeping everybody happy, and you’ll simply write what’s real and true.”

The way Holden wants to begin his story is not with a description of a lousy childhood, as in David Copperfield, which would make his story fit the bildungsroman formula and not his own vision. Instead he wants it to start when he’s kicked out of school, marking it as a story about his conflict with the ones trying to mould him against his will – his parents and school.

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9 years

This is also a part of Salinger’s technique employed throughout this book of hooking the reader into the story by making the narrative so conversational. It is an intentional choice by the author intended to make the reader feel like Holden’s close friend. Based on the reception of the novel, one would have to consider this technique a success.

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It killed me J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (Chap. 1)
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Another Caulfield catchphrase. A casual colloquialism, but the dark, homicidal undertones make it clear that there is a self-loathing and potential violence lurking in the subtext.

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Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains John Keats – Ode to a Nightingale
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Each of the first three lines has referred to some sense of drowsiness or drugged state. Keats reinforces the melancholic tone through the slow pace of the words, with their long vowels, as in ‘dull opiate’ and ‘drowsy numbness’. It is impossible to read these lines aloud with any speed.

The ‘dull’ state is achieved through artificial means, which suggests self-destruction. Well aware of his own mortality, it is unsurprising that Keats fixates on the dulling of his senses.

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and a drowsy numbness pains John Keats – Ode to a Nightingale
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A lack of vitality is a theme in Keats' poetry. He may also have taken opiates as the next line suggests. Alternatively, he has been sedated by the song of the nightingale, a sensation comparable to being drugged. Note that “numbness /Pains … ” is an oxymoron — the feeling described isn’t straightforward.

The two first lines are reminiscent of Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode.” Both poets share a melancholy, apathetic mood and feel as if their senses have been dulled.

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The juxtaposition of ‘numbness pains’ highlights the speaker’s paradoxical suffering in his desensitised state.

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5 years

Yes. Keats needed opiates (such as laudanum) for pain relief.

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