Brad, it beats the music I just heard coming back from the bank about an hour ago.

I pull up alongside a beaten up oldsmobile being driven by an impressionable white youth enamored with black culture, listening to some amateurish rap song with lyrics about "raping a cracka bitch and slittin' her throat." He then turns toward me and tries to give me a menacing stare, as if a pimply-faced, 110 pound wigger is supposed to be fearsome. So I responded with scowl of my own.

well, i'm not sure that the meaning of a poem is always supposed to be so obvious...some are meant to induce thought. there are many famous writers/poets whose works are a reflection of their inner selves or thoughts...which you and i may not necessarily comprehend completely because we are not inside their heads. i've read the song you posted a few times, and each time i see something new. however, it's meaning to me or the thoughts it inspires in me may be very different from yours. just a thought.

In my experience, it's not deep meaning that's the cause but rather a limited vocabulary to utilize for finding a rhyme.

Wow... that song is creepier and creepier the more I look at it.... having never heard it before, I wonder if the music is "REE REE REE REE".

It's actually a pretty heartfelt song if you look at the story of the lyrics.  If I have learned anything over here it is that Americans more than anyone use words to have multiple meanings.

This is my interpretation of this song. 

Black man in a relationship with a white woman whose mother does not approve.  They did not see the color line an issue except when her mom came back to town.  The mother does not approve.  The women has to break it off but, he doesn't want to let her go.  The song is about the fight they had at the breakup.

The third stanza refers to her having an orgasm during sex where she is on top and he is on his back.  You wanted a harlequin refers to the popular romance series of paperbacks and the dream romances that some women who are single dream about.  To anywoman who has read these there is always a high and a low point for the battle.  Girl wants man that girl can't get.  Girl finally gets man after enduring great pains and they live happily ever after.

The reverb of I wanna take you home I wanna take you back is a plead not to end the relationship by the man.  Sugar is of course his term of endearment for her.

I'm cutting the wire (Sugar sugar)
There's nobody listening (Sugar sugar)
Slashing the tires (Sugar sugar)
Made you late for the christening (Sugar sugar)

By this stanza I think he is angry and is fighting back with his own cruel words.   Cutting the wire could be like cutting off the emotional ties to her. There's nobody listening - He is ignoring her.  Slashing the tires means cutting her down for being white as she dumped him for being black.   Made you late for the christening -  could be the time at which she was to return to tell her mom it was over and to be taken back into the family pure of the interracial relationship as if life had just started a new. 

  And I wanna take you home
And I wanna throw you back
And I wanna take you home
And the screen just turns to black 

This is the love hate paragraph - He is torn between loving her and letting her go.  The screen turns to black symbolizes the end.   

It's hot, it's warm, it's cool, all right
I kiss, you take another bite
You said, "Just stay away from light"
Down here I'm not afraid of height

This paragraph refers to the stages of the meeting.  It starts out passionate, calms down, then she pulls away to end it.  I kiss, you take another bite - refers to how he tries to love her but she puts him down with verbal abuse.  Just stay away from the light means just stay away from my home and me by the white woman.  Down here I'm not afraid of height - refers to how he is use to the racism and is not afraid to continue the relationship without her mother's approval.

And I wanna take you home
'Cause I wanna take it back
And I wanna take you home
And the screen just turns to black (Sugar sugar)

This stanza refers to the fact that he still loves her and that he wants to take back all the hurt filled things they said to each other.  But she has ended it. 

The reverb of sugar sugar is his pinning for her.

See makes complete sense.

Ah the music these kids today listen to you can't even understand the lyrics!

Ahem, anyways, those lyrics are not even the most incomprehensible, check out some Beck lyrics:
"Something's wrong 'cause my mind is fading
And everywhere I look there's a dead end waiting
Temperature's dropping at the rotten oasis
Stealing kisses from the leperous faces

Heads are hanging from the garbageman trees
Mouthwash, jukebox, gasoline
Pistols are pointing at a poor man's pockets
Smiling eyes whipping out of their sockets "

Hmm garbageman trees..
His earlier folk stuff though actually has some rather 'normal' narrative lyrics.

wood:

kudos. really great interpretation of what some would consider "limited vocabulary" in a song/poem.

kudos. really great interpretation of what some would consider "limited vocabulary" in a song/poem.

you aint nowhere near dumb. c&h wood just validated the insightful rating.

as far as lyrics and their authors' articulation go, consider the following:

I see your hair is burnin’
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar

no matter how much one dislikes france, is there any excuse for interring mr mojorisin near voltaire?

That's an impressive interpretation.  I don't know if that is what was meant or not by the song, but I prefer to think that there's some deep meaning to the lyrics than rather random rhyming.

Lest we end up with "In the desert, you can't remember your name for there ain't no one to give you no pain. La la la la lalala la" '

really great interpretation of what some would consider "limited vocabulary" in a song/poem.

Yes, because the typical musician is a brilliant artist that the rest of us lowlies can't fathom. Hence if the lyrics seem nonsensical and the rhyming seems forced and arbitrary, it's only because us clods can't grasp the deeper meaning..

 

I'm on the ground You're in the air again Releasing the hounds You wanted a harlequin

A harlequin is a type of clown in Commedia Dell'Arte.

Consider the similarity to these lyrics from Sondheim's Send in the Clowns:

Isn't it rich
Aren't we a pair
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Send in the clowns

It looks like a play on Sondheim. He's being sensible, she's not.

I suppose it also could be a reference to the multi-colored design of the traditional harlequin costume. It could mean she a) wanted someone to be her clown, she wanted a multi-racial relationship, c) she wanted a multi-racial baby, d) all of the above.

I'm cutting the wire (Sugar sugar) There's nobody listening (Sugar sugar)

Considering the second line, I'd say the wire is a phone line as metaphor for their communications. He's cutting off communications with her, at least temporarily.

Slashing the tires (Sugar sugar) Made you late for the christening (Sugar sugar)

At the very least, it refers to slowing things down and messing with someone's plans. (For all we know, that refers to a vasectomy! Looks like she ain't getting her harlequin baby. )

Maybe she wants too much, too fast, and he's trying to slow it down, be the voice of reason about it all, but that just causes friction in the relationship.

Releasing the hounds
. . .
I kiss, you take another bite

You said, "Just stay away from light" Down here I'm not afraid of height

...is another reference to one having their head in the clouds (with a possible cross-reference to Icarus and his warning-ignoring flight too close to the sun) and one having their feet on the ground.


The more I read it, the more I think it's about him wanting to lay low while momma's in town, but her wanting to be in momma's face about it. (I wonder -- Does she really want him, or is it all about hurting momma?)

Draginol wrote:
Even popular songs you hear end up doing that. Avril Lavigne's "My happy ending" uses the word "dead" to rhyme with the word..."dead". Huh? You couldn't think of more words that rhyme with dead that you end up using the word dead twice?

That particular lyric drives me crazy. Use an another adjective! Adjectives exist for a reason!

Tori Amos, like Beck, has nonsensical lyrics but there's an attempt to play with words and metaphors to convey an emotion. I think those are the exception to the rule. Jennifer Lopez, Nickelback, etc. don't have any excuse.

see your hair is burnin’Hills are filled with fireIf they say I never loved youYou know they are a liar

Or how about
Now I have come again to the land of the fair and the strong and the wise.
Brothers and Sisters of the Pale Forest, children of night
Who among you will run with the hunt?
Now night arrives with her purple legion.
Retire now to you tents and to your dreams.
Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth.
I want to be ready.

Some people just shouldn't be writing lyrics. Some like Elton John know it. He is a brilliant musician, but he admits he can't write lyrics.

I think if more lyrics to songs were actually read, rather than just heard, you'd find all sorts of either hidden or zero meanings in them. Some of my favorite songs have lyrics that really don't make a bit of sense to me.