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Illogical song lyrics

clu

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Oct 3, 2010
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Random thoughts:

"You're so vain, you probably think this song's about you." (Carly Simon, You're So Vain). Ok, but if it's not about the "you" she's talking about then who is she talking to?

"...at night, when all the world's asleep..." (Supertramp, the Logical Song, ironically). The world has different time zones, so the world is not all asleep at the same time.

"Fingers and toes, fingers and toes: forty things we share. 41 if you include the fact that we don't care." (The Tragically Hip, Boots or Hearts). If your fingers and toes (20) count separately from mine (+20), why does the fact that you don't care (+1) and I don't care (+1), not also count separately, bringing the total to 42?

Anyone else want to play? :)
 

Lo-ki

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Check your closet..:)
CCR....And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.
 

Oldfart

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Still lost in the '60s
Elton John's "And I Guess That's Why They Call it The Blues" never gets around to explaining why they call it the blues.
 

JimDandy

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"You're so vain, you probably think this song's about you." (Carly Simon, You're So Vain).
That line is one of my favorite lines from a song of all times. It is spectacularly clever! He knows the song is about him, and yet she is calling him vain for doing so. To have an issue with that line on the basis of it being illogical is losing the whole point of it.

Another one of my favorite lines from a song is: "Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight". Bruce Cockburn - Lovers In A Dangerous Time
Is it illogical to kick at the darkness and expect it to bleed daylight. Of course it is. But it does not subtract from the brilliance of that line.

Just saying ...

JD
 

licks2nite

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Nov 30, 2006
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English is a richly nuanced language. What is learned as children going through any of years of schooling we cherish what survived an onslaught. The child finds the "world" asleep because he/she doesn't know that the world isn't flat yet. The lyricist try to speak to that time in your life. Modern day professionalism, of just more schooling, heavily shuns literary devices such as analogy and metaphor. Some use it for party game. One day as I was walking along a sidewalk, the driver of a car turned up audio full blast as Carly Simon sang the exact words, "You're so vain, you probably think this song's about you."
 

clu

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Oct 3, 2010
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That line is one of my favorite lines from a song of all times. It is spectacularly clever! He knows the song is about him, and yet she is calling him vain for doing so. To have an issue with that line on the basis of it being illogical is losing the whole point of it.
It's not that I didn't get it. But even on that level, it's still a self-defeating line. She just wrote a whole song about him and it became a famous classic, so it really kinda justifies his ego even as she calls him out for it. So in that light, I always took it as an expression of frustration that his vanity was justified, not merely that he was vain.

...Unless the specifics mentioned in the song don't 100% match up with any one person (she is quoted as saying it's about 1 of 3 people) and each person she drew inspiration from thinks it's all about them when it isn't, in which case... ok.

p.s. yes the Bruce Cockburn line is brilliant. It's one I like quite a lot myself. (Evidently Bono liked it too, since he cites it in U2's God Part II.) Anyway, don't mistake whimsical analysis for an inability to understand or appreciate poetry.
 

tedsweettangv

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May 5, 2006
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Walking after midnight - Patsy Cline

I walk for miles along the highway
Well, that's just my way
Of sayin' I love you, I'm always walkin'
After midnight, searchin' for you

So she is randomly walking along the highway looking for this guy? Like looking for the body? Looking for passing cars? And in the middle of the night? No wonder she later did the song "Crazy"
 

grusse

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Feb 18, 2010
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I won't say "illogical" but many of Leonard Cohen's songs are open to any number of interpretations.
 

licks2nite

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Nov 30, 2006
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Walking after midnight - Patsy Cline

I walk for miles along the highway
Well, that's just my way
Of sayin' I love you, I'm always walkin'
After midnight, searchin' for you

So she is randomly walking along the highway looking for this guy? Like looking for the body? Looking for passing cars? And in the middle of the night? No wonder she later did the song "Crazy"
Have a heart. She's on the highway of life looking for the love of her life.
Just call me angel of the morning, baby, baby
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, angel, angel
And slowly walk away, from me
 

jgg

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Apr 14, 2015
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Varies now
I won't say "illogical" but many of Leonard Cohen's songs are open to any number of interpretations.
What state of mind do you have to be in to listen to Cohen?

Edit* to appreciate.
 

licks2nite

Well-known member
Nov 30, 2006
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Walking after midnight - Patsy Cline

I walk for miles along the highway
Well, that's just my way
Of sayin' I love you, I'm always walkin'
After midnight, searchin' for you

So she is randomly walking along the highway looking for this guy? Like looking for the body? Looking for passing cars? And in the middle of the night? No wonder she later did the song "Crazy"
Here's another one for you.
If morning's echo says we've sinned
It was what I wanted now
And if we're victims of the night
I won't be blinded by the light
 
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