 Genius Lyrics
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The Shins – New Slang
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Off the Grammy Award winning soundtrack for the film Garden State, “New Slang” is arguably responsible for jump starting the popularity surrounding The Shins.
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The Shins – Sleeping Lessons
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The title of the album – and this song in particular – reference lead singer James Mercer’s crippling insomnia, as explained in Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and other sources.
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The Shins – Simple Song
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“Simple Song” is just another day at the office for The Shins' James Mercer. Backed by stadium-status guitar riffs, Mercer unspools a tale filled with complex emotions and lovelorn
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The Shins – Phantom Limb
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According to Mercer,
The song is a hypothetical, fictional account of a young, lesbian couple in high school dealing with the sh*tty small town they live in."
Mercer claims that
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The Shins – Gone for Good
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[Verse 1] / Untie me, I've said no vows / The train is getting way too loud / I gotta leave here my girl / Get on with my lonely life / Just leave the ring on the rail / For the
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The Shins – The Rifle's Spiral
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The first song on the Shin’s fourth album, Port of Morrow.
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The Shins – Caring Is Creepy
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Despite being a fan favorite, “Caring is Creepy” was never released as a single. Regardless, this song about a man realizing his relationship is broken to the point of no return
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The Shins – Girl Inform Me
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Though relatively under-covered in comparison to the rest of Oh, Inverted World, “Girl Inform Me” springs forward as one of The Shins' most relatable songs. The track had measly
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The Shins – Heartworms
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[Intro] / La-la-la-la-la / [Verse 1] / Well, I guess I’m just here to test your patience / ’Cause you’re so smart my tricks don’t work at all / Is it my lack of education? / Just
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The Shins – So Says I
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“So Says I” is the third track of The Shin’s second album. It was written by the band’s lead singer, James Mercer, and compares communism and capitalism as social models
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The Shins – Mildenhall
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[Verse 1] / At fifteen we had to leave the States again / Dad was stationed at an RAF base they called Mildenhall / Black moss on a busted wall / The cobblestones made it hard to
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The Shins – September
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Released on Valentine’s Day, the lead track of the B side to Port of Morrow is a ballad to Mercer’s wife Marisa Kula. The song reads like a poetic tribute to her patience and the
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The Shins – Australia
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“Australia” is a song by American Indie Rock band The Shins. The song was released as the second single via Sub Pop from their third studio album Wincing the Night Away in the UK
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The Shins – It's Only Life
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[Verse 1] / Dyed in the wool, you’ve been / Cornered by your natural desire / You wanna hop along with the giddy throng through life / But how will you learn to steer / When you’re
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The Shins – Turn on Me
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[Verse 1] / You can fake it for a while / Bite your tongue and smile / Like every mother does her ugly child / But it starts to leaking out / Like spittle from a cloud / Amassed
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The Shins – Name for You
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Name for You is the second song released in advance of The Shins’ 2017 album Heartworms.
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The Shins – Pink Bullets
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A deeply poetic and sad song about two lovers going their separate ways.
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The Shins – For A Fool
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The title for this song refers to the hook’s “taken for a fool”, but also tells us who the song is directed at: it’s a song ‘for a fool’.
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The Shins – No Way Down
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Track 6 from The Shins' 2012 album Port of Morrow, “No Way Down” marks the first time songwriter and vocalist James Mercer has focused directly on themes of political greed and
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The Shins – Sea Legs
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Of all the churning random hearts under the sun / Eventually fading into night / These two are opening now / As we lie, I touch you under fuller light / Girl if you're a seascape
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The Shins – Saint Simon
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A song about how much we don’t know and the questions that, according to Mercer, can’t be answered by science or religion. Mercer opts out to face the harsh winds of life admitting
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The Shins – Those to Come
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Last song (10th) on the Shins second album “Chutes Too Narrow”, 2003.
The song is about how inside the fine and good things lies the cancerous seeds of destruction. Death (or
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The Shins – Red Rabbits
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[Verse 1] / Hurled to the center of the Earth again / The place where it's hot, love, you know it hurts to breathe in / And the watershed you balance on is begging it / Well did he
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The Shins – The Fear
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[Verse 1] / The fear / I feel fear / Of all the stupid things / A man could feel / While his freedom ring / He squanders the deal / What am I, blind? / What took me this long
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The Shins – Young Pilgrims
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In keeping with Mercer’s theme of his discovery of our aloneness in the universe, it is easy to imagine a songwriter sitting in an apartment on a cold winter day, deep in a
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The Shins – Girl Sailor
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The gutter may profess its love / Then follow it with hesitation / But there are just so many of / You out there for rent / A stronger girl would shake this off in flight / And
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The Shins – Fall of '82
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Fall Of ‘82 is a song about a bout of depression that James Mercer suffered as a kid.
In his words: “When I was 11, we moved from Germany to New Mexico, resulting in long period
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The Shins – A Comet Appears
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One hand on this wily comet / Take a drink just to give me some weight / Some uber-man I'd make / I'm barely a vapor / They shone a chlorine light on / A host of individual sins
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The Shins – Mine's Not a High Horse
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Second track in The Shins album Chutes Too Narrow:
The track focuses on the rough start James Mercer had with The Shins and accompanying musicians.
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The Shins – Black Wave
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It is one of the darker songs from Wincing The Night Away (2007) (Track 8).
Expressing around the idea of removing self-pity despite a psychological hardship that he is facing.
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The Shins – Know Your Onion!
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“Know Your Onion!” is the fourth track on The Shin’s first full-length LP “Oh, Inverted World, and was used as the title track of their EP “Know Your Onion” the year after. It was
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Flake Music – The Shins
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Is it too near when they're nice? / Is that why there's sand in your eyes? / You should look up cause they're nothing at all / Blow me a kiss and I'll try / Wade through the mud
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The Shins – The Celibate Life
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Released as the seventh song on Oh, Inverted World, “The Celibate Life” tells the story of people unafraid to take advantage of their youthfulness. Writing in a Classic Album
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The Shins – Girl on the Wing
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One wound up punch of intuition / Lays flat my whole take on us / You're the girl on the wing of a barnstormer / The tidal rabbit who came of age before her time / Could've been so
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The Shins – Spilt Needles
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I've earned myself an impossible crime / I have to paint myself a hole and fall inside / And if it's far enough in sight and rhyme / I get to wear another dress and count in time
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The Shins – The Past and Pending
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This song is the closure for The Shins' debut album, Oh, Inverted World
It is a chord-driven song by acoustic guitars and minimalistic percussions.
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The Shins – 40 Mark Strasse
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James Mercer’s dad was in the Air Force and he lived in Germany when he was younger. “40 Mark Strasse” was a nickname for a two-lane highway (Bundesstrasse 40) that ran between
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The Shins – Rubber Ballz
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[Verse 1] / In a larval state / Drinking a minimum wage / I fell in with a girl so vastly superior / She wore Mardi Gras beads in her hair / [Chorus] / And I just can't get her out
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The Shins – Fantasy Island
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“Fantasy Island” uses flying to an imaginary island as a metaphor for running from your problems. Mercer sings of lost youth, and of a reluctance to burden his loved ones with his
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The Shins (Ft. Peter Bjorn and John) – Australia (Peter Bjorn and John Remix)
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[Verse 1] / Born to multiply / Born to gaze into night skies / All you want's one more Saturday / Well look here until then / They gonna buy your life's time / So keep your wick in
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The Shins – Port of Morrow
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Through the rain and all the clatter / Under the Fremont bridge I saw a pigeon fly / Fly in fear from the raptor come to take its life / And as it closed in for the capture
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The Shins – Cherry Hearts
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[Verse 1] / You're not wanting anybody wanting you / I get it, all is fair / But I've been biting all my cherry hearts in two / And you don't even care / [Pre-Chorus] / Won't you
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The Shins – When I Goose-Step
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When you're riding the rails with those wide open eyes / Well, there's one old south paw you will always fight / And alone on a worn-out throne / Is the reigning queen of a
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The Shins – Fighting in a Sack
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The Shins are known to question life in a way that can almost come off as adorably angst-y. “Fighting In A Sack” confronts human mortality, our varied responses to that knowledge
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