Well, in my opinion this song is about being a young & maybe a little naive &/or introverted girl and finding yourself loving a man who is at first very charming, carefree & outgoing, and seems at first to be without limits, as in
"There was a time
you opened up every doorway
you didn't mind if everything
wasn't your way"
then that man starts to gradually become more introverted & shows their more possessive/obsessive side to you as the relationship progresses, even while they keep up the appearance of being carefree & outgoing to everyone else,
"Don't pull away
that goes against what you told me
I look in your eyes
I realize what you've sold me
is love in a vacuum"
so you confront them about the way they're acting and of course they deny it,
"I think you've changed
but you insist that
that's not true"
quite possibly they are an addict of some sort, my guess would be cocaine, &/or showing very obsessive behavior towards you (early on in the video for this song we see the man hanging a picture up, it is a very large portrait of Aimee & it is prominently displayed in his/their apartment for the duration of the song), thus their "love in a vacuum",
"You look so strange, so distant
that you're hardly you
Now I can see
how you have been acting different
You say it's me
but I know
that it isn't
it's love in a vacuum"
but still you are in love with them and don't want to leave them and you know that they are truly in love with you and they don't want you to leave them either, maybe they are convinced you can save them from themself, maybe they are so broken that the possibility of an overdose &/or suicide attempt is very real and you want to get through to them that their behavior not only dangerous but it is also just pissing you off and if they don't wise up they run the risk of loosing you, as in the lines
"You will be lonely
if you leave me alone", so you want to save them but can't get through to them due to the addiction &/or emotional problems they have,
"Love in a vacuum
and that's not enough
love in a vacuum
You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
You will be lonely
if you leave me alone
You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
it's just not enough"
you want them to understand that the love they are giving you is not enough when it is filtered through the vacuum of their drug addiction &/or emotional impairment,
"You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
it's just not enough
and just wait
you will be lonely
Love in a vacuum
Love in a vacuum
and that's not enough
Love in a vacuum".
'Love In A Vacuum' for me is a hauntingly truthful acute argument on the loneliness of obsession and almost inevitable loss of love that follows people who are broken in some way or another; the obsessives, the coke heads, the drunks, addicts or the just-plain-old emotionally broken; a razor sharp, lyrically driven, deceptively poppy, yet ultimately-depressing-in-the-best-way song.
Quintessential Aimee Mann.
mission control to brain police
free love, key energy
penetration (destroys the party)
violation (of a cosmic body)
do you under (stand the problem)
anti-war (is anti-orgasm)
smash the war hypocrisy
mission control key anarchy
liberation (not your sex slave)
domination (will you behave)
see how we be (lieve in nothing)
anti-god (is anti-orgasm)
free love, key energy
penetration (destroys the party)
violation (of a cosmic body)
do you under (stand the problem)
anti-war (is anti-orgasm)
smash the war hypocrisy
mission control key anarchy
liberation (not your sex slave)
domination (will you behave)
see how we be (lieve in nothing)
anti-god (is anti-orgasm)
Lyrics submitted by meg;
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
![Album art](../../../images/art-default.png)
Love in a Vacuum
'Til Tuesday
'Til Tuesday
![Album art](../../../images/art-default.png)
Siberian Kiss
Glassjaw
Glassjaw
its amazing how far music can come.. 24 years after it released and its one of the most heartfelt songs ive heard
![Album art](../../../images/art-default.png)
Corpse I Fell In Love With
Gadjits, The
Gadjits, The
He reuses the verse melody from the previous album's "Dirty Little Religion", the topics of the verses are all over the place, and he packs too many words into one line (goes to show...) and too few in another (it's pretty hard to find), and rhymes "Henley Regatta" with "Persona non grata", but gets away with it all as only he could.
![Album art](../../../images/art-default.png)
Battle Royale
Word Alive, The
Word Alive, The
This song is def a twin to "Unfair" (a song she has been quoted as saying is about falling in love with someone who is already in a relationship) so it is presumably about the same person. Given the references to buying an apartment and not being able to see her love interest "after tonight," it's most likely that she's moving away and she'll "wait a day to break the bad news" (i.e. notifying him that she's leaving once she's already gone).
And, of course, the fact that she sees in him a fellow "idealist" and "dreamer" (terms commonly given to people with the INFP personality on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)) portends that she'll always be left wondering if they would've been perfect together.
![Album art](../../../images/art-default.png)
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
gothamist.com/2009/06/24/thurston_moore_musician.php
In this interview Thurston talks about how he was inspired by a German film called Eight Miles High. To quote the article:
German title is The Wild Life, and it's a biopic about this woman Uschi Obermaier. She was a young fashion model in Germany in the '60s, and she sort of ran away to a commune in Berlin that was called Kommune 1, where all these radical hippie commune dwellers walk around nude. It was a big sensation among young people in Germany at that time about this woman coming out of the fashion world and joining forces with this anti-authoritarian, anti-consumerist faction.
And one of the scenes of the movie is her in bed with her hippie lover and one of the other radicals is in bed with another woman–everybody sort of sleeps together–and he's not able to get it up. Her boyfriend says, "You know what his problem is: he's anti-orgasm." And I thought that was amusing, the politicizing of any sort of fear or repression in one's life, even though they think they're so liberated. So yeah, anti-war. Or "Anti-god is anti-orgasm" is the other line in the song. There are people applying that kind of feeling of arousal to conflict. People lust for war as well as lust for religion and the salvation that it promises.
the key energy of free love is enveloped with chaos. the erotic is not always soft and pleasant — sometimes it’s an arena of pain and anarchy. That chaos is essential for having a wholistic experience. once again sonic youth is full of remarkably astute observations.
by the way, rock on feminism; this is one of the eternal's best songs.
is kim femminist? this woulnd't be the only song she sings which gives me that idea; another being swimsuit issue. interesting...
Kim Gordon is most definitely a feminist and plenty of songs she sings on allude to this. But she is not one of the "Men are the devil" kinda of feminists.
@FenderPrecision She possibly can have some feminism traits and beliefs, however I highly doubt shes the kind of woman that thinks a woman get multible abortions like its a hobby. As well As she\'s not going around thinking about how a bunch of women should be castrating men !
I think it's supposed to be ironic. I can't image Sonic Youth taking side with pro-war views.. It's about how war is basically drived out of men's selfish desire. How they justify violance by putting blame on the enemy, just like what's going on in Iraq and Pakistan right now. Having orgasm is often linked with the expression 'to die', being out of control, which is what exactly a war is.
A little on the obscene side lyrically...the instrumental version "No Garage" doesn't have that, but then it also doesn't have any of that nice noize at the end, which is rather blissful. (You can download a free mp3 of "No Garage" and others at freewebs.com/sonikyouth/epsingles.htm. scroll down 'til you find it. I think No Garage was also a bonus track on Japanese imports of The Eternal.)
Yes, yes, yes! Hell yes! Saying being anti-war is anti-orgasm makes so much sense. We need violence like we need sex. It's human nature and goes together.