its amazing how far music can come.. 24 years after it released and its one of the most heartfelt songs ive heard
It feels in dreams
That everything is there for you
The city breathes and pulses
It's for you electron blue
I knew that you could see right through it
So this is where I give in to the machine
Lift up your voice feel gravity's pull
Drown out the siren's ring (or silent dream)
Oh
[Chorus]
It's all here where I keep it
It's all in the submarine
It's all a lot less frightening
Than you would have had it be
But that's the good news my darling
It is what it's going to be
So sing, sing for the submarine
I tried to explain how it all begins
How its all destroyed and built again
I knew that you could not believe me
But now you're here and it's different
How the light shines in your eyes
In every second or situ
It's then that I realized
That the world as we know it
The High speed train
We'll pick it all up and start again
[Chorus]
The city did not collapse in a shudder
The rain it never came
At least my confessions made you laugh
I know it's a little crazed
But these dreams,
They seem so real to me
[Chorus]
So this is where you trust me
And this where it begins
It's all a lot less frightening
Your tear you let it in
Tyrel and his mechanical owl
A moth disguised as a leaf
Don't tell me what tomorrow brings
Climb into the hidden machine and
Sing sing sing sing sing sing
Sing sing for the submarine
That everything is there for you
The city breathes and pulses
It's for you electron blue
I knew that you could see right through it
So this is where I give in to the machine
Lift up your voice feel gravity's pull
Drown out the siren's ring (or silent dream)
Oh
[Chorus]
It's all here where I keep it
It's all in the submarine
It's all a lot less frightening
Than you would have had it be
But that's the good news my darling
It is what it's going to be
So sing, sing for the submarine
I tried to explain how it all begins
How its all destroyed and built again
I knew that you could not believe me
But now you're here and it's different
How the light shines in your eyes
In every second or situ
It's then that I realized
That the world as we know it
The High speed train
We'll pick it all up and start again
[Chorus]
The city did not collapse in a shudder
The rain it never came
At least my confessions made you laugh
I know it's a little crazed
But these dreams,
They seem so real to me
[Chorus]
So this is where you trust me
And this where it begins
It's all a lot less frightening
Your tear you let it in
Tyrel and his mechanical owl
A moth disguised as a leaf
Don't tell me what tomorrow brings
Climb into the hidden machine and
Sing sing sing sing sing sing
Sing sing for the submarine
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Like a lot of the other comments are saying, I think this mainly about voyeurism. If the song was about his girlfriend, then why would he use the word spy. If you are a spy it means you shouldn't be caught, that is kind of the whole point, and if you are a voyeur, the whole point of the pleasure you get from it, is the fact that the other people don't know you are watching them. See a bit of a connection there?
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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.
Cajun Girl
Little Feat
Little Feat
Overall about difficult moments of disappointment and vulnerability. Having hope and longing, while remaining optimistic for the future. Encourages the belief that with each new morning there is a chance for things to improve.
The chorus offers a glimmer of optimism and a chance at a resolution and redemption in the future.
Captures the rollercoaster of emotions of feeling lost while loving someone who is not there for you, feeling let down and abandoned while waiting for a lover. Lost with no direction, "Now I'm up in the air with the rain in my hair, Nowhere to go, I can go anywhere"
The bridge shows signs of longing and a plea for companionship. The Lyrics express a desire for authentic connection and the importance of Loving someone just as they are. "Just in passing, I'm not asking. That you be anyone but you”
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
In an interview with Pitchfork, Michael Stipe explained the meaning of the song:
"That's where "Feeling Gravity's Pull" came from. That's where "Electron Blue" came from-- electron blue being a drug that's made out of light. "Sing for the Submarine" is about a guy who in fact has gone so deep into this almost neurotic state that he's imagined a way to escape from the city with his loved one in the event of some cataclysmic...event. And that escape route is by way of a submarine that is fueled by melody. And that creates the template for the song."
pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6813-rem/
The song explains the cover art of the album (it's about a dystopia world following the end of civilization) and in a way sums of the direction of R.E.M. throughout their course. The song also references many R.E.M. songs, including Electron Blue, Feeling Gravity's Pull, High Speed Train, and It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). If this is the end of R.E.M., it is an appropriate finish.
I think this could somehow be about the media using scare tactics to gain power over the masses, but we shouldn't be as scared as they'd like us to be. I'm not sure where the submarine comes into it though.
Stipe made a good and cryptic (as he would) description about what made him write this song in an interview on MOG (it is to be found on youtube). Such a great, haunting song. Love it.
I like the references on this song, and I hope its not the end of R.E.M.
This song obviously owes a great deal to William Butler Yeats' "Byzantium":
That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The reference to the Tyrell's mechanical owl ([i]Bladerunner[/i]) tipped me off.
It is also a cut-up of lines from previous R.E.M. songs, obviously.
I think the overall point here is a call to the creation of (subversive?) art as a means of beating mortality. Hence, lines like "Give into the machine" I take as being the opposite of a "deus ex machina" -- you're letting go of your own ego as little-god artist and letting your work take on a life all its own without you getting in the way. After all, in a best case scenario, it will far outlive you. Maybe far outlive us all!
I also suspect, then, that the "submarine" might well be the subconscious mind as a creative source to draw from.
In any case, the allusions to the Yeats are very strong, and I suspect the sense of that poem has a lot to do with the sense of this song. Sing, sing, against the dying of the light!
Comeback album of the year and my favorite song on the album, that bass kicks ass
I'm interested to know how many lines are references to REM songs... Hope someone can spot more than me!
It feels in dreams
It's fuel electron blue
Lift up your voice feel gravity's pull
I tried to explain how it all begins
How its all destroyed and built again
That the world as we know it
The High speed train
The rain it never came
But these dreams...
@phip9000 kinda delayed response... But the lines "at least my confessions made you laugh" and "how the light shines in your eyes" seem like a reference to Losing My Religion.
a retrospective look back on their career through song titles?
i still don't really get the 'submarine' bit. maybe it is the subconsious mind. our inner thoughts and fears?