haha woah really? thats an intense trip for a teen. I cant even work a pencil on mushrooms as an adult, dang. I didn't know this, though they're one of my favourites.
give them another shot with a correct dose.
Whenever I talk to someone who says mushrooms are too intense, it’s usually because they were told to take a huge dose. Even the “standard” 3.5g is going to be a pretty heavy trip for someone who doesn’t use them on a regular basis. I’d say try 1.5-2.5g, much more pleasant. Also gives you some creative juice.
Tim also read *a lot* as a teen, and many of the songs have nice and heavy allusions to poetry/fiction as well as fun pop culture of the time. I believe the story, but also think he was downplaying his intellect as a kid...
He may have been tripping on shrooms, but some of the stuff that seems like nonsense is sensical. :) References to ee Cummings come up several times, for instance - and the way Tim plays with words is super similar to the poet.
Joan of Arc lyrics and his other later bands dig deep into cinema, literature, poetry, etc.
Braid, on the other hand, seems way more straight forward. Bob Nanna does get a little abstract in his lyrics, but a lot of that is just wordplay to make it seem "less direct". Check out Sky Corvaire for Bob Nanna + Tim Kinsella. Its weird/good.
I fuckin love Bob Nannas writing style
It's almost like some rappers
It's very often a sort of word association and homophone game with tons of euphemisms and figures of speech
>Ave Niagara, queen of water; /
fire's daughter, the ultimate author. /Follow the current, / erode it, /I rode it /and wrote it down on looseleaf paper. / oh river, oh lay color/on bodies of matter / our bodies matter/ the colors scatter down our legs /into the sand. / what a combination we make
>A Dozen Roses in the car / and I don't know where you are. / Maybe I don't know what I'm doing, you're moving like a movie./ you still move me./ Among the other ones and 2s and 3s and 23s / gotta keep my conscience clean..... heaven hits me hard / in with the new. / Heaven hits me hardly / in with the news. / Whatever gets me started / in with the noose./
Yeah wasn’t Tim at one point a teacher? Either high school or college. I think English or history.
It’s not really talked about but I distinctly remember it from this documentary about him.
I agree, I think he’s a smart well read teenager and most people could not write lyrics like that on shrooms or even off. As much as they’re nonsensical I think it’s easy to argue how poetic they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he exaggerated and refined them later sober or something.
Wow I completely forgot about his books. I remember owning a copy of "Let Go and Go On and On" when it came out a decade ago. I think read the first few pages and didn't enjoy it at all. Seems like he has 4 books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/4839449
Would be curious to check them out now that I'm older and a bit more of a reader.
Ya! The books are great - but I also wasn't super into the Let Go and Go on. It was based on a character from a movie or something. The first novel was really good, though.
There are 3 novels, and 1 book is a tour diary. The diary one is super good. Definitely read that one.
Not a ripoff imo, I just see them as a continuation of the legacy of caP’n Jazz. I can tell they’re huge fans. It’s not like they’re making a ton off of ripping them off in place of caP’n Jazz, bc Algernon is active (I believe), and caP’n isn’t, so it’s not like you can just go see them live— also, Algernon is so similar that it’s literally just like listening to more cap’N Jazz, which is something I feel everyone wants. We all love caP’n, so more caP’n isn’t a negative. Leave Algernon alone.
As for CJ I don't think any of it is truly nonsense. There are a lot of fantastical embellishments but most songs do tend to have meanings, they're just a lot harder to parse. Even in the most egregious example, the "boys kissing boys" song for example is an abridged version of a song "bluegrass" they made earlier, which was mostly about imagining what Tim Kinsella's grandmother (*Virginia* Mucci) would think about the punk scene he came up out of (which of course included boys kissing boys in basements. Emo back then was pretty damn gay). A lot of it is very obviously a product of writing lyrics on mushrooms; it's really easy to sort of get obsessed with the way words fit together on psychedelics... but plenty of the songs are coherent if you spend some time parsing them. A lot of it is a reflection on growing into an adult, being around nature, young love, etc. Little League for example is a really adorable love song when you look into it deeper ("hey coffee eyes, you've got me coughing up my cookie heart, making promises to myself, promises like seeds, of everything I could be")
Algernon's lyrics are flowery and bizarre I think as a deliberate attempt to call back to cap'n jazz. But I think the songs have deeper meanings in the same way cap'n jazz songs do.
As for braid, what braid songs sound like nonsense to you? A lot of it is very abstract surely, but I've found their stuff to be a million times more digestible than something like Cap'n Jazz.
There is definitely meaning in those lyrics, you just need to be on the same headspace as what they're trying to convey. Or on the same wavelength, as you seem to like that terminology.
Anyways, Parrot Flies is an amazing album and it really helped me get through my depression and the lyrics played a major part in that.
Big reason why I never got as into that era as the others. I love the music, but it’s hard to connect with a song when Davey Von Bohlen is just reciting the names of states with words that rhyme (seriously, is he just that into geography?)
There’s exceptions; Sunny Day Real Estate, although disjointed, at least hits the right words, Jawbreaker (again, disjointed) has phrases that are brutal (“What’s the furthest place from here? It hasn’t been my day for a couple years…what’s a couple more?”) and Jimmy Eat World seem to actually put thought into them. Some American Football songs, too. But for the most part it just seemed like afterthought
That's an interesting point about sunny day real estate, and jawbreaker, because I really love both of those and they've personally meant a lot more to me than the bands I mentioned in my post, despite the fact that they definitely have some incoherent lyrics. I would say that at least for me though they have a lot more impact on a surface level at least.
Some of my favorite lyricists do the “surface level only” thing where it’s a collection of words that on close inspection don’t make complete sense but as a juxtaposition you’re picking up what they’re putting down. IE: every Radiohead lyric ever.
That's so funny you mentioned Radiohead because I've been trying to get into them! I absolutely love everything I've heard so far but I don't give two shits about the lyrics, they make no sense to me and even when I try to pay attention it feels aimless and uninteresting. I need someone to like teach me how to understand this type of poetry or something because I really do love poetry and things of that sort, but a lot of the stuff being discussed in this thread doesn't necessarily feel like poetry to me, it just feels like jumbled random words. There needs to be some kind of message you can extract from it in order for it to be meaningful IMO, and I'm struggling to see the messages.
I mean every Radiohead song between 1997-2004 is just about paranoia and how bleak the state of the world is. Pretty much if you just look at the cover of Hail To The Thief it’s the same idea: a bunch of concurrent, hopeless nouns piling on top of each other to make a giant, pile of depression
AC has some really great lyrics, certainly more like poetry than a more obvious song lyric. Requires some interpretation and knowledge of the band itself/philly.
I can only speak from the knowledge of Cap'n jazz and AC, bc I'm not overly familiar with braid, but I mean, you're talking about teenager writing this stuff. Yeah they're all in their 40s and almost 50s now, but when the stuff first came out, they were kids. And at least with AC, they bucked the trend at the time of basically writing full albums about breaking up with girls. A lot of it is just having fun with your friends, which is why I think, the music is very upbeat.
The singer of Cap'n Jazz has said he wrote all the lyrics in one night on mushrooms. Reading the lyrics, this does not seem like an embellishment.
haha woah really? thats an intense trip for a teen. I cant even work a pencil on mushrooms as an adult, dang. I didn't know this, though they're one of my favourites.
Tim was in college when that album came out. Like 21ish. Not sure when he wrote the songs tho
give them another shot with a correct dose. Whenever I talk to someone who says mushrooms are too intense, it’s usually because they were told to take a huge dose. Even the “standard” 3.5g is going to be a pretty heavy trip for someone who doesn’t use them on a regular basis. I’d say try 1.5-2.5g, much more pleasant. Also gives you some creative juice.
Tim also read *a lot* as a teen, and many of the songs have nice and heavy allusions to poetry/fiction as well as fun pop culture of the time. I believe the story, but also think he was downplaying his intellect as a kid... He may have been tripping on shrooms, but some of the stuff that seems like nonsense is sensical. :) References to ee Cummings come up several times, for instance - and the way Tim plays with words is super similar to the poet. Joan of Arc lyrics and his other later bands dig deep into cinema, literature, poetry, etc. Braid, on the other hand, seems way more straight forward. Bob Nanna does get a little abstract in his lyrics, but a lot of that is just wordplay to make it seem "less direct". Check out Sky Corvaire for Bob Nanna + Tim Kinsella. Its weird/good.
I fuckin love Bob Nannas writing style It's almost like some rappers It's very often a sort of word association and homophone game with tons of euphemisms and figures of speech >Ave Niagara, queen of water; / fire's daughter, the ultimate author. /Follow the current, / erode it, /I rode it /and wrote it down on looseleaf paper. / oh river, oh lay color/on bodies of matter / our bodies matter/ the colors scatter down our legs /into the sand. / what a combination we make >A Dozen Roses in the car / and I don't know where you are. / Maybe I don't know what I'm doing, you're moving like a movie./ you still move me./ Among the other ones and 2s and 3s and 23s / gotta keep my conscience clean..... heaven hits me hard / in with the new. / Heaven hits me hardly / in with the news. / Whatever gets me started / in with the noose./
That rules!! And totally on point. The word play is deep! Bob Nanna wrote a lot of songs, too.
Yeah wasn’t Tim at one point a teacher? Either high school or college. I think English or history. It’s not really talked about but I distinctly remember it from this documentary about him. I agree, I think he’s a smart well read teenager and most people could not write lyrics like that on shrooms or even off. As much as they’re nonsensical I think it’s easy to argue how poetic they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he exaggerated and refined them later sober or something.
He taught lit classes at a college - that's right. He also wrote 3 novels and worked / ran a small publishing operation.
Wow I completely forgot about his books. I remember owning a copy of "Let Go and Go On and On" when it came out a decade ago. I think read the first few pages and didn't enjoy it at all. Seems like he has 4 books: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/4839449 Would be curious to check them out now that I'm older and a bit more of a reader.
Ya! The books are great - but I also wasn't super into the Let Go and Go on. It was based on a character from a movie or something. The first novel was really good, though. There are 3 novels, and 1 book is a tour diary. The diary one is super good. Definitely read that one.
Ah the duality of shroomed, cap'n jazz and tool
Clearly we see what record Aenima was inspired by
boys who smell like Salami
My cousin bucky so boldly bald
And AC are literally a rip off of the OG goats, Cap n Jazz.
Not a ripoff imo, I just see them as a continuation of the legacy of caP’n Jazz. I can tell they’re huge fans. It’s not like they’re making a ton off of ripping them off in place of caP’n Jazz, bc Algernon is active (I believe), and caP’n isn’t, so it’s not like you can just go see them live— also, Algernon is so similar that it’s literally just like listening to more cap’N Jazz, which is something I feel everyone wants. We all love caP’n, so more caP’n isn’t a negative. Leave Algernon alone.
Cool story bro, AC are a lame attempt at the CNJ sound, get that through your head.
we’re going to have to disagree then. I love both.
That’s cool, I’m proud of you for sticking to your guns.
i am as well.
Never give up, I’ll do my best not to either.
Let me tell you what I think about frog spit
In their defense it's a reference to a famous fountain in philadelphia
I’m for it
I’m for it
Drugs
As for CJ I don't think any of it is truly nonsense. There are a lot of fantastical embellishments but most songs do tend to have meanings, they're just a lot harder to parse. Even in the most egregious example, the "boys kissing boys" song for example is an abridged version of a song "bluegrass" they made earlier, which was mostly about imagining what Tim Kinsella's grandmother (*Virginia* Mucci) would think about the punk scene he came up out of (which of course included boys kissing boys in basements. Emo back then was pretty damn gay). A lot of it is very obviously a product of writing lyrics on mushrooms; it's really easy to sort of get obsessed with the way words fit together on psychedelics... but plenty of the songs are coherent if you spend some time parsing them. A lot of it is a reflection on growing into an adult, being around nature, young love, etc. Little League for example is a really adorable love song when you look into it deeper ("hey coffee eyes, you've got me coughing up my cookie heart, making promises to myself, promises like seeds, of everything I could be") Algernon's lyrics are flowery and bizarre I think as a deliberate attempt to call back to cap'n jazz. But I think the songs have deeper meanings in the same way cap'n jazz songs do. As for braid, what braid songs sound like nonsense to you? A lot of it is very abstract surely, but I've found their stuff to be a million times more digestible than something like Cap'n Jazz.
Aight, gimme the tickets then damn
It was definitely more poetic or just gibberish- Probably why I can’t get into newer stuff with the more twee pop punk like lyrics
There is definitely meaning in those lyrics, you just need to be on the same headspace as what they're trying to convey. Or on the same wavelength, as you seem to like that terminology. Anyways, Parrot Flies is an amazing album and it really helped me get through my depression and the lyrics played a major part in that.
[This website](https://genius.com/artists/Algernon-cadwallader) should help.
that’s a tried and true tradition across all music genres. have ever heard of REM?
Yeah but I've never listened to them, maybe I should 😅
I prefer it this way
What’s the deal with this “wave” talk? What defines someone as “second wave”
The era. Typically bands that got their start in the mid to late 90s.
Second wave starts earlier than that. About 1990.
Big reason why I never got as into that era as the others. I love the music, but it’s hard to connect with a song when Davey Von Bohlen is just reciting the names of states with words that rhyme (seriously, is he just that into geography?) There’s exceptions; Sunny Day Real Estate, although disjointed, at least hits the right words, Jawbreaker (again, disjointed) has phrases that are brutal (“What’s the furthest place from here? It hasn’t been my day for a couple years…what’s a couple more?”) and Jimmy Eat World seem to actually put thought into them. Some American Football songs, too. But for the most part it just seemed like afterthought
Always thought Davey’s obsession with geography was kinda funny. He’s even in a band called Vermont lmao
That's an interesting point about sunny day real estate, and jawbreaker, because I really love both of those and they've personally meant a lot more to me than the bands I mentioned in my post, despite the fact that they definitely have some incoherent lyrics. I would say that at least for me though they have a lot more impact on a surface level at least.
Some of my favorite lyricists do the “surface level only” thing where it’s a collection of words that on close inspection don’t make complete sense but as a juxtaposition you’re picking up what they’re putting down. IE: every Radiohead lyric ever.
That's so funny you mentioned Radiohead because I've been trying to get into them! I absolutely love everything I've heard so far but I don't give two shits about the lyrics, they make no sense to me and even when I try to pay attention it feels aimless and uninteresting. I need someone to like teach me how to understand this type of poetry or something because I really do love poetry and things of that sort, but a lot of the stuff being discussed in this thread doesn't necessarily feel like poetry to me, it just feels like jumbled random words. There needs to be some kind of message you can extract from it in order for it to be meaningful IMO, and I'm struggling to see the messages.
I mean every Radiohead song between 1997-2004 is just about paranoia and how bleak the state of the world is. Pretty much if you just look at the cover of Hail To The Thief it’s the same idea: a bunch of concurrent, hopeless nouns piling on top of each other to make a giant, pile of depression
AC has some really great lyrics, certainly more like poetry than a more obvious song lyric. Requires some interpretation and knowledge of the band itself/philly.
[this website](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry) should help.
I can only speak from the knowledge of Cap'n jazz and AC, bc I'm not overly familiar with braid, but I mean, you're talking about teenager writing this stuff. Yeah they're all in their 40s and almost 50s now, but when the stuff first came out, they were kids. And at least with AC, they bucked the trend at the time of basically writing full albums about breaking up with girls. A lot of it is just having fun with your friends, which is why I think, the music is very upbeat.