![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
verbal gymnastics wrote:bronxapostle wrote:Like that group of people that hear BOWIE on the single word "confessed" on this same track.You can count me in on that group as well!Top balcony wrote:However I do confess I hear Bowie intonations....
Colin Top Balcony
All true, but as always in an Elvis lyric, life's never quite as black-and-white as it's portrayed. Nobody comes out of it well. The line that really wrenches my gut is the female protagonist's 'oh, you know, I wouldn't mind'.Stuart Gardner wrote:Poor desperate Jimmy is so skilled at pretending to care about the women he wants to lay that "He asked her boyfriend's name, then her whole family tree," and, as usual, he gets what he thinks he wants. But it's another hollow, unsatisfactory win.
Keep telling the women you leave in your wake that you don't get a record if you never get caught, Jimmy. You've been telling yourself that for so long that sometimes you almost believe it, but in the pit of your gut you know that you were convicted long ago.
Keep chasing skirts and hiding your misdeeds, but listen closely at 5:26, because that's fate laughing at you.
Absolutely. And as always with Elvis, he's throwing so much more into the mix, including genuinely funny stuff. The 'dick/dictate' gag is always a winner, of course, and Elvis underlines it here by having him 'passed that pill' before he can perform. Richard Thompson uses it brilliantly in 'Why Must I Plead' with the line 'you've been sitting in his lap, and taking his dic-tation'.stricttime81 wrote:I agree it's not a black and white song, and at least makes some attempt to understand what drives men to behave the way Jimmy does. Older men, facing mortality ("the clock on the wall tick tocks the time away"; "Allow me to just dictate my dying will") often react by seeking comfort in younger women, using money/power/fame to get women who otherwise wouldn't give them a second look. And women, for their own reasons, sometimes go along ("He's Given Me Things"). It's no coincidence those two songs start and end the album.
The pictures in the CD booklet are really interesting. But way too small for my (getting) old eyes. Probably look better on the vinyl version?Poor Deportee wrote:Did you notice the drawing in the liner notes of 'Jimmie transfigured' - into EC?![]()
What is that old admonition to young writers, PD? Oh yes! 'Write what one knows.' In this instance I hope not. When I ventured a possible interpretation of this song's predecessor all those years ago all hell broke loose. I do hope he is capable of a nod to conjecture and a wink at self-knowledge. I, too, was struck by that photo in the cd booklet. Immediately thought good on him to stir the pot.........Poor Deportee wrote:Did you notice the drawing in the liner notes of 'Jimmie transfigured' - into EC?![]()
This seems to a sardonic reference to Bob Dylan's preposterous claim to Rolling Stone that he was the 'transfiguration' of an old Hell's Angel called Bobby Zimmerman.
It may also be a tacit admission that EC has been more like Jimmie than he'd explicitly admit. But hopefully it's merely a sly wink at Dylan's silliness.
Bad song?Man out of Time wrote:Song of the Week in Die Presse in Vienna. This article by Thomas Kramar published on 14 October 2018 explains why:
(...)
"That's how the" limelight ", the limelight, to chalk, under which hopes suffocate. Bad song.
MOOT
Leave it to EC to do something like that. The drawing is simultaneously an obscure in-joke in its Dylan reference (i.e., an Easter egg for music nerds), witty in both the reference and in the more direct implication that there is a link between author and character, and deeply disturbing in the possibility of its being an implied confession. After all, Jimmie is basically a rapist. Yikes.Jack of All Parades wrote:What is that old admonition to young writers, PD? Oh yes! 'Write what one knows.' In this instance I hope not. When I ventured a possible interpretation of this song's predecessor all those years ago all hell broke loose. I do hope he is capable of a nod to conjecture and a wink at self-knowledge. I, too, was struck by that photo in the cd booklet. Immediately thought good on him to stir the pot.........Poor Deportee wrote:Did you notice the drawing in the liner notes of 'Jimmie transfigured' - into EC?![]()
This seems to a sardonic reference to Bob Dylan's preposterous claim to Rolling Stone that he was the 'transfiguration' of an old Hell's Angel called Bobby Zimmerman.
It may also be a tacit admission that EC has been more like Jimmie than he'd explicitly admit. But hopefully it's merely a sly wink at Dylan's silliness.
The German word "böse" would be best translated in this context as "wicked" or "vicious".sweetest punch wrote:Bad song?Man out of Time wrote:Song of the Week in Die Presse in Vienna. This article by Thomas Kramar published on 14 October 2018 explains why:
(...)
"That's how the" limelight ", the limelight, to chalk, under which hopes suffocate. Bad song.
MOOT
Better translation is “angry song”.
Thanks to both Taramasalata and Sweetest Punch for pointing out the limitations of Google Translate in rendering German into English. Whenever I post Google Translate versions of articles in languages other than English, I always put "English" in inverted commas, to signal its limitations. In English slang, oddly, both "bad" and "wicked" can also mean "good" - cf Michael Jackson's song and album titled "Bad".taramasalata wrote:The German word "böse" would be best translated in this context as "wicked" or "vicious".sweetest punch wrote:Bad song?Man out of Time wrote:Song of the Week in Die Presse in Vienna. This article by Thomas Kramar published on 14 October 2018 explains why:
(...)
"That's how the" limelight ", the limelight, to chalk, under which hopes suffocate. Bad song.
MOOT
Better translation is “angry song”.
So that would mean "Under lime" being a "Wicked song".