When I sit down with my sole intent being to enjoy some tunage, I find that different things about the music appeal to me at different times. Right now, I’m kinda in a phase where all I really care about is the lyrics. So anyways, there’s this band that I’m pretty into called Cloud Cult. They pretty much dominated my music time last night and on the drive to work today. This dude is a lyricist straight from Bomb.com. I’m serious, it’s sick. The CD I was imbibing was called The Meaning of 8. He released this CD on what would have been the 8th birthday of his son who passed away at a much younger age. So there are a ton of references to his son throughout the CD although none of the songs are explicitly about his son. That in and of itself is pretty cool. But I feel like I just need to share some of the lyrics from his songs so you can get an idea of what I’m so impressed by with this dude (also note though that a lot of what makes simple lyrics amazing is the emotion put behind them by the singer. if you’re into music that’s a little less mainstream, check this crap out.):
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Chemicals Collide - “I was sleeping in the lilies, or was I up all night? These days it’s hard to tell what’s half asleep from fully alive. We were loving like a landslide, or were we in a fight? These days it’s hard to tell what’s right from wrong and wrong from right.”
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Pretty Voice - “Strike up the band. Here comes the storyline about the usual struggle between fear and love. This is the lifelong song that we’re all singing.” (I love this one. Tight way to start out a song.)
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Brain Gateway - “Meet me in the place where life comes to get away…” (I’m not even a hundred percent sure what it means until I am listening to it and then it somehow connects.)
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Take Your Medicine - “You can take it in stride, or you can take it right between the eyes. Suck up, suck up and take your medicine. It’s a good day, it’s a good day to face the hard things.” (Always a good day to face the hard things…)
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Your 8th Birthday - “Who could change my sleepy brain into the eye of a hurricane? …Kaidin.” (This is the one song where he blatantly writes it about his son. This whole song is tight. He asks so many questions and the answer is always his son Kaidin. Then this is the last line of the song.)
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Purpose - “There must be forgiveness here, cuz most of us have our weaknesses. I don’t know myself, and I’m afraid of you. I’m happiest on chemicals. The goings come and the comings go. Forgive me I’m just an animal.” (This song shows what I really like about this guy’s music. He’s OBVIOUSLY messed up in a major way. But as crazy and wild as he is, he knows that there’s some bigger purpose to life and something more than what he is currently living. And you can just hear it in his lyrics and feel it in his voice. He wants to know.)
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Thanks - “It’s Halloween, and the smell of burning pumpkin takes me back through all the people I have dressed up as to tell myself I have a pretty soul.”
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The Deaf Girl’s Song - “Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who sang a silent song? Although it’s totally quiet, you can’t help but hum along. Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who wrote the silent CD? Although there’s nothing to hear, I swear that there are things to be seen…Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one whose song’s gone number one? Three minutes of silence on the radio is the best damn gift for everyone. Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who made everything clear? If we could just shut up for a second, my darling, my dear, we might actually hear.” (OH MY FREAK this is a tight song.)
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Well, that got a little longer than I had thought it would. I guess I’ll go ahead and end this post right…
Chemicals Collide - “I was sleeping in the lilies, or was I up all night? These days it’s hard to tell what’s half asleep from fully alive. We were loving like a landslide, or were we in a fight? These days it’s hard to tell what’s right from wrong and wrong from right.”
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Pretty Voice - “Strike up the band. Here comes the storyline about the usual struggle between fear and love. This is the lifelong song that we’re all singing.” (I love this one. Tight way to start out a song.)
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Brain Gateway - “Meet me in the place where life comes to get away…” (I’m not even a hundred percent sure what it means until I am listening to it and then it somehow connects.)
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Take Your Medicine - “You can take it in stride, or you can take it right between the eyes. Suck up, suck up and take your medicine. It’s a good day, it’s a good day to face the hard things.” (Always a good day to face the hard things…)
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Your 8th Birthday - “Who could change my sleepy brain into the eye of a hurricane? …Kaidin.” (This is the one song where he blatantly writes it about his son. This whole song is tight. He asks so many questions and the answer is always his son Kaidin. Then this is the last line of the song.)
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Purpose - “There must be forgiveness here, cuz most of us have our weaknesses. I don’t know myself, and I’m afraid of you. I’m happiest on chemicals. The goings come and the comings go. Forgive me I’m just an animal.” (This song shows what I really like about this guy’s music. He’s OBVIOUSLY messed up in a major way. But as crazy and wild as he is, he knows that there’s some bigger purpose to life and something more than what he is currently living. And you can just hear it in his lyrics and feel it in his voice. He wants to know.)
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Thanks - “It’s Halloween, and the smell of burning pumpkin takes me back through all the people I have dressed up as to tell myself I have a pretty soul.”
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The Deaf Girl’s Song - “Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who sang a silent song? Although it’s totally quiet, you can’t help but hum along. Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who wrote the silent CD? Although there’s nothing to hear, I swear that there are things to be seen…Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one whose song’s gone number one? Three minutes of silence on the radio is the best damn gift for everyone. Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who made everything clear? If we could just shut up for a second, my darling, my dear, we might actually hear.” (OH MY FREAK this is a tight song.)
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Well, that got a little longer than I had thought it would. I guess I’ll go ahead and end this post right…
Cloud cult is great. I had never noticed the deep meaning in those songs, nor had i understood the story about his son that underlies the whole album. These are the only lines that stuck out to me, although they are not from The Meaning of 8:
ReplyDelete"And for a moment I saw God And it was so effing precious"
"I'm done with all that poop that brings me down"