mewithoutYou Band • Page 40

they're not necessarily bad as in like poorly written or anything, i don't like that it seems like male entitlement to someone the narrator isn't with anymore. and i know that a lot of the lyrics on that album are about his abusive ex, but i went a long time listening to it without that context and so even knowing that now it doesn't dispel my misgivings about it. i say they're not poorly written because with the rest of the lyrics, i think it does make sense. but the particular delivery of that line has always been something i didn't like because it made me think of that male entitlement thing i mentioned.

 

It's [a little] predatory and possessive

 

Fair enough. I misread your initial post; I definitely get how that could make someone feel uncomfortable. It kinda struck me as odd too, given how Aaron writes since, so tbh, given the context the album was written in I had assumed it was written from his ex's point of view

 

i think i found out about the context and the thing about his ex sometime during 2016 so like. recent as hell

 

until next time

 

I used to be realllllly into like, finding out the ~actual~ meanings of songs for a while, haha

 

me too, but i stopped when the amount of music i listened to started to outpace the amount of time i could devote to doing that haha. i still do it when i keep coming back to something, like i must've looked up a ton of stuff on the ugly organ by now

 

lol, I'm an expert on like all cursive and Thursdays stuff by now. TUO is such a masterpiece. Eventually I just kinda stopped caring about the intention and more about how I relate to it

 

Yeah i care way more about my interpretation of a song than what the artist meant to say now a days.

I was the same, when I was younger I was super into knowing what ever line meant, who the writer was talking about, etc etc. Doesn't seem as relevant to me now.

Obviously there are exceptions when I'm listening to something and I'm like "what it in the world is this song even about", but that happens less and less for me now.

 

most of the time when I read to find out what the lyrics of a song actually are it makes me like it less, esp in this scene. I'm all about melodies. I guess I don't relate to alot of stuff

 

What I think is funny about the lyrics on AB is that they were written so hastily and haphazardly. Aaron has said he essentially just scribbled them out during recording and tried to write things that sounded cool. Now, I think a lot of the lyrics on that record - parcitcularly Silencer - are very strong, especially for a debut, but they are certainly the weakest among their discography.

Also, not that it should change anyone's feelings about it, but Aaron said that line from Gentlemen was intended to be sort of tongue-in-cheek

 

There are a lot of weird sexual lyrics on that album and I take them with a grain of salt nowadays. I was 15 when it came out, so I thought it was some DEEP SHIT!!! and I still think some of it is. But everyone should take it as it was: a 23-year old angsty guy who was messed up and bitter about an ex. Reading into it now seems unfair.

Imagine what we had on our Xanga pages back then...

 

My friend went to the secret show in Philly and told me that after they played Gentlemen, Aaron said something like "If you know anybody here who was screaming every word of that song passionately, ask them if they're okay" because I guess Aaron has admitted how dark the lyrical content on that song, and album, is.

I dunno if anyone in here who was there can confirm or deny. Seemed like a tongue-in-cheek moment during their set from how my friend said it to me.

 

to me it shows his imperfection as a person, and it shows him struggling with that. I think its okay for him to look back and say okay I was young and pretty stupid but this documents that.. I'm not saying its right, but it shows that he had to mature a bit as a person. I think it does an excellent job capturing that break up though and is really honest with how he felt about certain things... maybe too honest. I tried to love you and I failed.. but now I have a better plan... super dark/borderline creepy but thats what he was going through. Glad he found happiness and expanded his song writing but I will never take that first album for granted bc when I was in highschool I dealt with similar emotions, just way too young to be able to know what you are feeling and how you should be handling those feelings.

 

It's never really occurred to me to have an issue with the lyrics on "Gentlemen". I guess I understand, I've just thought of Aaron Weiss as being a really confessional writer so I've always appreciated his willingness to "go there" with some of his lyrics. It's never glorifying bad behavior cause he's obviously miserable as hell. The "pretending to pray while looking down her dress" line from "The Soviet" is still one of my favorite Aaron Weiss lines because of how simultaneously shocking and confessional it is. Not to mention there's just a ton of wisdom informing the stuff Aaron writes. Probably least of all on A->B Life, since that album's sort of like an emotional exorcism, but it's still there.

 

That's a great point. That line from "The Soviet" is a perfect example of what could be seen as creepy, but is a normal part of life and it appearing on a Christian album makes it more of an impact.

 

The line in the Soviet expresses some level of self-disgust, which I think inherently suggests that it recognizes the creepiness and problematic nature of the action. The line "and you better be alone" is certainly more of an issue and deserves to be criticized as such. AW is not a bad person for writing it, and the fact that he's grown far away from that kind of language is commendable (to the point that he at times has recognized the problematic nature of thoughts along those lines in other lyrics). As always, the point is not to be perfect -- it's to recognize our flaws and the mistakes we've made, own them, and grow.

 

I've always felt like the lyrics on AB are sort of over the top and ridiculous intentionally to point out the ridiculousness of that mindset and how melodramatic it is. I mean even the song being called Gentlemen itself seems like it's calling out the lyrics in a way as it's certainly not a very gentlemanly mindset. I could be completely wrong but idk, that's what I get out of those songs. There's clearly very real emotions there but they also seem to fully bask in how ridiculous and over the top they are.

 

That could just be because I'm listening to them from the perspective of someone who knows Aaron as a very self-critical person though who tends to focus more on his own faults or what he sees as wrong in himself rather than others. Idk, I've just never listened to AB-Life and felt like the album was trying to make him seem like he wasn't being a creepy, possessive weirdo in Gentleman.

 

These are all good thoughts and some of them hadn't occurred to me before. But yeah, despite my personal misgivings, I'm not gonna judge a dude for something they said over a decade ago when they've acknowledged that stuff repeatedly. That line in the Soviet, I actually think that line is crazy good for how meta and how it deals with it contextually. Considering the person he strives to be, and the level of, as was pointed out, self disgust, it's just one of those things that made my jaw drop

 

lyrics in most rock music are meh

if I want to read something deep, I'll get a book thank you

there are exceptions though, and I can really appreciate it when the lyrics to a song match the music

but

as it is the music what matters first and foremost when listening to music, I can stand bad lyrics, it's ok

that said, mwY woah

 

i'm like 55-60% in it for the lyrics most days, unless it's a genre that isn't focused on that at all like idk jazz or shoegaze or smth. im not necessarily looking for depth, either

 

you should try books sometime

they will blow yr mind

; )

 

you're right, i love books, books are why i major in english. but i value great lyric writing because writing with limitations is impressive to me and lyrics are just bite-sized literature anyway. i get the best of both worlds in music (and in this band)

 

I have never heard a lyric I thought was well written