Of Monsters & Men – Little Talks
Misschien is dit bandje de folkversie van Alphabeat (met mannelijke en vrouwelijke zangers en enorm catchy liedjes), maar daar gaat het vandaag niet om. Ik vind het toch gewoon een lekker nummer met een tekst die we als enigszins ambigu mogen classificeren). EN populair genoeg voor een analyse. De discussie wordt geopend door JuneJ743:
This is a song I loved and loved 1000x better after reading the lyrics. Instead of a fun catchy new tune the meaning was really hit hard on me. I think it’s about a woman leaving her husband and the song is their argument. She is trying to defend her decision and he is heartbreakingly supportive.
“De man als mietje” lijkt hier dus de interpretatie. JuneJ743 ziet wel nog kans om het een en ander aan te merken op de geplaatste liedtekst. Ook dit gebeurt regelmatig op SongMeanings:
In the chorus I hear “The screams all sound the same” and not “The streets of Solomon sang”. It becomes interesting as the instruments seem to get a little louder and faster in a frantic way towards the end of the song representing the heightened emotion and anger between the two. Even the tone of when the two sing become less harmonious and more frustrated.
Ondanks de accenten van de zangers, is het toch dubieus hoe de oorspronkelijke poster de zin The streets of Solomon sang hoorde…
Uiteraard is niet iedere reaguurder het eens met de interpretatie van June (al klopt de voorgestelde correctie van de tekst dus inderdaad). Mattchuu reageert:
This song is simply about falling asleep.
Stelligheid kent geen tijd, dat is ook zo. Dat neemt niet weg dat Merrycam een andere theorie plaatst:
I disagree with the two previous ideas completely. It’s not about a failing marriage, or about sleep. It’s about a couple, but one of them is either going crazy or feels like she’s going crazy. […]
even if she can’t tell what’s true, what is real and what isn’t, their love/relationship will keep them safe and everything will be fine in the end. Just my opinion.
Merrycam wil uiteraard geen ruzie veroorzaken, dus voegt ze (?) eraan toe dat het slechts haar mening is. Dat is maar goed ook, want er is nog veel meer uit de tekst te halen. Macuahuitl zoekt het in een andere hoek:
I thought it was about the death of the couple’s child or children and their grief over the loss. And because they lost their child they themselves are having a falling out of sorts.
Vrolijke muziek? Depri tekst? Als er nu een enorme tekstuele analyse door was gevolgd, was ik de beroerdste niet om erin mee te gaan, maar dat ging Macuahuitl te ver. Hij moest immers al een username verzinnen, om dan ook nog een argumentatie op te schrijven…
We kunnen in ieder geval wel langzaam concluderen dat de tekst over een couple gaat. Maar wat er met dat echtpaar aan de hand is, daarover verschillen de meningen halverwege de eerste pagina nog steeds. ilovekelly75 doet ook een duit in het zakje:
My interpretation is that it’s about a couple, and the woman is no longer comfortable in the relationship. She wants to move on to bigger and better things, and the man is trying to hold her to the relationship.
Wat volgt is een stap-voor-stapanalyse van de tekst, zoals die alleen op SongMeanings.net kan staan bij de meer toegewijde deelnemers:
“I don’t like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand, I’ll walk with you my dear
The stairs creak as I sleep, it’s keeping me awake
It’s the house telling you to close your eyes”She doesn’t like living in this old and empty relationship. He’s trying to comfort her by saying he’ll be with her, and that she has nothing to worry about. Then she goes into detail about it, saying she’s not comfortable with him, and that the relationship is keeping her from sleeping, or really enjoying her life. The man says that she should just “sleep” anyway, and be comfortable with it.
“Some days I can’t even trust myself
It’s killing me to see you this way”This is self explanitory. She can’t trust herself to make the right decision about whether to leave or stay, and he doesn’t like seeing her that way. He could mean that he feels bad for her, or he doesn’t like what she’s become, wanting to leave the relationship.
“There’s an old voice in my head that’s holding me back
I tell her that I miss our little talks
Soon it will all be over, buried with our past
You used to play outside when you were young,
Full of life and full of love”There is still a part of her that thinks she should stay, which is holding her back from leaving, but also holding her back from achieving what she really wants in life. He says that that part of her is the part that still loves him, and he misses when that part was all of her. She tells him that this conflict will all be over soon, and he tells her that she used to be so different, and the relationship was better then.
“Some days I feel like I am wrong and I am right
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear”She says that sometimes she feels like she should stay when she knows in her heart she really should leave, and his part is self explanitory, that he’s telling her that her mind is tricking her, telling her not to trust the part that wants her to leave.
“Don’t listen to a word I say
The screams all sound the same”This is the perception each person is getting from the other one. When she sings her lines, he hears “Don’t listen to me, all my complaints are the same anyway.” She hears the same from him.
“You’re gone gone gone away
I watched you disappear
All that’s left is a ghost of you
Now we’re torn torn torn apart, there’s nothing we can do
Just let me go, we’ll meet again soon”She was already unhappy, and she already acknowledged this stuff about him, and she is telling him to just let her go free.
“Now wait wait wait for me
Please hang around
I see you when I fall asleep”He still wants to be with her, and he will continue to dream about her.
“‘Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore”They both have different perceptions on how the relationship ended. He thinks she made a mistake, and that she wasn’t the same person anymore, and she thinks she was growing, and matured her way out of the relationship. However, they both realize that in the end, the separation is the best thing for both of them.
Misschien heeft ilovekelly75 bad karma, want de reactie word totaal genegeerd. Wie ben ik om deze dan wel te beoordelen? Is ook veel te lang om helemaal te lezen…
fr0st2k stuurt de discussie een andere kant op:
I got the eerie feeling that the husband passed away but continued watching her as a ghost.
The empty house she is referring to is the fact that he is not there. Notice, he is the one constantly responding to her, implying he can hear her, but she can’t hear him.
The just overall calmness implies to me that they are not arguing with each other.
The girl is trying to forget him and move on, but keeps having thoughts of him throughout the day, until finally she cracks and they realize they are better off without each other, or will see each other later.
Ridicuul als deze theorie wellicht klinkt, maarliefst vier collega’s op Songmeanings reageren positief. Waaronder Kimbersong:
I had not thought of this interp, but it makes a lot of sense. I will imagine it this way, now, and the song will be so much sadder (and wonderful for it.)
Als fr0st2k verder niks in zijn (haar?) leven bereikt, dan in ieder geval toch dit. jem300 heeft zelf geen idee waar het nummer over gaat, maar wel een suggestie:
It may also help to look at the music video to get some sort of idea. Just a suggestion?
Nu kunt u die video bovenaan deze pagina zien. Ik vraag mij af of die de zaken helderder maakt. De band zelf lijkt zelf namelijk ook niet helemaal 100% te weten waar het nummer over gaat. ScienceGal neemt de moeite om een citaat uit een interview te plaatsen:
Okay. “Little Talks” is… How we usually make our lyrics is, Raggi and I, sometimes we come up with stories or situations. That one is about a relationship. Sometimes we haven’t wanted to give too much away. We like people to read their own things in the lyrics. I guess I could share it. It’s about a couple and the husband passed away and it’s from the conversation between the two of them. We don’t know if she’s going crazy or if someone’s actually there. We’ve kind of been inspired by people that lived in my house. This old couple that lived there for 30 years. The woman passed away, so it was kind of different.”
Krek! Blijkt Merrycams mening gewoon te kloppen! En die van fr0st2k ook!
Of…
Trekt de band bovenstaande woorden enigszins terug in een ander interview:
“Little Talks relates a loving conversation between two people that don’t appear to be communicating completely. “We kind of had in mind the people that lived in my house, because I moved into a very, very old house,” Hilmarsdóttir says. “They had lived their lives there, and the woman had just passed away. It’s a conversation, and maybe one person isn’t really hearing the other one.”
Tsja, “kind of”? Dat biedt geen uitsluitsel, of wel? Gaat het nu wel of niet over een dood iemand? Bij Songmeanings willen we duidelijkheid! Gelukkig is er, nhorkoff, die na al deze reacties de boel samenvat:
In my opinion, this song is about a man and a woman. The man has died and is responding to the woman’s woes of sadness.
Laten we het daar dan maar op houden.
Hebben we dan alles gehad?
Nee, volgens thecampusherald is er ruimte voor nog een theorie… Volgens deze Frodo gaat het nummer over zelfmoord:
She is a disturbed woman who hears voices in her head (The screams all sound the same). This may be a reference to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
Want dat is inderdaad de enige schreeuw ooit in de hele wereldcultuur en alle andere schreeuwen verwijzen naar die schreeuw!!!!!
Zeker een student Algemene Cultuurwetenschappen…
Nee, dan zerpaBOT… Hij doet de suggestie dat het nummer over Alzheimer gaat:
I am pretty positive (and who wouldn’t be about their own interpretations) that this is a couple and the woman in this relationship suffers from Alzheimer’s. I have a degree in Psychology and have spoken with many patients and family members of Alzheimer’s and they tend to gravitate towards words such as “trapped”, “strange mindset of the self”, wanting some sort of guidance from a significant other, and even feeling out of body and not at “home”.
Zoveel mensen, zoveel meningen. Zo zie je maar weer dat de interpretatie vaak meer over iemands eigen leven gaat, dan over het liedje in kwestie. Maar dat had zerpaBOT je vast al kunnen vertellen op basis van zijn “degree” in “Psychology”. Daar ben ik vrij zeker van (en wie zou dat niet zijn?).
En wat nu de definitieve interpretatie is? Misschien moet die nog toegevoegd worden… Door u?
