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Thread: Sometimes Those Flower Kings Lyrics...

  1. #1

    Sometimes Those Flower Kings Lyrics...

    I'm sitting here listening to the song "Elaine" from The Rainmaker.

    "Here she comes again, smiling like a horse
    God he was asleep on that day she was born"

    I guess I sort of understand what is trying to be conveyed by this song but is there not a less cringe-inducing way to do it than the way it was done here?

  2. #2
    Member davis's Avatar
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    try taking it with a sense of humor or ignore it OR I'll get back to you after I hear it

  3. #3
    Member Yanks2014's Avatar
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    Flower Kings lyrics can be very silly, often some hippy dippy nonsense. But the case of Elaine is it's just a poor song all around. Ok, I do like the jazzy ending quite a bit. This was to me their weakest album, "The Rainmaker". It has a few good songs, but overall wasn't up to snuff.

  4. #4
    I always thought Roine should consult a native English speaker before he goes ahead with his lyrics. I mean, he speaks better English than I'll ever speak Swedish, but I think that the subtle nuances of a foreign language sometimes go over his head.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrian View Post
    I always thought Roine should consult a native English speaker before he goes ahead with his lyrics. I mean, he speaks better English than I'll ever speak Swedish, but I think that the subtle nuances of a foreign language sometimes go over his head.
    Yes, I've thought about this as well. My main example is the use of "crappy Monday" from "Driver's Seat". I can imagine he consulted a thesaurus and probably liked the way it sounded. It just doesn't work other than comically.

  6. #6
    Sometimes he comes up with very unique English phrases like "We'll make footprints on a higher ground" that a native English speaker might not think of.
    His liner notes often have questionable English.

  7. #7
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    I think Jonas did consult a native English speaker for the lyrics on the last Karmakanic album. Also, the re-issue of Agents Of Mercy's debut supposedly corrected a couple of grammatical things, but I haven't heard it.
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  8. #8
    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Splicer View Post
    Yes, I've thought about this as well. My main example is the use of "crappy Monday" from "Driver's Seat". I can imagine he consulted a thesaurus and probably liked the way it sounded. It just doesn't work other than comically.
    I don't know that I agree here. 'Crappy Monday' is surely a term many working folk can identify with? Mondays are pretty crappy. I really like that track, btw. I know you weren't putting it down or anything, I'm just saying.
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  9. #9
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    I always thought the "crappy Monday" lyric worked just fine. Doesn't make me cringe like a few others.
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  10. #10
    Progdog ThomasKDye's Avatar
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    Oh, "Elaine" was painful. "Damn, she's ugly, but at least she's got a good attitude." I was already pretty lukewarm on that album but that song sunk it a little further for me.
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  11. #11
    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasKDye View Post
    Oh, "Elaine" was painful. "Damn, she's ugly, but at least she's got a good attitude." I was already pretty lukewarm on that album but that song sunk it a little further for me.
    A recent re-spin of that album showed me that half of it is actually very, very good. The other half is what makes me consider the album the Flower Kings' own Tormato.
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  12. #12
    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
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    That's one of the things that bugged me with regards to TFK in the way Stolt tries his hardest sometimes to turn an American sounding phrase and the results are sometimes awkward and unintentionally funny.

    That being said the end of Lucy Had A Dream (from Paradox Hotel) makes chuckle everytime. I have no idea what they were trying to say with that one, and it is rather clumsy, but its so bad it just has to be intentional, like they're attempting parody or something.
    Last edited by 3LockBox; 03-22-2014 at 10:47 PM.
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  13. #13
    I don't generally listen to lyrics, which, might explain a lot about the folks I try to play prog to and they head for the hills/out the door. ;-)

    Music is usually beautiful in any language. The lyrics sung in English, not so much sometimes.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    That being said the end of Lucy Had A Dream (from Paradox Hotel) makes chuckle everytime. I have no idea what they were trying to say with that one, and it is rather clumsy, but its so bad it just has to be intentional, like they're attempting parody or something.
    Are you referring to the fake airline ad soundbyte that plays during the outro to that song?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Progatron View Post
    I don't know that I agree here. 'Crappy Monday' is surely a term many working folk can identify with? Mondays are pretty crappy. I really like that track, btw. I know you weren't putting it down or anything, I'm just saying.
    Not putting the song down at all -- it's one of my favorites from Adam & Eve. Yes, "crappy Monday" doesn't work for me because it seems an odd word choice for an otherwise good sentiment. It is followed by something I really like from any FK song: "Eight days to cross the poles/And reach the soil of old Brittania". Love that lyric.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by aith01 View Post
    Are you referring to the fake airline ad soundbyte that plays during the outro to that song?
    That ad parody is called "Ghetto Delta", here's the full version:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU7VTJA0dNo
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  17. #17
    Can you imagine the Bangles tune sung as Crappy Monday?

    "Just another crap-py Monday.

    Woah woah

    I've got the runs day..."

    And English is my native tongue!


  18. #18
    Even native speakers have issues. For example, I always cringe in Spock's Beard's "The Great Nothing" at the lyric, "She comes from Montreal". That just seems desperation to make a rhyme.

  19. #19
    Geriatric Anomaly progeezer's Avatar
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    Roine is just frustrated that he isn't 20 years older and didn't grow up in Haight-Ashbury instead of Uppsala.
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  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by TheLongshot View Post
    Even native speakers have issues. For example, I always cringe in Spock's Beard's "The Great Nothing" at the lyric, "She comes from Montreal". That just seems desperation to make a rhyme.
    The Neal Morse lyric that always gets me is from "Stranger in Your Soul":

    There, walking into walls
    Piercing through the pain ...

    "Walking into walls." He could have just as easily written "Walking through the walls," but instead he made it sound like someone smacked face-first into a wall.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrian View Post
    The Neal Morse lyric that always gets me is from "Stranger in Your Soul":

    There, walking into walls
    Piercing through the pain ...

    "Walking into walls." He could have just as easily written "Walking through the walls," but instead he made it sound like someone smacked face-first into a wall.
    Wasn't he a drunk? It might be literal.

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Splicer View Post
    Wasn't he a drunk? It might be literal.
    Hmm. No idea. I never even considered that angle. Neal has delivered some awkward lyrics over the years, and I just always assumed that was another one of them.

    Another one of his less-than-stellar moments: "Like rain in Spokane." he sings "Spokane" to rhyme with "rain," but Spokane is pronounced Spo-KANN. And if he was trying to imply that Spokane gets a lot of rain, well, it doesn't. It sits in a rain shadow.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Splicer View Post
    Wasn't he a drunk? It might be literal.
    I don't know if you could call him a "drunk", but according to his book he was a pretty heavy partier back in the day, so it could be a literal comment.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Adrian View Post
    The Neal Morse lyric that always gets me is from "Stranger in Your Soul":

    There, walking into walls
    Piercing through the pain ...

    "Walking into walls." He could have just as easily written "Walking through the walls," but instead he made it sound like someone smacked face-first into a wall.
    I always heard it as "pissing through the pain..." which I suppose it what happens after you've walked into a wall with a protruding doorknob...
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  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by progeezer View Post
    Roine is just frustrated that he isn't 20 years older and didn't grow up in Haight-Ashbury instead of Uppsala.
    He's older than you seem to think - he'll turn 60 in two years' time. So he would have had to be just a few years younger to experience that first-hand.
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