In this Discussion
- agentnumone October 2007
- boydeer22 October 2007
- canoe7grape October 2007
- DJRose November 2007
- dollarflame6 October 2007
- dust33rain October 2007
- ezorvera October 2007
- fineincome2 October 2007
- firexpert6 October 2007
- fog05tile October 2007
- markpull6 November 2007
- mumblo October 2007
- nodeincome4 October 2007
- plane8order November 2007
- recordwolf57 October 2007
- Surfer Rosa November 2007
- target35ghost October 2007
- Tempe Arizona October 2007
- thephantommilk October 2007
- walk2sock October 2007
- yak63geese October 2007
Comments
But anyway, that song always amused me. How can a rock star dentist sing so lovingly of candy? Lol.
It's a cute song and a strange song, so for all those Tim lovers, I thought I'd throw the song out there.
But anyway, that song always amused me. How can a rock star dentist sing so lovingly of candy? Lol.
It's a cute song and a strange song, so for all those Tim lovers, I thought I'd throw the song out there.
I think that I heard somewhere that is was about being in love, or starting a great relationship. When everything feels sweet and lovely. But I may be wrong on that.
Eeeek, I kinda wish I'd never mentioned The Fix Is In...
uhhhh..
Kareh and Sally, I like both of you, and this got kinda intense right here.
I think both of you have valid points, and as long as it stayed a polite debate, this was a really really really interesting conversation.
But I don't think either of you should take this too personally... (I think) Paul from Interpol has said that he leaves stuff up for interpretation because having your own personal interpretation of a song is what matters to you, and he wants people to find their own meaning in his work...if he divulged its secrets, then it might ruin the song for someone.
Therefore, each of you has a different interpretation, each one is valid, and means something to you, and you shouldn't be trying to convince each other that either of them is more right. NEITHER is more right. they're different interpretations, but that's all they are.
Only Damian knows what the song is fully about, and unless he tells any of us personally, then we shouldn't argue about it because you may both be wrong, and it's just dumb to fight. Call it a difference of opinion, and move on. Which both of you seem to be doing, so that's that.
That being said, I hope both of you wouldn't disregard the opinions of a younger person, because, being only 17, I would hope that if I had a serious opinion or argument you would both take it seriously, because although I am young, I have every right to an opinion, and my opinions matter as much as either of yours. Yes, it is important to keep age in mind when discussing like this, but it shouldn't be a factor into the argument itself.
Also, I really really really hope this doesn't happen again, because the reason I've been on this board for so long is because people DON'T FIGHT on this board. Maybe once in a while, but it doesn't happen very often at all. All the other message boards I've been on, people get all riled up over the littlest things, and it ruins the inclusive atmosphere that should exist when we all love the same music and the same band. Granted, this argument was much much more well spoken than most internet arguments, but it got personal (and somewhat nasty
and finally, LOLOLOLOL at Whitey Bulger.
I was totally thinking the same thing when I saw this thread! I love how my Interpol obsession started on the OK Go board.
There is quite an awesome explanation behind this song in a video off of okgocentral.com... Damian says, "turns out it's not such a good moral. DON'T do what you want" hahaha it's actually about a girl tim was head over heels for...
I think the song has nothing to do with merely literal stories and besides that, nothing to do with gambling, except for the meaning of gambling with respect to risk and control in life. Here's why:
When we got to Boston, we knew we'd missed a turn.
The opening is one of the most significant parts of a poem because it establishes the initial tone and attitude for all that follow, until a shift. It is important, however, not to declare a tone until the end of the poem because it is often the last line that affects how everything before it is to be interpreted, as is the case in Margaret Atwood’s "Siren Song," for example. The opening of “The Fix is In” is particularly significant because it establishes a setting; the setting is the backdrop of a literary piece and lends each word a certain shading. If the setting had been a country meadow, for example, the poem would inherently contain the imagery of peace and natural beauty: here we have the congestion and political tension of the city of Boston. Boston is an extremely liberal city: the home of Harvard, MIT and more colleges in and around one place than anywhere else in the nation, Boston is the capital of the only state in the entire USA to allow same-sex marriage. It is also the only state in the entire USA to have an African-American governor, and the second state to have one in the entire history of the nation. Boston was also the birthplace of the American Revolution. Choosing Boston as the setting is akin to choosing Paris or London over Bombay or Siberia: the meaning completely changes. Thus, rather than the natural imagery of the countryside or the western imagery of a state like Montana, or the conservative associations of a southern city, Boston confers on the poem a sense of searching, yearning to progress and find answers- from the American Revolution to modern liberalism, Boston means seeking the radical, the new and the socially unorthodox.
Coming to Boston, moreover, was not deliberate: it was the result of “miss[ing] a turn.” The characters in the poem did not intend to come to a place of searching and yearning, but inexplicably found themselves there. There is a loss of agency, a loss of control.
No one back in traffic school had told us there are signs that can't be learned.
School hadn’t taught the characters all they needed to know in life. They’ve found themselves in a situation where the passivity of being taught is no longer useful; they must become active and allow a deeper kind of personal instinct or intuition to take over.
Geography's too stubborn and people are too clear
To be “stubborn” is to be immovable, but more than simply constant, the word introduces obstinacy and will- there is, therefore, personification of geography. The sentence is therefore an unexpected reversal of characteristics: geography becomes human while people become “clear,” transparent, predictable, easily mapped.
So let's go find a road-side motel with a clerk who won't tell.
“Motel” is important because it is a stark contrast to the more traditional traveler’s abode: the hotel. A motel, unlike a hotel, is cheaper and conveys darker images of the decrepit and dirty. Further, motels are associated with sex. The clerk who “won’t tell” could be one who doesn’t raise an eyebrow at socially unacceptable sexual encounters, but the text doesn’t say this, so we’ll have to wait until the end to make a conclusion on his role.
Days will turn into nights, nights will turn into days, weeks,
seasons, and years.
We'll stay for years.
The diction and especially the syntax portray a sense of slow chronology, endless progression and yet also eternal stagnancy. Seasons are changing but the characters remain in place- time becomes as it was for Keats’s urn, a false permanence. Where Keats’s idea of time resonates in the urn and the object of words as a poem, however, here the idea resonates self-reflectively in the medium of the song.
Red and white for blood cells, red and white for wine.
It has been claimed that red and white are the colors of poker chips. However, according to a seasoned poker player, poker chips can actually be an assortment of colors. What is more, Valentines cards are also red and white, as are lollipops, whipped cream and cherries, the American flag and clowns’ faces powdered white with red noses. It is important, then, to stick to the text.
The most prominent association of wine and blood is one that has existed for thousands of years: transubstantiation. That is, the Catholic representation of wine as the blood of Christ. This symbolism features heavily in American media, culture and society. The United States owes much to this practice, for it was part of what drove the anti-iconoclastic Puritans from England to found a new colony, God’s salvation on earth. Today, Catholicism is a major religion in the United States, explaining the context of the symbol of transubstantiation as it is mocked and exhibited in everything from television to novels. The United States is the most religious of the western countries and so the tension between the secular and the religious is a prevalent theme in American art.
It is important to recognize the ambiguity in this line, however. Like Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the characters make a discovery but the audience is not explicitly told the nature of the discovery. The ambiguity, as with Bellow and Conrad, is deliberate: it forces the audience to face the same overwhelming confusion and self-confrontation as the characters.
They could be the whole damn spectrum if we'd all just let them.
In other words, the spectrum of colors could be limited to red and white if the characters- or perhaps all of humanity- permits it to become so. Seeing only red and white, man becomes blind to all other shades, all other combinations, all other meanings and ambiguities: the world becomes rigorous with the absolutes of a new black and white. “Let” suggests a wilting of will, a slip into passivity. If the song references transubstantiation, than it ultimately rails against dogmatic religion, that man allows his actions to be determined by a perhaps questionable religious order. He gives up his ability to reason and to act.
Lord, it's such a crime...
The line, by emphasizing “crime” is an ironic statement on the agency of man, if it is reflexive of the preceding “spectrum” observation: by handing over control, what ought to be wrong is right, and what is right is sinful. This idea is not strictly religious but can be extended to all social expectations and orders. At the same time, the line is an evaluation of the “spectrum” limitation as wrong itself. The implication is that rather than only red and white, man ought to see all colors, all shades, all possibilities.
Working on an inchless waistband in the strip-mall wasteland outside of this town
The two most charged words in this line are “strip-mall” and “wasteland.” They have negative connotations, introducing images of pointless excess and decay- a world suffocated by Walmart and McDonalds. There is no life on the outskirts of this town; the area has lost its character and its vitality. There is only emptiness, emphasized by “inchless.” Moreover, the idea of “working on an inchless waistband” suggests invention put to futility. Like Sisphyius of the Greeks trapped forever to lift stones, so too here there is pointless, mechanical activity. Adding to the pile of useless devices of the modern world- toothbrush calculators and glowing glassware- an inchless waistband is another instance of excess. It is improbable that “working on an inchless waistband” means weight loss, because weight loss is not an activity that is associated with strip-malls. However, even if there is a reference to weight loss, it is still part of the image of a kind of mechanical activity, following the social expectation of dieting and conforming to a certain social standard, even though it doesn't really bring happiness to wasteland life.
or clawing at the penthouse kitchen floor for just one smidgen more,
“Clawing” connotes desperation, especially when it’s done on the floor like an animal. “Penthouse” is an apartment that is on the roof or side of a building; it is a home. Not a comforting NY penthouse home is this though; instead it is the object being clawed. In addition, clawing suggests restlessness and searching. The audience isn’t told what the tacit figure wants by clawing, only that he wants a “smidgen more.” Perhaps the desire is drugs; perhaps the image is more general, describing the raw emotion of desperate desire. To connect this idea to the previous line, man calculates and builds, struggles, invents and works in a desperate motion- his very work is a kind of clawing- and for what? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps all is futile. Maybe the clawing, the work, life- maybe it’s all an addiction, a distraction from facing Conrad’s “fascination with the abominable.” That is, maybe it’s all the only way man can live in his world of red and white absolutes without going mad.
everybody knows, everybody knows that it's in. The fix is in.
"The fix is in" is an expression of finality. The message, unstated, is universal. Every man feels it: terror, desire, desperation. Every man feels it.
Let's go back to Boston. Forget about the turn.
Atlases and gas station attendants are none of our concern.
These lines imply acceptance. No longer will the characters try to drive away to their destination, but instead, they’ll remain where they are. This does not necessarily indicate that they accept the loss of agency, but it does suggest that their lives will be determined by the boundaries of what it means to be in Boston. The yearning, the searching, the tension of the city of theories will be their backdrop. There is a conflict, then, between the associations of the city of revolt and the character’s passive acceptance. This conflict parallels the conflict between desperate, clawing desire and living in a world of red and white.
We'll forge a little life dear (oh dear) and double down our debts,
and I guess it stands to reason that the passing seasons will
slowly dull regrets.
“Double down” is a phrasal verb that is derived from the jargon of gambling. The use of gambling jargon does not make the entire song about gambling, however, in the same way that Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 uses the language of postal services but is not actually about mail. What is more meaningful to the poem as a whole is the implication that the characters are settling down, in accordance with the acceptance expressed in the previous lines. They are “forg[ing] a life,” creating for themselves a meaningful way to live rather than aimlessly wondering. They are aware that their life will not be ideal but any regrets will be “dull[ed]” or rubbed away by time. After all, such a life is better than one characterized by bestial clawing and metaphorical spectral blindness.
Thus, the characters in the song confront questions of agency as pertains to absolutism and social rigors; in the end, they cope with the tension by accepting an ambiguously settled life- leaving us and the rest of the world to grapple with desire, desperation and emptiness. What's been gambled is nothing short of life itself.
so apparently the whole 'move on' thing was lost on you guys
not that I'm complaining, this is still really really interesting, but honestly, I think it's gone a bit overboard.
I'm sure this is what this song means to each of you, but I'm just as certain I didn't need to know every minute detail- a song loses some of the appeal if you think about it too much.
oh and Kareh, I'm sure the whole age thing wasn't as bad as it seemed, and it's all good, I just felt the need to point it out as so much does get lost in translation over the internet.
ehh, I think I give up.
How about we take the segue away from The Fix is In provided by Tempe, and move onto C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips?
Or another song... I dunno.
Sorry, Meg. I wasn't trying to argue; I wanted to present my view since I didn't get a chance to. And as for details, this is what we do in literature: there's no such thing as overanalysis of lit. And I know this isn't lit- it's a song. So I probly shouldn't try to apply to it what I do all day to poems and novels. The song was too rich and dense with meaning not to tho.
But sorry, Meg- please don't be upset
edit: I'd like to add something. Damian actually did describe his writing process. He's not a mere storyteller. He said that he writes down thoughts, things that he wants to convey, and then sets them to music. That is, he's imparting some sort of meaning, an expression, not a simple story-plot of Bonnie and Clyde.
"Now that they are in the process of building tracks for the next album, according to Kulash, it may not be so similar to the first. "We don't really know, because it's like trying to figure out that the world is round just by standing in the middle of New York, looking at both directions. Our perspective is way too skewed, but I think, from what people tell us from what they hear, they seem to think it's a little bit more darker, a little bit heavier, a little bit more groovier." The songs on the first album such as "Get Over It", "You're So Damn Hot" and "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips", according to Kulash, were intended to be "shamelessly over-happy and sweet... something like 1984 felt like to us as kids." This is opposed to the upcoming album, which is "a little bit less synthetic saccharine pop." "Now I think we're going for something like 1978 would have felt to us, had we been old enough to feel it," Kulash commented. As for the name of the album, it's still early to decide what they will name it, but they are debating between "2004" and "Typically Nasty Weather" say Kulash and Nordwind."
source: http://media.www.equinoxnews.com/media/sto...272-page2.shtml
and anyways, nothing can be wrong- it's 1 AM and I have to be up at 6:30 and i'm dead tired and haven't had time to myself all week, and yet this has still been one of my best days in a while.
and the Red Sox are going to the World Series!!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3
so it's all good, really
ps Tempe, that is pretty funny.... 2004? where'd that come from?
uhhhh..
Kareh and Sally, I like both of you, and this got kinda intense right here.
I think both of you have valid points, and as long as it stayed a polite debate, this was a really really really interesting conversation.
But I don't think either of you should take this too personally... (I think) Paul from Interpol has said that he leaves stuff up for interpretation because having your own personal interpretation of a song is what matters to you, and he wants people to find their own meaning in his work...if he divulged its secrets, then it might ruin the song for someone.
Therefore, each of you has a different interpretation, each one is valid, and means something to you, and you shouldn't be trying to convince each other that either of them is more right. NEITHER is more right. they're different interpretations, but that's all they are. Only Damian knows what the song is fully about, and unless he tells any of us personally, then we shouldn't argue about it because you may both be wrong, and it's just dumb to fight. Call it a difference of opinion, and move on. Which both of you seem to be doing, so that's that.
That being said, I hope both of you wouldn't disregard the opinions of a younger person, because, being only 17, I would hope that if I had a serious opinion or argument you would both take it seriously, because although I am young, I have every right to an opinion, and my opinions matter as much as either of yours. Yes, it is important to keep age in mind when discussing like this, but it shouldn't be a factor into the argument itself.
Also, I really really really hope this doesn't happen again, because the reason I've been on this board for so long is because people DON'T FIGHT on this board. Maybe once in a while, but it doesn't happen very often at all. All the other message boards I've been on, people get all riled up over the littlest things, and it ruins the inclusive atmosphere that should exist when we all love the same music and the same band. Granted, this argument was much much more well spoken than most internet arguments, but it got personal (and somewhat nasty
and finally, LOLOLOLOL at Whitey Bulger.
Found it! Do i get a point?
This is the best and most relevant quote from Paul, that I could find, on the matter:
and of course, there's also:
Anyway, I agree with you Milky. I don't see why this had to turn into an argument. Differing opinions and interpretations of lyrics are hardly something to fight about, and certainly not for this long about (i think) only one song!
lovelovelove
source: http://media.www.equinoxnews.com/media/sto...272-page2.shtml
Thanks Tempe, that was really fun! haha, what strange title choices!
one of my favourite ok go songs... basically this song I associate with death and just living to die... but probably not really what its meant to be. Breakup?
Beautiful... not many words but I love it... don't really know what its meant to be tough.
hey Im not an english major... don't flame me...
TL. DR.
Now. Both of you to your corners. You're both saying too much for either of you to properly respond (K, you and I went through something similar, did we not, dear?), and therefore not getting the full meaning of each others' statements. Therefore corners for both of you, ok?
My thoughts on "The Fix Is In" - I always thought it was about how easy it is to get comfortable in daily routines and just never quite move on.
Sox. Series? Yep.
one of my favourite ok go songs... basically this song I associate with death and just living to die... but probably not really what its meant to be. Breakup?
Beautiful... not many words but I love it... don't really know what its meant to be tough.
hey Im not an english major... don't flame me...
I'm not sure, but I think I read somewhere that Damian said this song is actually literal -- about the end of the world.
ahhhh
lol that makes sense. ha rad. i really want to listen to that song now....
maybe that goes along with the just living to die thing.
thanks mumblo
one of my favourite ok go songs... basically this song I associate with death and just living to die... but probably not really what its meant to be. Breakup?
Beautiful... not many words but I love it... don't really know what its meant to be tough.
hey Im not an english major... don't flame me...
I thought that I'd read Damian say somewhere that Shortly Before The End was about Timory and death in general. Although the end of the world idea does ring a bell. I'm not entirely sure, I think I got confused by all the arguing...
Not that it matters much because it's gone on for too long now anyway, but The Fix Is In always conjured up the idea of two people (I guess one of them is probably Damian) in a burnt out car, just driving anywhere and not caring where to get away from people. Sort of like escapism. I have nothing to back that up though, lol, just a general feeling.
Can we call a truce, guys?