Don't Let the Days Go By (Glycerine)

This has been a favorite song of mine since before I can remember. Another one from my dad's '90s collection (I must be in a mood or something), it's always beautiful and I always seem to glean something a little different. And so I've read lots of fan interpretations of this song and they are all different, haha. What that says to me is that each person that listens to it can take from it what they wish, and normally it's based on their own life situation or perspective. Love songs like that. It's how we work through stuff. So the following is my interpretation, and I'd be very interested to hear anyone else's as well.

First off, this is a very sensual song, i.e., 'beautiful taste', 'must be your skin that I'm sinkin' in', 'now I can feel'; so obviously I choose to interpret it as a love song :). There are obvious issues between the couple, but it seems that they just love each other so much that it seems to pass over them after the initial emotional outbursts. The chorus is interesting to me, and my interpretation may be a little far-fetched, though poetic definitely. Glycerine as an explosive substance echoes what I've said about the 'emotional outbursts' and mirrors it in the general state of life on Earth, namely the Big Bang. Life is created, life is ended, the cycle continues. As far as we know, we only get one of these so we'd better heed Rossdale's warning of 'don't let the days go by' (basically 'cause everything can blow up in an instant). Love the little moments and always seek and come back to the 'strawberry fields', the surreality, the fantasy, even in the midst of turbulence in life. The 'bad moon's white again' but so what? She (or he) falls around me and it's all okay.

Of course there's an underlying lullaby of drug abuse, but that's specific to one kind of person but relatable, translatable to many.

Love it! Peace.

True Colors

This is another great song from my favorite era/genre of music, "Outside" by Staind. Thanks dad, for introducing it to me first.

Individual interpretation is one of my favorite things about lyricism.  This song has both a very obvious meaning and a deeper one for me. On the outside (no pun intended), it describes an exhausting relationship between two people, one that probably doesn't have much hope.

I changed a few of the chords from fifths to majors to inject hope into the song. The idea that even though there are moments when we can feel this way about something or someone, we persevere and it passes. We may always come back to this feeling, this frustration, but it's the times in-between that make it worthwhile. And while this is relevant in a lot of relationships, it's also relevant about life in general.

Life seems to be just a very long lesson in patience. And in patience and inner peace is where we find true happiness. The lyrics in this song describe perfectly some of the most common personality flaws in human beings, flaws that prevent us from achieving happiness, such as being "full of pride", the idea of "tasting what I can never have" translating to a human's natural urge to want what they can't or don't have, among plenty of others. There is frustration in life, there is hopelessness and wanting to give up but when we can "see through [it]", that's where the real beauty lies. I take Aaron Lewis' chorus line of "inside you're ugly, ugly like me" not to reflect a defective individual or a physically inferior individual but to simply state that we as humans can empathize with one another because we all have these inherent flaws. To "see your true colors", to rise above them, to reach one's potential. And while on the surface the lyrics seem to state a much different message, this is what I choose to infer from it on a deeper level. Hence, I love the dualism in the song: frustration on the surface and hope and inspiration lying beneath, whether he meant it that way or not. Just remember, "tomorrow'll be okay".

I love you all, persevere and find peace. Have a great day.