The Official 'What Do These Lyrics Mean?' Megathred

Rather than me starting a bunch of threads about lyrics, I figured I'd start a thread where we can ALL ask lyrics-related questions. Can somebody PLEASE translate these for me

"There are Bridges You Crossed You Didn't Know You Crossed Until You Crossed"- Sung by Glinda in WICKED ("Thank Goodness")

"We've All Got Our Junk, and my Junk is You"- Sung by the Girls of SPRING AWAKENING ("My Junk")

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Updated On: 5/9/09 at 11:56 AM

The Wicked one makes more sense if you listen closely and understand verb tenses. She actually says, "There are bridges you cross you didn't know you'd cross until you've crossed." In other words, there are defining moments in your life you never expected to come to, until you look back and realize those moments already happened.

Example: Glinda never expected to be forced to choose between her best friend and everything she's ever wanted. She didn't know that's what she was doing while she watched Elphie fly off on the broom. It was only after, when the wizard and Morrible were spreading lies about Elphaba and showering Glinda with wealth and status, that she realized, "Oh, I guess I made a pretty important life-changing decision back then."

The Spring Awakening line is pretty dumb. It means that we all have our hang-ups, our obsessions, and the singer's hang-up/obsession is "you," the boy she is singing to. (I know it's sung by a bunch of girls singing to nobody in particular. That's part of the reason it's so dumb.)

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Lot's Wife is a Biblical reference. when Lot and his family were leaving Sodom and Gomorrah as they were being destroyed, they were told by the angels not to look back on the cities. Lot's wife disobeyed and turned around to look, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.

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Re: "My junk"

The intro to that song is the girls mooning over boys (specifically Melchior, but one of the girls likes Moritz), and their "junk" is their crush, fantasy, the person that gets them off. There are various allusions to this.

For example, Georg has a crush on his piano teacher and we see him fantasizing about her during the song.

We also see Hanschen masturbating (there's a line in the song that says "they say you go blind" as in the saying that masturbation will make you go blind), and he sings the line "I go up to my room, turn the stereo on/ shoot up some you in the you of some song."

This would allude to "junk" as slang for heroin which, of course, you "shoot up."

So "junk" takes on various, but related, meanings: that which you fantasize about, that which gets you off, an addiction. And for these characters, their junk is the person they are imagining, fantasizing about, "you." They're singing the song to the object of their affection.

(I write all this because I've read reviews that make fun of this song, implying "we've all got our junk, and my junk is you" is so trite. But I actually think it's a pretty clever song, a way of expressing real human feeling which may be particularly strong when one is young and developing crushes on other people.)

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Can we just put all of the lyrics from Spring Awakening into this thread?

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Well they didn't have rock music or neon lights in the 1890s. Spring Awakening had both of those.

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I know. I was just point out the modern things they had in Spring Awakening.

I also agree that any song from that show would fit in this thread. Some of those lyrics come out of left field.

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Updated On: 5/9/09 at 06:23 PM

Not a musical per se, but the song 'What Can You Lose' from the film Dick Tracy:

Leave it alone, hold it all in,
Better a bone, don't even begin
With so much to win
There's too much to lose

Is "better a bone" meant to be shorthand for "Better that you stay as you are, with her throwing you a bone every now and then, than you asking for more and perhaps ending up with nothing"?

The Pippin lyrics:

It is natural to find cats hanging out on windowsills.
Seeing children playing in the snow is a common occurrence.

Pippin is looking for a simple, one line definition for where his place in the world is.

^ Masturbation.

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I always thought it was talking about ejaculation.

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I've come to the conclusion that if there's a lyric in Spring Awakening you don't understand, it's probably about masturbating.

That said, the most confusing thing about this whole thread is that so many people are confused by simple lyrics. Really? The bridges thing from 'Thank Goodness'? I know it's clumsily-phrased, but it's hardly meaningless or even difficult to work out. And Spring Awakening has FAR more baffling lyrics than "work that silver magic and we'll aim it at the wall"!

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Okay, half the lyrics in SA are lyrics that I think I might understand, but I'm afraid to say it online because if I'm wrong people would think I'm a pervert, so dramamama... thanks for conforming the Sliver Magic thing, I always though that. So on that note, I need someone to translate every single lyrics to 'The Word of Your Body'. I'm not kidding, there's not a single lyrics that I understand. Not even the title. And Idon't understand what's 'too unreal'


WENDLA
Just too unreal, all this
Watching the words fall from my lips

MELCHIOR
Baiting some girl with hypotheses

BOTH
Haven?t you heard the word of your body?

MELCHIOR
Don?t feel a thing, you wish

WENDLA
Grasping at pearls with my fingertips

MELCHIOR
Holding her hand like some little tease

BOTH
Haven?t you heard the word of my wanting?

O, I?m gonna be wounded
O, I?m gonna be your wound
O, I?m gonna bruise you
O, you?re gonna be my bruise

Just too unreal, all this?

WENDLA
Watching his world slip through my fist

MELCHIOR
Playing with her in your fantasies

BOTH
Haven?t you heard the word ? how I want you?

O, I?m gonna be wounded
O, I?m gonna be your wound
O, I?m gonna bruise you
O, you?re gonna be my bruise

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