Secret Samadhi by Live: its bathetic and grotesque lyrics

full text:

Let's go hang out in a mall. Or a morgue... smorgasbord

The rack is full and so are we, of laughing gas... and ENNUI!

More wine, cause I got to have it! More skin, cause I got to eat it!

I rushed the ladies' room, took the water from the toilet / Washed her feet and blessed her name

If it slithers into the haze, it's true: a child gives you his shoes

Everybody's here / this puke stinks like beer

A man behind the altar screams, "You stole my idea! You were my idea! This puke stinks like beer!"

Everybody's anxious, for the coming of the crisis / The collapse of the justice / I can smell your armpits

Boy loses rib and lets a hellified cry into the dark, "Where did I go wrong?!"

Angel, don't you have some bagels in my oven? Lady, don't you know a man when you see one?

Anyone caught in your mystery? Keep it angry, keep it wispy

I've fallen down, drunk on your juices

The subculture of my dreams is waiting for me to fall asleep. I know you're scared --- you should be!

If the mother goes to bed with you in the bowels of the cathedral, will you render her asunder with what she really needs?

If the mother goes to bed with you, will you run and tell the papers how she picked you from a lineup in downtown Philadelphia with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth and Henry Miller in your back pocket - you little fucker??

Will you call them gods? Will you call them freaks? You know your sperm is weak!

Looks like America's dropped a load, like she was ready to explode

Our gas head was right; when they lanced his skull, there was pus and light

DRUNK ON YOUR JUICES

lol wtf

guy was really going for "bono on mushrooms"

this pairs really well with that insane recent story about the band and its many issues

i spent a couple of subway rides going through this thing track by track and trying not to miss any gems. pretty sure my Spotify algorithm will be severely distorted forever.

not represented in the poll but i wanted to type it out: it's amazing what we can do with love, some matches, and some gasoline!

my conclusion is that all of these guys were legally insane

oh god and: everybody's anxious / the crowd is all around us / the followers of aldous / are spinning with their mescaline

it's so unreasonable that people called them freaks

i definitely had the Aldous one in my list at one point, i think i was worried it was getting too long. he should have included a reference to sputum or bile or earwax or something.

i remember sitting with this lyric booklet at age 15 and wondering: why?!?!?!?!?!??!

Angel, don't you have some bagels in my oven? Lady, don't you know a man when you see one?

got this album at a mall, so the mall one's a sentimental fave

I remember I was still going to church and we were having a secular music share session where we printed out the lyrics to the song and played it for the group.

Most people were choosing inoffensive stuff like "Every day is a winding road" or Will Smith "Men in Black" (in which the person sharing got 30% of the lyrics wrong, including mistaking "Forget the Roswell crap" for "Forget the Ross. Well, crap!")

I originally decided I wanted to share Lakini's Juice cos I was big into the song and my friend read the lyric book and said "come on dude, you are really going to play a song with lyrics about baptizing some woman's feet in toilet water and eating skin? She'll probably confiscate your CD"

So I played them "Master of Puppets " instead

btw there's no way Ed Kowalcyzk didn't personally contribute "Now that I understand this right/Let me take it to the mic" to that tricky song he guested on

czyk

Still can't believe this band toured for a few years without Ed

trying to craft a "Live Aid" pun with Live minus Ed... Live (-Ed)... get it??

Ed is id personified. A Live Id if you will.

feel like we need to cover this album, a different ilxor for each song

I want DJP to sing Lakini's Juice

18 tracks jfc

album before this is pretty good

i think both have a few bangers, and enough passable album tracks to add up to one really good (if exceedingly overwrought) alt-rock album. it'd definitely be weighted more heavily towards Throwing Copper though.

Mental Jewelry >>>

I had to go with "You know your sperm is weak!" due to sheer wtf-ness but there were numerous contenders

this is the hardest ILM poll I've ever seen

mental jewelry is the one with the 'give it up' song right? i liked that song when it came out. I was somewhat horrified at what this band turned into shortly thereafter

ums I am absolutely laughing out loud right now b/c it is so true, there is no wrong answer

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/18/94/57/18945790d88844203d5b0be67567078f.gif

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I might have to get this album now

I’ve been writing songs on my guitar and have been absolutely stumped for lyrics but this thread is showing me I can literally say any old batshit thing I want, shame and lucidity are my enemies

keep it angry, keep it wispy is amazing

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aja6kH4G1Us/maxresdefault.jpg

Loved him in Fight Club

I wonder if anyone can think of another occasion when the band fired the singer, then (insert years long legal wranglings) the singer fired the band

I’ve been writing songs on my guitar and have been absolutely stumped for lyrics but this thread is showing me I can literally say any old batshit thing I want, shame and lucidity are my enemies

anecdotally there is some percentage of folks including myself that really don't pay attention to the lyrics at all, long as it sounds cool it's all good

Looks like America's dropped a load, like she was ready to explode

Me after a spicy curry

I’ve been writing songs on my guitar and have been absolutely stumped for lyrics but this thread is showing me I can literally say any old batshit thing I want, shame and lucidity are my enemies

― the new drip king (DJP),

I mean, you've been listening to Bernard Sumner for thirty-five years.

shame and lucidity are my enemies

And there’s your album title.

would very much endorse DJP, or anyone, trying out the "Ed Method." you could break your writer's block, entertain us all, and maybe have a hit record on your hands! as a reminder, this one is certified 2x platinum in the US alone.

If your mother went to bed with you
And Pauly Shore was there
And someone was nearby grinding pepper
And Joe Dirt was on the telly
And your armpits had the scent of stale pancakes
And the Stefan Urquelle episode of Family Matters was on
And you wish your uncle was still alive
Even though he smelled

WOULD THEY CALL HER A FREAK

is that first line a proto-"grocery bag"

LOL

It's an evening I shared with the sun...HOT

Everybody's anxious, for the coming of the crisis / The collapse of the justice / I can smell your armpits

^ voted for this of course. poetic. iconic.

yeah wow I never liked their groove so I didn't dig deep but there's gold in these hills

how I break it down to an extent - The rack is full and so are we, of laughing gas... and ENNUI! comes out swinging, then Everybody's here / this puke stinks like beer asks whether simpler isn't better but A man behind the altar screams, "You stole my idea! You were my idea! This puke stinks like beer!" replies that no, it's all about the extras, but then the pair of "if the mother" lines prove that first instincts are often correct, what you want is something just fast and awful, and then, having waited for its moment to strike, Looks like America's dropped a load, like she was ready to explode arrives in all its fetid splendor, just deeply awful in several ways (that second "like"? QED Ed, the load has been dropped, there is no second "like" if this is really the stretcher you wanna go out on, friend!), indelible, eternal, secret

SAMADHI

If it slithers into the haze, it's true: a child gives you his shoes

I mean what is this

also it is worth checking out "Century" just for a) how many times he brings up the stinking puke, and b) how he puts the emphasis on "collapse of the justice."

look where all this talkin got us baby

I'm torn between "slithers" and "bagels." While I'm deliberating, let's enjoy some Stadium Super Trucks, as always befits a discussion of the band Live.

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https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k2Vt-B8YsEU/maxresdefault.jpg

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/843029276/photo/watkins-glen-ny-paul-morris-waves-to-the-fans-following-the-speed-energy-stadium-super-trucks.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=VpLXOznjWZJWZFq1xa2gfkfTUHl9yntdOk5CgKQoLAY=

In another place, in another time
I'd be driving Stadium Super Trucks, my dear

ha i listened to this album once purely because of the lyrics

same with to the faithful departed, one of its many 'diminishing sales for a big 1994 alt rock band's next record' siblings

"A man behind the altar screams, "You stole my idea! You were my idea! This puke stinks like beer!""

Love the Fall, rips MES

I’m listening to this album right now and “Freaks” is something else

lmao no kidding, this was a single?

perfect poll. never paid attention to lives lyrics outside of lakinis juice and the placenta falls to the floor line on the other album. this is amazing lol.

XP ^^Yup. I used to have the "Music Issue" of Details magazine from '97, which had a big article on KROQ which included an account of a programming meeting wherein they were fuming about "Turn My Head" being held up as a single in favor of "Freaks".

xp would also recommend checking out "Deep Enough," which is maybe less psychotic but is also Ed Kowalczyk half-rapping about fucking someone on a couch at the club, also includes the phrase "sweaty thongs."

see, for me, "Freaks" at least builds to some kind of catharsis for its chorus... together with "Lakini's Juice" it gives the clearest sense to me of what they might have been going for with this album. i mean yes the lyrics are alarming, as amply demonstrated here, but i can see a viable scenario for this earnestly dark, intense band interrogating life's grisly seedy aspects with heavy post-grunge riffing. i mean it beats listening to Razorblade Suitcase.

unfortunately, it's on all the dreary shapeless tracks in between, where minor-key noodling takes the place of hooks or momentum, that there's nothing left to focus on but the lyrical howlers. which are way up there with any other case of what-were-they-thinking rockers drunk on their own success. like very clearly they learned all the wrong lessons from selling nine million copies of the album with the hit "placenta" song.

meanwhile: i suspect "Rattlesnake" is their attempt at a New Adventures-era R.E.M. track, and if so, whoof.

“Rattlesnake” is legit funny

Heropsychodreamer is hilarious because it just starts at 11 in terms of melodrama and then somehow keeps finding ways to get bigger

that my primary time spent listening to this album was backstage at rehearsals for The Music Man kind of endears it to me more, like I'd be watching Marian the librarian trying to evade Harold Hill while hearing "I KNOW YOU'RE SCARED, U SHUUUULD BE" in my ears

lol, that's great

Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana
That's a crazy, mixed-up town!

My mouth was dry, my brain cold high, the groove was right, so i decided to
Ignite
Your eyes met mine, you skirt began to rise, and so did i
Now you know that i took that prize
In the middle of the club, in the middle of the club, in the middle of club
Now tell me!

...

this thread is a gift

alright that does it. ILX, we're covering this album.

I've taken care of Rattlesnake, whoever's next u got Lakini's juice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A85Pm1l8S-M

let's go hang out in a church
we'll go find lurch
and we'll haul ass out through the abbey

like is he talking about the Addam's family character there

only just now realized there's a line in the previous album's "White, Discussion":

All this discussion, though politically correct
Is dead beyond destruction, though it leaves me quite erect

damn Neanderthal, well done. not sure anyone is going to sign up for such hits as "Graze," "Ghost," or "Insomnia and the Hole in the Universe," but i admire your ambition! it's interesting - stripped down, it's very clear that the song has basically strong bones and a lot of head-scratcher lyrics. they could have saved a lot of money on this record by just recording at a sound check or something.

i always forget that bridge, though - they couldn't have worked on that a little more?

definitely always assumed it was Lurch from the Addams Family, not that that makes any sense. random pop culture references were just part of the radio rock wallpaper. admittedly, they don't seem to sit comfortably amidst the rest of Ed's half-baked sturm und drang. i also just looked up Jesco White and he is not dead. wonder if Ed was being poetic with that, or just didn't bother getting his facts checked.

let's go hang out in a church
we'll go find lurch
and we'll haul ass out through the abbey

― ivy., Monday, February 5, 2024 7:13 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

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lol. would love to hear either of these bands covering each other's material tbh.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i've been struggling with my shortlist. i guess i gotta let go of "Boy loses rib and lets a hellified cry into the dark, 'Where did I go wrong?!'" ... it's magnificently stupid but even right after i listen to the song i can't actually hear it in my head, and i feel my vote should be for something that really grabs you.

so i'm now torn between the "lineup in downtown Philadelphia" essay, and one of the "Century" options. the latter are a rich bonanza. of the "puke stinks like beer" scenarios, i think i narrowly prefer the thrashing Vertigo Comics attempt of "A man behind the altar screams..." to the straightforward observational deadpan of "everybody's here, this puke stinks like beer." whether either of them can unseat "the collapse of the justice / I can smell your armpits," i dunno.

i have never had a guitar lesson and can barely have a guitar make chord-like "sounds," but this poll must be extended so i can try to learn something to honor the-- the? the whatever these songs here are.

as to lyrics i am between the nearly perfect pathos/bathos of either of these:

A man behind the altar screams, "You stole my idea! You were my idea! This puke stinks like beer!"

"Everybody's anxious, for the coming of the crisis / The collapse of the justice / I can smell your armpits"

maybe they're too on the nose.

presumed response: "you said it. THEY STINK ON ICE!"

Evening I shared with the sun
To find out where we belong
Sippin on Lakini's juice
Hopin' it'll keep me loose

(that's my cover; on to track 3!)

With My Mind On My Samadhi & My Samadhi On My Mind

mental jewelry is the one with the 'give it up' song right? i liked that song when it came out. I was somewhat horrified at what this band turned into shortly thereafter

You really missed an opportunity to refer to this song's ridiculous name: "Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition)". Leave it to these guys to make listeners even more confused by a parenthetical. But it is a jam. "Pain Lies by the Riverside" is too

in Spring 1995, Live asked 2 artists to be their opening acts on a national tour:

Pete Droge (?) and...

the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282.

What follows is Anne Eickelberg's tour diary of the unlikely pairing of Live's audience and one of the strangest bands to ever rock 5-10k capacity venues:

http://www.tful282.com/annediaries.htm#spring95

https://i.imgur.com/gvRMkNN.jpeg

IIRC, on the tour before that they were supported by Angelfish (Radioactive label-mates & Shirley Manson's pre-Garbage outfit) and Vic Chestnutt. Live & Garbage both later recorded covers of Chestnutt's "Supernatural".

VIC CHESNUTT

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

some strong contenders with zero votes here

amazed neither "if the mother" line snagged a single vote, but these are great results imo. never would have figured 'bagels' for the winner!

pretty solid distribution here, showing that so many of these lines are infinite wtf rabbitholes of wrongness

WOULD YOU CALL HER A FREAK

This thread still kills me

It turns my head, you could say

i've been there before

it's a crazy CRAZY mixed-up town!

lol now I'm imagining this album with the announcer from Crazy Taxi on lead vocals