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He means his weed (grass) is always better than yours. A pun on the common idiom, “grass is greener on the other side”.
Layered against the bluest tone from where the thunder lived
And here I was directly under it
Like some dejected little grey they told to stay and wait for the mothership
A cotton ball in a blizzard of mischief or brain prison El-P (Ft. Cat Power) – Poisenville Kids No Wins/Reprise (This Must Be Our Time)
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Take me down to the police, charge me with assault
Smile on her face, she does what she wants to me Jack White – Freedom at 21
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Anyone who has got salt in an open wound will know that this is very painful, thus anyone that does this intentionally to another person is torturous and vindictive. She’s literally rubbing salt into his wounds.
She can assault him – even torture him – and upon going to the police it is Jack White that gets arrested and charged with assault, not the girl.
This is possibly a comment on the legal state of affairs surrounding domestic abuse. Many American states have “primary aggressor” laws which help determine which partner is likely to be responsible for most of the violence. As the criteria include factors such as size, they have been criticised for being biased against men.
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He’s talking about DMT, or Dimethyltryptamine. One of the most powerful psychedelic drugs in the world, it causes intense hallucinations – as if you could see the future.
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Would you stand up and walk out on me? The Beatles – With a Little Help from My Friends
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The second line to this was originally “Would you throw tomatoes at me?”, but the line was changed because Ringo feared that, if the Beatles ever resumed touring and performed the song live, people would really throw tomatoes at him.
The song “With A Little Help From My Friends” was written specifically for me, but they had one line that I wouldn’t sing. It was ‘What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and throw tomatoes at me?’ I said, ‘There’s not a chance in hell am I going to sing this line,’ because we still had lots of really deep memories of the kids throwing jelly beans and toys on stage; and I thought that if we ever did get out there again, I was not going to be bombarded with tomatoes.
- Ringo Starr, Anthology
This fear may have been caused after George Harrison made a comment that he liked jelly babies in the early days of The Beatles. Fans often threw jelly beans and jelly babies at them as they were performing.
And one fell off and hit his head on the ground
The other monkey called a doctor
Said "Another body dead on the ground" Jack White – Trash Tongue Talker
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But when I'm by myself, I think of nothing else
Than if a boy just might be gettin' through and touchin' you Jack White – Sixteen Saltines
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White’s feelings for her – particularly the jealously and obsession – are like those of an infatuated young man. This drives home the strength of his feelings, which are just as intense as a first love.
His paranoia that she may be being intimate with another man reflects that he isn’t properly over her – chances are, he’s not had too much intimacy lately.
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What is this?
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Recalls the theme of the ocean explored earlier on the album in “Ocean of Noise.” Noise is the gray static seen on a TV channel with no signal.
Possibly a reference to rising sea levels caused by climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps?
This has recently been explored by Vampire Weekend on Hudson.
not a reference to climate change, but to the tide of societal change