a few months ago, i was assigned in english class to do a report on a song's lyrics. i ended up doing it on all the lyrics of slint's album "spiderland".

here is that report, with some minor edits from me and my english teacher.

UTICA QUARRY, NIGHTTIME

The lyrics of slint's "spiderland" By vancouvercalico

"I stepped out onto the midway..."

By the time that spiderland, the second studio album by Kentucky post-hardcore band Slint had come out, the band had been broken up for months. The depression of lead singer brian mcmahan had grown exponentially, and recording sessions had become fraught with stress. Even when the album finally released in march of 1991, commercial and critical reception failed to build. But to the few who had truly listened, what they saw was a masterpiece - a portrait of a band, although broken, reaching beyond what anyone thought of them. And as a small community began to form around the album, the support eventually caused Slint to reunite for several reunion tours. Here, I'm not going to talk about the actual music of Spiderland, as incredible as it is. The lyrics are arguably the other dimension of spiderland, part sung, part recited, and describe various tales of love, darkness, and everything in between.

"Creeping up into the sky..."

As "breadcrumb trail" the first (and arguably best) track on spiderland begins, we hear the narrator recite a tale of a romance with a fortune-teller at a fair. Right off the bat, the song wastes no time giving us a look into this world, and the tiny details that make it all more real, such as the lights on the tent and the sketchy carnie. Though the song's lyrics seem pretty straightforward, some say that it relates to the concept of romance in general. Perhaps the most interesting part, at least to me, is when the protagonist views people waiting in line for the sideshow, bringing the striking lyric, "I couldn't figure out why they would want to wait in line."

“Soon as I start to smile, With my smiling queen…” “Nosferatu man”, as the title probably predicted to you, is about a vampire, or at least the concept of one in a relationship. The opening follows him going about an evening with his queen, before sneaking out to go hunting, as a vampire does. However, his queen seems to follow him, not knowing of his secret. He tries to fight the urge to bite her, but eventually his instincts overcome him and he feasts upon her blood.

Compared to breadcrumb trail, this song seems a lot more of a poem rather than a short story. Much of the detail is gone, preferring to give you the basic imagery of the story, or at least as much basic imagery as Slint can give you. While the song contains the overarching theme of a vampire, some say that it can be about an isolationist member of a relationship, attempting to be a supportive partner before finally breaking her, like a vampire. This could tie into the final verse;

"Now my queen is lying In her early grave After that girl I'll keep alone There's nothing left to save" "The light, Their backs, Their conversation..."

"Don, aman" concerns a wallflower attempting to fit in at a party. It returns to the short story style of the first song, but this time does away with the sung choruses to provide a purely narrative experience.

As the song begins, Don is at a party, thinking about something he said that he seems to regret. After watching the nighttime atmosphere around him, he seems to get ahold of himself and resolves to head back in. However, he is immediately beset by waves of anxiety, due to fear of being watched, fear of being judged, fear of being in a place he doesn’t belong, in the end, he leaves the party, and laughs at his own failure to have a good time as he drives to his apartment. The next morning, however, he is once again caught in his own crisis, and he ponders his future. As someone who has stood in the corner of a party before, this is probably the song I most relate to. The feeling of not being fully there in a room is often, at times, incapacitating, and has you retreat into your own mind for the slightest sense of familiarity. As the song recites at the end, “In the mirror, he saw his friend”. “Embracing thoughts of tonight's dreamless sleep…” Washer, the only fully sung-through song on the album, can be interpreted as either being about the end of a relationship, of someone planning their suicide. On that note, this could be easily interpreted as the darkest song on the album. As the song begins, he consoles his lover as she sleeps, instructing her to “Fill your pockets with the dust and the memories, That rises from the shoes on my feet” referring to trying to hold on to their memories of their time together. As he expresses the possibility of how they may meet again, either here or in heaven, he muses that “Every time I ever cried for fear, Was just a mistake that I made”, feeling like he wasted his emotional energy trying to reason with her. He asks her to believe that she’s better off without him, to eventually find him again, and “promise him that the sun will rise again.” the suicide imagery makes a return with the song’s final words: “My head is empty My toes are warm I am safe from harm”

"..."

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"'Let me in,' the voice cried softly..."

As the final track, "good morning, captain" begins, we hear a short story about the captain of a ship. He is the last member remaining after a terrible storm. The song's opening recalls breadcrumb trail in how it describes the surroundings. As the captain attempts to stand, he mutters about the cold, and slowly drifts to sleep. When he wakes, he finds that much of the ship is gone, and a creaking sound at the stairs. It is here where the song shifts to being about the loss of childhood - a theme perhaps prevalent in the rest of the album. Most members of Slint were in high school when the band formed, a time where that transition was admittedly common. As the song progresses, the captain finds a young boy on the ship, perhaps his son, or him in a past life. He begins to beg the boy for forgiveness, for the things he’s done, for not being there for him or himself, for growing up in the first place. The final lines of both the song and the album recall the band’s own struggles with touring, particularly how they would leave their families behind. They, in all of their harrowing glory, almost seem like an impassioned phone call back home;

"But I swear, with this song, I'll make it up to you,

I'll make it up to you I'll make it up to you I miss you

I miss you

I miss you

I miss you"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP86gTlpch0