Last night I listened to Wilco's
Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, and I noticed something about the lyrics in two songs.
"Misunderstood"
This song is also on
Being There, but when I listened to it earlier this year I guess I didn't pay attention to the line "Short on long-term goals." Because of the opposition between "short" and "long," there's a sense of incongruity that emphasizes the aimlessness and confusion of not having goals.
"Airline to Heaven"
Originally, this is a song from
Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (which I have but haven't listened to yet) with lyrics by Woody Guthrie. I haven't listened to this version that often, but I hadn't noticed until now that "Them's got ears let them hear / Them's got eyes let them see" is a quote from the Bible. I had to look up where it is specifically and actually found two instances: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" - Matthew 11:15 and "And he [Jesus] said, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear'" - Mark 4:9. I think it's interesting that Guthrie pluralized it ("them" instead of "he"). It seems that he also extended the Biblical "ears to hear" to "eyes to see."
