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Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Nov 2010, 16:17by doublewuzzy
I was entering in the lyrics for the Baby Birch sheet music from the CD booklet and I noticed she writes "engine breaks." I have always thought she was referring to a noun, i.e. it should be engine BRAKES, but is that even a real thing? Or is she using it as a verb - the engine is breaking? It could go either way, but I am confused by the next line - "and I said 'how about them engine breaks'?" It SOUNDS like she's talking about a noun again - brakes - but maybe there is a phenomena known as an "engine break?" I know nothing about engines. Wiki has an entry for "engine braking (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_braking)."
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Nov 2010, 16:48by Ann
I've always wondered this too, what in world she is referring too. No idea though. :/
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Nov 2010, 17:39by polliwog
Personally, I think we will never truly understand the things she writes unless she explains them. So many of the interpretations given to her lyrics seem to be just wild guesses. Like most everyone here, I would love to know what goes on in her head when she weaves her words, but I just can't devote any energy to something I believe is beyond my grasp.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Nov 2010, 17:46by Relayor
polliwog wrote:Personally, I think we will never truly understand the things she writes unless she explains them. So many of the interpretations given to her lyrics seem to be just wild guesses. Like most everyone here, I would love to know what goes on in her head when she weaves her words, but I just can't devote any energy to something I believe is beyond my grasp.
You're no help.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Nov 2010, 17:50by doublewuzzy
Actually I forgot to say WHY I was asking this: I figure she does enough self-checking to avoid it, but I thought maybe it was an error? Maybe she meant brakes all along but mistakenly put breaks instead? Who knows!
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 00:59by Ann
doublewuzzy wrote:Actually I forgot to say WHY I was asking this: I figure she does enough self-checking to avoid it, but I thought maybe it was an error? Maybe she meant brakes all along but mistakenly put breaks instead? Who knows!
I considered that too. I mean -- I'm not of the Polliwog variety when it comes to lyrics. I interpret the shit out of them. It's more about me than it is about her -- I mean, I like to think I'm gleaning something that's really there, but I also am okay with seeing something she didn't necessarily intend.
So, I've definitely given a ton of thought to Baby Birch, and this line. I was unsure as well. It appears really out of character for her to genuinely have a mistake (since she's very perfectionist about her work), but I have no idea what she would mean by "engine breaks". It's entirely possible someone
else made a typo ... or maybe there's supposed to be some double meaning there. That's one of the lines I sort of avoided when interpreting. I just don't know.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 01:56by Relayor
ann wrote:doublewuzzy wrote:... but I have no idea what she would mean by "engine breaks". ...
Uh...the engine broke? the engine breaks. The thing that drives something, literally a car; figuratively something else. No?
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 03:31by Ann
Relayor wrote:ann wrote:doublewuzzy wrote:... but I have no idea what she would mean by "engine breaks". ...
Uh...the engine broke? the engine breaks. The thing that drives something, literally a car; figuratively something else. No?
"How about them engine breaks?"
Doesn't fit.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 03:32by Relayor
ann wrote:Relayor wrote:ann wrote:doublewuzzy wrote:... but I have no idea what she would mean by "engine breaks". ...
Uh...the engine broke? the engine breaks. The thing that drives something, literally a car; figuratively something else. No?
"How about them engine breaks?"
Doesn't fit.
Try 'brakes'. Wait, is that what appears as lyrics in the cd?
'Breaks' could be shorthand for 'breakdowns'.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 03:41by Jordan~
"Break" is, I think, a legitimate noun in the sense of "breakages", especially given the colloquial use of "them" for "those". It's blatantly colloquial language.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
15 Nov 2010, 16:01by Miken
I do seem to remember noticing a few typos when I read the lyrics. I don't have them to hand but when I do the inner pedant in me will be sure to point them out.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
16 Nov 2010, 22:59by Miken
I do seem to remember noticing a few typos when I read the lyrics. I don't have them to hand but when I do the inner pedant in me will be sure to point them out.
Okay, I only found five, some of which could perhaps be puns or able to be taken more than one way (maybe).
1. Sewn, should be sown in Easy?
2. Lay, should be way in GIPC?
3. Breaks/Brakes in Baby Birch.
4. Wrested, should be rested in Soft as Chalk?
5. Principal, should be principle in Kingfisher?
Ah I feel better now. Feel free to point out if I'm misunderstanding / being an idiot.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
16 Nov 2010, 23:21by Wanbli
nice work, will check em out
I think with:
4. Wrested, should be rested in Soft as Chalk?
it is meant to be wrested
Say, honey, did you belong to me?
Tell me, darlin, did I pass your test?
I lay, as still as death, until the dawn,
whereupon I wrested from
that godawful lawlessness.
when using the meaning of the word wrest as:
"Distort the meaning or interpretation of (something) to suit one's own interests or views"
I would read that to mean that she went to sleep and woke up to then deal with whatever the answers were in whatever way suited her
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
17 Nov 2010, 00:15by Jordan~
Wrest is transitive, and should really have an object if it's being used like that. Literally, its meaning is akin to "wrestle" - to grapple and force. But there is no object. Perhaps it's meant to be reflexive? I wrested myself from that godawful lawlessness? There's also a meaning of "wrest", "to pull or twist violently". That may connote twisting and turning in one's sleep, restlessly.
"Lay" in Good Intentions is being used in the sense of "the lay of the land".
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
17 Nov 2010, 22:15by doublewuzzy
I vote for the violent twisting definition of wrest - as in she violently broke free of that god-awful lawlessness.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
20 Nov 2010, 21:52by Becca
doublewuzzy wrote:I vote for the violent twisting definition of wrest - as in she violently broke free of that god-awful lawlessness.
That's exactly how I interpreted it. Never thought anything weird about it.
On that note, does anyone else find themselves addicted to randomly blurting out "LAW-LESS-NESS" as a result of this song? My friend and I seem to have had that one word stuck in our heads basically since the album came out and will sometimes, out of nowhere, say something along the lines of "hey, guess what? LAW-LESS-NESS!" It's become our catchphrase or something.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
21 Nov 2010, 21:25by Ann
Yeah! I love how she says it so sometimes I'll only sing that one word. So much fun.
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
25 Jan 2011, 09:22by dwaink
could be wrong but it gives me the impression of someone sitting on a dock watching a boat leave, a boat with an inboard motor, and the breakes are the sound the motor makes as the water is pushed out to propel the boat. the mention of stars in their bulletproof cars is like a double meaning of the stars over head and hollywood stars , perhaps leaving a function and Joanna was doing some star watching herself, with Bill perhaps?
Re: Engine br(e)ak(e)s?
Posted:
14 Oct 2011, 21:36by andrewb
My guess: She's making a joke combining the broken engine from the prior stanza and the word "breaks" as in the idiom "them's the breaks", phrased with structure borrowed from (or at least similar to) the idiom "how about them apples".