Cancer of the Skull

[MYTAKE] This song explores the eternal existential dilemma of artistic ambition versus insufficient competence - the struggle of aspiring to greatness while lacking the competence to achieve it.

Verse 1

I am full of heavy metals
I am a heavy metal man

[MYTAKE] [KEY] This brilliant metaphor captures the narrator's essence perfectly. Heavy metals possess high energy, bind to organic matter, and resist chemical reactions. Similarly, a "heavy metal man" is toxic to social norms - his stubborn character prevents normal behavior and cultural assimilation. Yet this very "heavy metalness" becomes the source of his creative power. The deep root of his virtues and vices.

I have work in the morning
I have two bags over each hand, mm
I came up the stairs
I came to meet your cigarettes
You'd like to keep my salesman teeth, wouldn't you, baby?
Well, I'm on a pirate's crazy-eyed quest, mm

Verse 2

I am wired to the man

[MYTAKE] The narrator is literally "wired" to his boss and the corporate system, forced to fulfill societal expectations despite his artistic nature.

I take the train at dawn for him
I threw the horrible secret out, mm
I bring the front door into our house, mm

[MYTAKE] He brings a "good" appearance to his family amidst society through his job I assume.

I came up here freeze
I came up here to sleep in your infamous kitchen
You're holding out your baby's shoes, I can't take 'em
I pray to a pirate's maniac religion

Chorus

Oh, cancer of the fingers
And the hands of a beginner
These songs are meant for bad singers
I can't reach cancer of the '80s
I was beat with ukuleles
These songs are a hundred replay
I can't feed, mm

Verse 3

My face is on the daughters
I am one dollar in your hand
I'd write a hell of a letter
And anyone who doesn't know any better would tell you
I am that zero dollar man

• In a capitalist society where social hierarchies are determined by income and capital, the narrator recognizes his complete lack of value.

[MYTAKE] In some sense, he has high artistic qualities. But since they were insufficient to make a career, he had to settle to a "zero dollar man" job, and now anyone that sees him thinks he is a "zero dollar man" and nothing beyond that, that's why he mentions "And anyone who doesn't know any better would tell you".

Oh, I painted over the perfect nose
That touches something you learned in 2000 with it
I buckled up for the fatal crash
Took a bullet through the bulletproof glass

• This darkly humorous image of invulnerability being defeated captures the absurdity of the narrator's feelings.

I kissed the emptiest car on the road

Chorus (Outro)

Oh, cancer of the fingers

[MYTAKE] The compulsive need to create music becomes a destructive force - a cancer that consumes him.

And the hands of a beginner

[MYTAKE] [KEY] The "fingers" represent the high aspiration, whereas the hands represent the competence. Here he perfectly communicates the root of the situation. A visceral aspiration, and the competence of a beginner.

Those songs of legendary swingers

[MYTAKE] This is also very important in the song's central revelation: the narrator cannot match the skill of legendary musicians such as the Beatles or Led Zeppelin and must therefore resign himself to mundane employment. The gap between artistic ambition and actual ability becomes unbridgeable.

I can't keep cancer of the '80s
I've been getting spanked with everybody lately
All these songs are a hundred ugly babies

[MYTAKE] The babies are his songs. After creating hundreds of them, he can't nurture them. He doesn't have the competence to actually make them blossom into high quality music.

Nina + Field of Cops

[MYTAKE] Nina represents clear-eyed awareness of harsh reality, while the "field of cops" symbolizes the overwhelming social forces and authority structures that crush innocence and individuality.

Verse 1

Your building is full of people who hate you
And bite off fingers and eat from piles

[MYTAKE] Opens with a cynical perspective on society's inherent hostility and competitiveness.

And someone's knocking
All things spit towards and stutter at you
Closer and closer until the whole city falls over
While the music breaks a window

[MYTAKE] Music serves as escapism from reality's cynicism, offering retreat into comfortable fantasy.

You're suspicious of treasures and plastic covers

[MYTAKE] Nina possesses clear-eyed awareness - she sees reality without the distortion of either fantasy of things that look good on appearance.

All things flop over, the oven is open
And the kitchen is lying
My name is gonna sound old to you
But names are donuts on the sea
Names are peanuts in the trees
Names bid you to beg for trash

[MYTAKE] This passage brilliantly illustrates Lévi-Strauss's concept that in any given society, denotation and connotation are inseparable from the act of naming itself. Names carry cultural baggage that shapes our reality. Cultural naming creates ideologies that incentivize us to live our lives begging for trash.

Oh, I walk on everything
On lucky dollars, baskets in the sand
Sunglasses in the rain, tire tracks in caves
I'll never send one more empty box
I'll talk to every crowded room
I'll go to the great carnivals of pain
And fight entire fields of cops
And keep a coconut in my hand

Refrain 1

Nina knows the reason, and she's seen into the mouth
Of what it is to be a mountain
And she's seen all the good pigeon-like people shot down And bones be kicked to powder by the insane wild horses

[MYTAKE] Nina possesses profound awareness of reality's brutality and the systematic destruction of innocence.

Nina I'm not nothing, but when you lie on the piano

[MYTAKE] [KEY] From a musical perspective, my favourite line of the song.

I am reminded I am stupid, and in every upstairs room
A tall and daughterless Russian is kicking robins eggs to powder
While the music breaks a window

Verse 2

Cavemen are kissing, walking on logs
Low enough to limbo cobwebs
And watch the clouds blow away
Drunk driving towards the sea

• Another cynical portrayal of society's primitive and self-destructive tendencies.

I'll be at your feet in every lifeboat

[MYTAKE] Given the harsh reality Nina perceives and her tranquility while facing it, perhaps the wisest response is to follow her guidance and awareness.

I'll hold these lemons in my mouth and run
One of the important people standing on your chest
I'll love whatever kicks me hardest in the mouth
I'm gonna eat my keys
I've met a little bit of who I am

• I can definitely relate to that, understanding more about who I am in these trivial tasks of life.

Backpacking upon the fingers of the real
Barricading every garden gate
Smiling into every cup of grapes
I safari across the neighbor's yard
Pushing groceries past pyramids of teeth
With my hands on my hips
Oh, this idiot festival, I man these cornfields for the banana-growing masses
Getting naked on the plane, sunburned to shit in the rain
Tomatoes in the missing barrels all have met many-handed boys
With laughing brains and know gorilla-fingered yapping dogs
The ugly kidney-needing kitten sees that the empty chairs want somebody

Refrain 2

Nina isn't listening and she's seen into the mouth
Of what is really in the fountain
And she's seen all the good pigeon-like people shot down
And bones be kicked to powder by the insane wild horses
Nina I'm not nothing but when you check under cabinets
I'm reminded someone's calling
And in every upstairs room a dirty old man is blushing
And the neighbors lose their power while the music breaks the window

Verse 3

These great spirals, diagrams, and vegetables and talking red trees
Throw it all away

• No ideology seems to be very useful anymore.

Stupid paper gifts offered with both hands are
Sadder than bald-headed haircut dreams

[MYTAKE] Social rituals and gestures are revealed as hollow, meaningless performances.

Sadder than a paper-flat puppy in your pad
Sadder than any featherless doer of math
Sadder than the sad
Microwave everything, add to the puddles
Give me an answer, die for baseball

[MYTAKE] Philosophical suicide as escape from Camus's "nostalgia for unity" - choosing death over confronting society's cynicism and fragmentation.

Motorcycle made of rocks eat this hotel key and ride away
Stuff these papers down your pants
And do the sole survivor's walk back down the way you came

Refrain 3 (Outro)

• [MYTAKE] From a musical perspective, my favorite part of the song

Nina knows the reason that she's seen into the mouth
Of what it is to be a mountain
And she's seen all the good pigeon-like people shot down
And bones be kicked to powder by the insane wild horses
Nina, I'm not nothing but when you lie on the piano I am reminded I am stupid, and in every upstairs room
The deep and smiling voice is shushing

[MYTAKE] Suggests the sinister presence of those that control the world (upstrairs room). Figures engaging in corrupt activities while maintaining public facades.

Kicking everything to powder
Throwing music out the window
Woah, woah