Song of the Week: Left Me a Fool

[GrrrlRomeo]

Sorry I'm late!

This week's song is "Left Me a Fool"

Discuss it, rate how you like it on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. If you tabbed the song you can also post it in this thread if you like.

*For these threads please keep the topic related to the song.

Lyrics from lifeblood.net (http://www.lifeblood.net/songs/athruz/leftmeafool.html)

everybody loves you
and they want to know your story
you go riding out a mystery
concealed in all your glory
but when it comes to flesh and bones
you remind me of shallot
only made of shadows
even though you're not

i remember how i spent
all my energy and time
with affected conversation
trying to pry inside your mind
you are as beautiful as truth
and as empty as a shell
and i came to you one night
and it made me feel like hell

oh to reach through all your surface
just to find an empty pool
and to suffer all your pride
as i lay down by your side
and you swallowed up my heart
and left me a fool
left me a fool

everybody loves a hero
an image to create
the antithesis of everything
inside ourselves we hate
but you'd better close your eyes
when it's time for them to die
because you'd hate to think the life
you'd built upon them was a lie

oh to reach through all your surface
just to find an empty pool
and to suffer all your pride
as i lay down by your side
and you swallowed up my heart
and left me a fool
left me a fool

i resign myself to silence
i will never blow your cover
no one ever has to know
who the hero took for lover
but it has come to mind as you blaze on
as brilliant as a star
how many you've left behind
how many casualties there are

oh to reach through all your surface
just to find an empty pool
and to suffer all your pride
as i lay down by your side
and you swallowed up my heart
and left me a fool
left me a fool

words and music by emily saliers

[Summer]

I love most early Emily, but I don't like it at all when she tries to force things into her lower vocal register. And I have to confess that I find the melody of this one incredibly boring. It's a consistent "skip" for me. For these reasons, this is one of very few early IG songs that I would rate below average.

[wrldgrl]

I have a hard time rating anything as "bad"....but I'm not a huge fan of this song. I don't always skip it, but I don't listen to this CD, in it's entirety, alot either.

I feel bad for Em, though. Sucks to find an empty pool.

[paulie]

I feel bad for Em, though. Sucks to find an empty pool.

ha ha!

I like the song, I'm always a sucker for moody brooding lyrics and a slow melody, to me it's pretty classic early IG sound and I always like that...tho I agree w/ above about her forcing her voice into a lower register, to me not an example of her best singing voice.

[Summer]

Just a quick word of clarification. I'm not too keen on ranking something "bad," either, so I've been looking at the scale as a Likert-type gauge with "bad" actually meaning "below average." And for my baseline of "average," I'm looking at the entire IG catalog as a stand-alone, rather than comparing IG songs to those by other acts - since even mediocre IG would rate as "average" or higher when placed alongside a lot of music.

When looked at this way, there have to be "great," "average," and "below average" songs in the distribution of IG tunes, and for me Left Me a Fool qualifies in the latter category - in large part, as I mentioned, because of the forced quality of the vocal.

(Clearly, I really need to get out of this Quantitative Research Methodologies class - and soon!)

I'm finished now - honest,
Summah

[wrldgrl]

SUMMAH: You can think it's bad dude....

Don't be back peddling now, hooker.
WG

[GrrrlRomeo]

I started leaving on the album part just so people could vote on whatever version they wanted...or a combination. I like "Left Me a Fool" on Back on the Bus Y'all a lot. In fact, I can't even hear the Strange Fire version in my head, but I remember there's a difference in vocal quality.

I usually don't like ballads, but I do like the melody of this one. It's slow, but moves...sort of like a wave or a tide ebbing and then rising.

On a personal level, I like it because I've known someone like this...which I didn't actually like. But I like songs I can't relate to because I can get more into them.

For the longest time I thought the line was "Oh, to reach the water's surface, just to find an empty pool"...which, I suppose doesn't really change the meaning of the line...

[meggy]

I'd like to know who the song was referring to. It sounds like a scandalous affair.....

I don't like Emily's deep voice in this song either. I first heard the early albums only after Swamp Ophelia, Shaming of the Sun, etc. where her voice was more like it is today. Because I was buying all their albums in cassette form then (I know, I'm old), I mistook her deep voice, in this song particularly, as the batteries wearing out in my walkman.....

[lwc2u]

The line, "even though you're not," is really weak, like she couldn't think of anything else to rhyme with Shallot. Other than that I think it's a good song. Just not one of their better ones.

[paulie]

I never got the 'shallot' line--what exactly does it mean? Am I missing something?