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| "[A]s far I'm concerned, the songs are almost completely lyric driven." |
| -Dan Messe, Crud Magazine, 13 March 2002 |
| This meanings section is a collection of quotes from band members about the meanings behind their song lyrics, album titles, and band name. Songs can and do mean different things to different people, but I think it's interesting to know the inspiration behind songs. Meanings for the cover songs aren't about song content so much as what spurred the band to record them. |
| This is the page for Funnel Cloud songs. Click Meanings on the left menu for the main page. |
| Click on a title to jump to its meaning. Click here for Funnel Cloud lyrics. |
| Funnel Cloud (Album Title) |
| "The group decided on the title 'Funnel Cloud' as a metaphor for unexpected treasure and tragedy of living, after experiencing one of nature's little curve balls. 'The idea started in 2004 as [singer Sally Ellyson] was getting married in Virginia,' multi-instrumentalist/songwriter Dan Messe explains. 'We stopped off at a state fair during this beautiful summer day, same day she was getting married. It was crystal clear all day with exception to this little puff of a cloud off in the distance. Next thing we know it, five tornadoes are touching down and we all had to evacuate to local cellars....After I came home from that wedding, my home was flooded and so much of my life was ruined. The next week, my dad died,' he says. 'There's always these winds of destruction or change, and you just have to move on with your life. The hard things in life can move you forward. So I was writing all this while, with themes about being stuck. This record for us is moving forward.'"
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| [Dan Messe, Billboard, 18 July 2006] |
| Almost Home |
| Dan wrote this song for his daughter before she was born. (The Fire Thief is for his son.) |
| [Mentioned at various October 2006 shows by Sally Ellyson or Dan Messe when introducing this song] |
| The Burnt Over District |
| "The name refers to western New York which during the turn of the century was home to a lot of religious revivals and religious fire, I guess, and it burned across the state and gave birth to a lot of American religions like Mormonism and the Adventists. This is actually the only instrumental on Funnel Cloud. It didn't start out as an instrumental, it started out as a sung song called 'Barcarolle,' which means 'boat song' in Italian, and during the course of recording it, Sally [Ellyson] and I had a disagreement over how the song should be sung, and that's how it became an instrumental." |
| [Dan Messe, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #3, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
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| "'Burnt-Over District' started as a song called 'Barcarolle.' I don't remember the lyrics. In fact, I don't the lyrics were ever finished....We had talked about there being an instrumental on this record since all the other records have them, and it sort of arrived at, 'Well, okay, maybe it's okay if there isn't an instrumental on this.' And I actually don't remember the sort of disagreement Sally and Dan had, I don't remember it exactly, but Dan sort of said, 'Well, if Sally's not into that version of the song, then maybe we should use it as an instrumental anyway,' and I said, 'Hmm, that's probably a good idea.' I think Greg had already written at least a partial arrangement for it. I knew he had like a sort of demo of the song, or at least listened to it, so we just asked him to expand on what the first draft simple arrangement was and just turn the whole thing into an instrumental. I don't remember if we had recorded a version with Sally. No, no I don't think we had, actually. I think the first time we really tried to record it it was with the ensemble players, and we said, "Hey, this is great. Let's just use this for an instrumental.'" |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| "Thematically, Dan is extremely interested in the growth of the American religions, like Mormonism which is an American phenomenon. I don't think the song, if it had been a song with lyrics, that would not have been the subject matter. It made a good instrumental title. It's one of those little sort of details that any listener can sort of go look into and say, 'Wow, this is what the burnt-over district was.'...It's more about ideas. We're not trying to be too cryptic or to put any sort of heavy meaning on naming a song that. It's more about the way that type of religious thought sort of flourished in the United States in the nineteenth century, and it's more sort of an idea as metaphor than idea about making some statement about religion or whatever, which we would not be comfortable doing." |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| If you want to learn more historically about the Burnt-Over District, Wikipedia might be a good place to start. |
| Curtains |
| "Dan and I first met years ago when he enlisted some good friends of mine and me to work on a project of his called Burying Songs. I wasn't at all sure at the time what some of the writing was about, and I'm still not entirely sure, I know, but it has always been some of my favorite writing ever anywhere in just a strange and beautiful sort of way. And we as Hem have tried to put at least one Burying Song on every project that we've done. This next song is Funnel Cloud's Burying Song." |
| [Steve Curtis, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #1, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
| Funnel Cloud |
| "I think a good half of the songs [on Funnel Cloud] are about this sort of sense of impending doom or danger, or at least doom signifying life change. Like, major life change. I think that's a big theme on this record with songs like 'We'll Meet Along The Way' and 'Funnel Cloud' especially. 'Too Late To Turn Back Now.' I think a lot of those songs are about this sort of power that the world can have over you and you're sort of defenseless to do anything about it." |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| "The title track in particular, we went to a lot of trouble to make that sound sort of like a sunny day. If you're just sort of listening to the melody and the arrangement and the beautiful playing and everything, I think the lyrics kind of sneak right up on you. 'Carry off the blankets, carry off the trees,' that sort of thing. That song, that idea, was really inspired by when Sally got married, actually. She got married down in Virginia near the Potomac River, and the day that all of us drove down there for the wedding was horrible. Really, really bad weather. I think it was actually the remnants of a hurricane, and there were funnel clouds touching down all over the place. And that's I think a central idea on the record, you're going to do something really, really joyful, you're going to participate in your friend's wedding, basically, and you get stuck in a hurricane and there's tornadoes everywhere. So I would say metaphorically that's a big song on the record." |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| This song is about how the worst moments of your life can move you forward. (See the similar album title meaning). |
| [Mentioned by Dan Messe at various live shows September-October 2006] |
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| "We were trying to capture the perfect summer day before it all goes to hell. There was this perfect summer day when we were heading down to Sally's wedding. We stopped off at this state fair, and literally within an hour there were five tornadoes touching down....You never imagine that from that perfect, happy place, all of a sudden we were really scared. And when we came home from that trip, our house had been flooded, destroyed. We got robbed the next week. My dad died the next week. It might have been the worst year of my life, just every bad possible thing that could happen. It seemed to me like the one thing that you could count on from years like that is that it's going to move you forward. So that's what that song's about." |
| [Dan Messe, The Bob Edwards Show, 27 November 2006. Hear the whole great XM Radio interview here.] |
| Great Houses Of New York |
| This song was inspired by neighborhoods near the band's Brooklyn home that have interesting names like Tuxedo Park and are full of old, beautiful houses that have their own names. |
| [Dan Messe introducing this song at various live shows in September-October 2006, including these you can download: 9/23/06 New York and 9/26/06 Chicago] |
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| "'I tend to get inspired by titles, and I feel that they're really evocative,' he says. 'That's the title that has been around for a couple of years. Every time I thought about it I was like, 'There's a great song there. I don't know what it is, but I know there's a great song there that I want to write.' I was driving north of here,' he adds. 'There are neighborhoods like Tuxedo Park where there are all these great houses that the Roosevelts, Astors and Rockefellers lived in, and yet, that world doesn't exist anymore. There was something incredibly poignant to me about this world that was once the center of the world in terms of power, art and culture, and now it's a museum. I guess for me, I've always been much more attractive to after the party's over than the party itself. You can tell at one point it was a glorious world, and I wanted to capture that idea. It's worth being reduced to ruins as long as you have that moment where you were truly great.'" |
| [Dan Messe, Country Standard Time, November 2006] |
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| Dan: "When you drive up a little north of New York City, and you see those estates, the Astors and the Roosevelts and names like Tuxedo Park, it just seems like a party that was way before my time, and I'm always more attracted to the party being over than the party itself." Bob: "Things are not going well in these houses." Dan: "No, but they once were, and I'd rather have that than a house where nothing ever happened." |
| [Dan Messe, The Bob Edwards Show, 27 November 2006. Hear the whole great XM Radio interview here.] |
| Hotel Fire |
| Dan wrote this song for Sally's sister who'd just had her heart broken (but she's much happier now!). |
| [Sally Ellyson and Dan Messe at various 2006 shows, like on Feb. 9, 2006 in New York. Download that show at archive.org.] |
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| "In some ways this song is sort of the opposite side of the coin to 'The Fire Thief,' our song from Eveningland. We tried to quote that arrangement a little bit in this song's arrangement. Some of the crazy tremelo that takes place in 'The Fire Thief' we sort of quote in the heart part." |
| [Dan Messe, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #3, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
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| Dan: "I wrote that song for Sally's sister." Sally: "My sister got divorced last year, and obviously divorce, as many people can imagine, is a very difficult thing to go through. And Dan was like, 'I'm going to write her a song.'" Dan: "I always feel like being in love is like being in a room on fire. If the love lasts, it's like being in a room on fire. If it doesn't last, it's like being in a hotel on fire. So 'Hotel Fire' seemed like a good divorce song title." |
| [Sally Ellyson and Dan Messe, The Bob Edwards Show, 27 November 2006. Hear the whole great XM Radio interview here.] |
| I'll Dream Of You Tonight |
| "This is a song that is in fact very happy and hopeful, and it wraps up the album along with a song of Dan [Messe's] called 'Alomst Home,' two sort of companion pieces that appear at the end of the record. At the tail end of what's really kind of a heartstruck and in some ways tragic record, it's a nice way to kind of be looking forward." |
| [Steve Curtis, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #3, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
| Not California |
| "Much has been made of the fact that Hem is from Brooklyn, which is sort of like Sesame Street. You can sort of imagine Mr. Hooper cleaning up outside the corner store, and I think I've seen a Snuffleupagus or two wading around the Gowanus canal. But though Brooklyn is a pretty magical place, it is not California, and when we watch The OC or Laguna Beach or any of those shows, that point couldn't be clearer. So Gary and I wrote this song as our response to that feeling." |
| [Dan Messe, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #2, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
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| This song speaks to television shows set in California like The OC that don't very accurately portray the reality of California or the world outside TV. Dan wrote it as a sort of response to his wife who likes these shows and the California in them. |
| [Talked about by the band in introducing this song at many of their shows from May-October 2006] |
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| "'It came together from watching a lot of The O.C. and Laguna Beach,' Messe says with a laugh. 'My wife is a fan of those shows, and I would watch them with her. Every time I would watch those shows, I would feel like I was being teased. I felt like after the show was over, I would feel a little less satisfied with my life. I would feel my world was more black and white, and I would feel poor and fat. I wanted to reject that,' he continues. 'I feel we're incredibly lucky both as a band and as people, and yet we're still able to fall prey to the way the media romanticizes certain wealth and privilege. For me, it had a way of making me feel bad about my life. The line 'And I'm the one who wants to be with you tonight...,' I'm talking about my wife and my life. That soft-focused consumerism shown on those shows maybe isn't the most healthy thing to aspire to when real life can be pretty sweet and magical.'" |
| [Dan Messe, Country Standard Time, November 2006] |
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| "My wife claims I don't write her any love songs, and I wanted to write her a love song. I had a hard time thinking of a good angle, and I decided to write a song about her television watching habits. She watches The OC and Laguna Beach....I watch them too, but I don't feel good about it. I feel dirty when I watch it. I feel fat and poor, and I just wanted to write a song that sort of rejected that. I always feel like Michsa Barton is teasing me in those shows. So I wanted to write a song, like the 'nah nahs' in the song. I feel like the California as it's reflected in television is teasing the rest of the country, and I hate it. I hate that feeling....California as it's reflected in those shows seems so foreign, which might not seem romantic, but..." |
| [Dan Messe, The Bob Edwards Show, 27 November 2006. Hear the whole great XM Radio interview here.] |
| Old Adam |
| This song is about the Biblical Adam. "This last year I had a son and I lost my dad, so I've been thinking a lot about fathers and sons, and this song is about that." |
| [Dan Messe, WTMD Interview, 20 March 2006.] |
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| "Over the last couple of years I've lost my father, and I've been raising my son, and clearly the relationship of fathers and sons has loomed large in my imagination. And I guess the story of Adam struck me because it seemed at the end of his life he was estranged from his father, and his own son had committed this unforgiveable act. It just seemed like an awful lonely place to be, and that's what this song is about." |
| [Dan Messe, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #2, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
| The Pills Stopped Working |
| Gary and Dan were inspired by the Rolling Stones in writing this rock and roll song. |
| [Mentioned a number of times, including at a concert on Feb. 23, 2006 in Pennsylvania that you can download and in early 2006 on the webcast radio program The Drop Online.] |
| Reservoir |
| Steve wrote this song about Pittsburgh, where he grew up. |
| [Mentioned at a number of shows, including a hometown one on Feb. 23, 2006 that you can download.] |
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| "The idea of home has always been a really important theme in Hem's music and Hem's writing, and this is my love song to my home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hem's been touring for a bunch of years now, and I've seen some splendid and awesome sights across the country and across the ocean, but this song is about those humblest images of home that are, ultimately, really the most important to me." |
| [Steve Curtis, Funnel Cloud Studio Podcast #1, 2006 - Podcast series no longer available at iTunes] |
| Too Late To Turn Back Now |
| "I think a good half of the songs [on Funnel Cloud] are about this sort of sense of impending doom or danger, or at least doom signifying life change. Like, major life change. I think that's a big theme on this record with songs like 'We'll Meet Along The Way' and 'Funnel Cloud' especially. 'Too Late To Turn Back Now.' I think a lot of those songs are about this sort of power that the world can have over you and you're sort of defenseless to do anything about it." |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| After playing Strays and saying it was a song about getting married with a restless heart, Dan introduced this song as about staying married with a restless heart. |
| [Dan Messe, at Hem's October 2, 2006 show in Ann Arbor, MI] |
| We'll Meet Along The Way |
| "I think a good half of the songs [on Funnel Cloud] are about this sort of sense of impending doom or danger, or at least doom signifying life change. Like, major life change. I think that's a big theme on this record with songs like 'We'll Meet Along The Way' and 'Funnel Cloud' especially. 'Too Late To Turn Back Now.' I think a lot of those songs are about this sort of power that the world can have over you and you're sort of defenseless to do anything about it." |
| [Gary Maurer, The Drop Spotlight audio interview, September 2006] |
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| "That's the last song we wrote for the album. And in some ways, there is a lot in there. We're sort of responding to a lot of the other songs in that song. That song sort of responds to 'He Came To Meet Me' and the references to other lyrics in that lyric as well. And it also sort of sums up the mood of the album and the themes of the album, which is sometimes the bad things in life, the disasters, they move you forward. You can't not move forward in life. You try to stand still, which I spent most of life trying very hard to do, and life doesn't let you do that. " |
| [Dan Messe, Glide Magazine, 1 October 2006] |
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