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Talk:The Shadow Government

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This song sounds like a re-write to me - a mix of Thunderbird (especially the chorus) and See The Constellation (especially the verses.) There are lyrical similarities as well ("Looked in the sky, saw with my eye" / "I was looking up, past the city lights" and "I was in the sky, all painted up" etc.) Did anyone else notice this? --77.119.24.137 18:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

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[edit] Video

Ugh, not a fan of the music video at all. I mean, it looks nice and all, but honestly, it could have been set to any song. There was nothing in time to the music, and as the music reached climaxes, the music didn't follow. It was extremely repetitive, too. Just my opinion. -AtionSong 21:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like the video maker also doesn't know what a citizen's arrest is. Blah. -buschap

The video has no pace, no 'feel' for the music. It contains no abstractness, no space for interpretation, and yet the person who thought it up has not really been paying any attention to anything after the first 2 bars of song. In all respects, I'm not particularly fussed by the video - it almost looks like a fan-video than an 'official' one, and I just hope that TMBP didn't pay much for it. -- MooseBlaster

I agree. It follows closely the lines "the moon was following me" and "here comes the humvee up the library steps" (perhaps a little too closely), and besides that it isn't really following the song yet goes off on its own weird movie-scene plot. But I usually don't expect anything at all from any music video that doesn't involve the band itself. ~ magbatz
They haven't appeared in a video for a while now - they appeared in only one on Venue Songs (Albany), two is you count pictures in Asbury Park (and three if you count the appearance of a press photo in "Celebrate Brooklyn"). They haven't been in a "real" video since Boss of Me. And it looks like, if any other music videos are coming out for "The Else", it's going to be another animated one for "The Messopotamians". -AtionSong 02:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, i don't want to get too rude, in case the person who made the video happens to read this, but i agree with the earlier comments. I never took the lyrics of the song to be literal -- I take them from the perspective of a paranoid schizophrenic. So, he "thinks" these things are really happening, but they're not. And, that's what i think the video fails to capture. Just my two cents. --Duke33 11:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Video Edit

should i add the video edit page --Goodtimes2

[edit] Critiques

I'm not a huge fan of Flans songs in general, but this one is nearly perfect, and the best song on "The Else." The groove is fantastic, and the lyrics are that perfect combination of cheeky and ominous. Not an interpretation as such, just a comment.

Oh dear. Not a good song. Lyrically it sounds like it was written by a teenager and its clumsy clumsy political message song is Flans at his right on worst. I find it odd that he can't replicate the political lyrical complexity of his high point earlier works - say Puppet Head - in his recent stuff. Determined to sound rock some of Flans current stuff robs him of the unique Giants X factor. Like Frank Black/Black Francis of the Pixies his recent work has strayed far from left field and into MOR. (Mr Tuck)

As much as I love TMBG, this might be (*slapped by Master Hand for pun*) their weakest song on The Else... I like The Else, it's actually growing on me a bit, but this song, even though I ripped it to my iPod, is my ultimate skip song. Feign Amnesia was better than this; it's probably my favorite "recent" Flans song. And I've never watched this song's ("Shadow Government") video. *shrug* --Lemita 00:36, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flophouse Trivia?

What's anyone think of the trivia bullet that defines a flophouse? Personally, i think it's a bit of overkill - I would imagine most people probably know what one is...or at the very least will figure it out. Anyone feel strongly against striking it? --Duke33 19:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Kids are dumb. Not everyone can just "figure out" terms like that! But... I guess it could go. -CapitalQ / @ / 19:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah get it out of there. What, are we just going to put a Webster's definition of every word that's more than five letters? Kids today need to learn how to do some research anyway! Those ragamuffins! --Oddjob 20:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
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