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[–] 98 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Time to get pedantic: He says "where" not "because". These are just examples of things in the paradise city, not the criteria.

It's people thinking liking big butts somehow makes you unable to lie all over again.

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  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Wait, are you telling me the lyrics aren't, "I like big butts therefore I cannot tell a lie"? I've been singing it wrong for years.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    It was actually a deep discussion of sociopolitical topics of the time, if you listen to the whole album.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Your telling me that Sir Mix a lot has more than one song? Doubt.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    yeah but they're clearly the top selling points. when you describe a place you'd go for the important details. not like... "we should go to new york city; they have traffic signs and some buildings are gray"

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  • [–] 80 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    The lyrics were intended to be "where the grass is free and the girls are easy but they were told to change it if I remember correctly :)

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  • [–] 52 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    According to Slash it was originally "where the girls are fat, and they got big titties" but they knew it was never going to be on the release version.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Honestly probably the most historical take on what makes a place paradise. Slash would be right at home in the early days of man, making fertility idols.

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  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Needed that NSFW flair, bud. Now I’m over here sporting a savage Woodrow.

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  • [–] 36 points 1 year ago

    Realistic and achievable. The secret to paradise is merely not to put it out of reach. Pretty deep message when you unpack it a little bit

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    The lyrics of the rest of the song aren't that great

     Strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
         Why I'm here, I can't quite remember
    The Surgeon General says it's hazardous to breathe
               I'd have another cigarette
    But I can't see, tell me who you're gonna believe
    
            Take me down to the Paradise City
    Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty
    

    So either the chorus is pure sarcasm, or his day to day to life is so unbearable that he genuinely wishes to go back to a time/place where the grass is green, and a time when he was still attracted to women

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    'Grass normal color' might eventually be a luxury with global warming and ecological collapse.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    I live in California where the normal color for grass is a pale brown.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I live in the South, where the grass is extremely green and human rights are almost nonexistent

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago*

    The song was originally supposed to go

    Take me down to the Paradise city,

    where the grass is green and the girls are pretty green also

    but it didnt really flow well.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Maybe the message is that if you're easy to please, life is amazing.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    "Paradise" comes from Persian and means "beautiful garden"

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It literally means "encircling boundary wall". It then started to mean "something encircled by a wall", which often happened to be gardens, and then it started to mean "garden".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Sooo back in the days a prison and a paradise would use the same word to describe it

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    I guess it's more that the word paradise (paridayjah) could be used to describe anything encircled by a wall, whether it's a prison or a garden. I think at that time (when some form of proto-iranic was spoken) a paradise (as in heaven) would be something like hácmā.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    There are a lot of ugly women and ugly lawns out there.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    So, mostly anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This is why I almost always ignore sing lyrics. I almost always walk away disappointed, and feel down any time I hear the song afterward.

    I bet you think I wrote this for you to read. You’re so vain. You, the person I’m talking to are so vain to think I’m talking to you.

    TTFN

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    You, the person I’m talking to are so vain to think I’m talking to you.

    Believing something like that without evidence, even if it's true, is crazy. That's what that line is about. It doesn't matter that the song actually is about them. The fact that they can believe it among all the other possibilities is why they're vain.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That's still a bit silly, given that the rest of the lyrics imply that they have history together. If I assumed that Alanis Morissette was singing about me, that would be absurdly vain, but Alanis Morissette's ex assuming that is much more reasonable.

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