There are a lot of great Cake songs, but this is one of my favorites. I love the trumpet, the sticks at the beginning (I am a sucker for sticks), and the melody and guitar work are really good too, at least in my opinion.
There are a lot of opinions about the meaning of the song–in fact, feel free to peruse SongMeanings and maybe even add your own.
Personally, I think it’s sort of a “video killed the radio star” thing. I think the ancient radiation is possibly the glow of a picture tube, and that ‘Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather’ is a bit of a lament for the old days, when things seemed to be simpler. Of course, I could be entirely wrong–like that’s never happened before.
And of course, the lyrics:
We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations
A faintly glimmering radio station
While Frank Sinatra sings “Stormy Weather”
The flies and spiders get along together
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record
Beyond the suns that guard this roof
Beyond your flowers of flaming truths
Beyond your latest ad campaigns
An old man sits collecting stamps
In a room all filled with Chinese lamps
He saves what others throw away
He says that he’ll be rich someday
We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations
A faintly glimmering radio station
We know of an ancient radiation
That haunts dismembered constellations
A faintly glimmering radio station
While Frank Sinatra sings “Stormy Weather”
The flies and spiders get along together
Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record
