31March2008
“Everybody is a Star”
Posted by charlie under: Lost in Music.
I’ve been trying to puzzle out the lyrics to this great, great Sly and the Family Stone song for quite a while. Most of the vocals are low in the mix; even with headphones, you’ve gotta strain to hear the words. I’m convinced that virtually all the websites that offer lyrics to the song have them wrong — some of the lines are almost nonsensical, according to them. Even Joan Osborne, who does a nice version, follows some of these web lyrics (wherever they came from), and I think it weakens the song (”Every hand to shine at night” — huh?).
The song is about dark/light contrasts, and plays with the word “star” in several ways. This is what I’ve come up with, so far:
Everybody is a star
Who could reign and chase the dust awayEverybody wants to shine
Who’ll come out on a cloudy day?‘Til the sun that loves you brown
When the system tries to bring you downEver had to shine at night?
You don’t need darkness to do what you think is rightEverybody is a star
I can feel it when you shine on meI love you for who you are
Not the one you feel you need to beEver catch a falling star
Ain’t no stopping ’til it’s in the groundEverybody is a star
One big circle going round and round
The third couplet in the first verse (Larry Graham’s) bothers me — I can’t quite make sense of it… but maybe it’s not supposed to, in a literal way… I guess it’s just that in every other couplet the second line completes the first; the third couplet doesn’t have that coherence.
I’d sure be interested in hearing other people’s ideas!
