Cake - Frank Sinatra Meaning

Song Released: 1997

Frank Sinatra 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...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   May 14th 2010 !⃝

   The song is about LEGACY.
   The song is about how although things are dead, they will live on in one form or another.
   
   
   we know of an ancient radiation.
   that haunts dismembered constellations,
   a faintly glimmering radio station.
   
   
   True. We do know of an ancient radiation that haunts dismembered constellations. Dismembered constellations->constellations missing their old stars->dead stars.
   Dead stars emit radiation forever and ever into infinity.
   
   
   while frank sinatra sings stormy weather,
   
   
   Frank Sinatra, although dead and rotting in the earth, is still listened to worldwide.
   
   
   the flies and spiders get along together,
   cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.
   
   The dead flies grant the spiders life.
   The cobwebs are just a device to bring the lyrics around full circle. A bridge to the old man seen later in the song.
   
   
   beyond the suns that guard this roof,
   
   
   Although perhaps unseen by infinite reaches(sunS not sun)
   
   
   beyond your flowers of flaming truths,
   beyond your latest ad campaigns,
   
   
   This is the only part I'm a bit off on, not 100% sure on it. Still has the feel of "Legacy" as many truths as well as ad campaigns are unforgettable.
   
   
   an old man sits collecting stamps
   
   
   Pretty much a no-brainer. Stamp collecting creates a legacy to give to children or even to sell.
   
   
   in a room all filled with chinese lamps.
   he saves what others throw away.
   he says that he'll be rich some day.
   
   
   Old things being repurposed, each old useless item earning its own legacy.

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   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Sep 20th 2006 !⃝

   The human world has taken what was once a very natural part of the universe (radio) and turned it to our own purposes. In doing so, we've also created a world of media- hopes and promises that lead people to dream and entice them to act one way or another, to spend how we tell them to. The old man has such aspirations and dreams, but it's obvious that he'll never reach them. He becomes trapped in the menagerie, as do we all.
   
   The irony in my having this interpretation is that I work for an advertising firm.

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   #3 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Sep 10th 2012 !⃝

   Perhaps it's a song about the ancient radiation radio wave left behind from the big bang that can be heard throughout our universe and the dynamic of the universe and everyday people living on earth and how life is so much bigger than what we know?
   
   I don't know, just my interpretation.
   
   :)
4. anonymous

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   May 13th 2021 !⃝

   I'll carry on from what sounds good/right to me of the prior analyses, and try to fill the rest out a bit as I've thought of this song on and off for years...
   
   We know of an ancient radiation.
   that haunts dismembered constellations,
   a faintly glimmering radio station.
   
   
   "True. We do know of an ancient radiation that haunts dismembered constellations. Dismembered constellations->constellations missing their old stars->dead stars.
   Dead stars emit radiation forever and ever into infinity."
   
   (Like Frank Sinatra)... so as much as I like the big bang idea and the logic is still there, I'm more thinking it's this this answer "dismembered constellations" in that this answers forward to the next line about Frank Sinatra a big star that haunts prior constellations of it's sound/era; a time that's passed, (the lyrics reveal the metaphor beautifully)
   
   
   while Frank Sinatra sings stormy weather, the flies ans spiders get along together...
   
   (I think this is just a cultural reference, saying everyone (probably Americans specifically)feels emotionally affected listening to that song... when we listen to this music, we can all sit in the same room at the same time and feel human together... so much that the prey fear not even the predator when a predator is in this kind of state, bound by our humanity for a moment... nursing their dismay for the things that aren't going "right" in their lives at/up until this point.
   
   (They are probably sitting in a bar)
   
   
   (Flies n Spiders could just be another choice for the wolves and the sheep; seems likely)
   
   
   cobwebs fall on an old skipping record.
   
   This time has passed now though. You won't find THESE people gathered for an afternoon, nursing their wounds. They've aged and the world has moved on since then... All that remains is cobwebs falling on an old skipping record... because the music is still there, just that the original crowd of people listening to it (and people in general)aren't around and/or physically maintaining it, because that generation is pretty much gone now.
   
   When Grandma dies, and you go into her dusty attic and find these albums. They are still there. You can still listening to them, but who is sitting around this record player now? No one, it is left skipping amongst the cobwebs, the message and the feeling of the music still there to be heard and felt, but it's just cobwebs on a record left skipping.
   
   You would need a person to have turned it on in the first place, so it almost doesn't make sense, but visually it feels more memorable, even with this small detail that doesn't add up. "Cobwebs fall on a silent record player" just isn't as visually immersive, where as this old skipping record is and also goes back to the generation that's also gotten old and hobbled, you can imagine this old skipping record is worse for ware.
   
   The song to me almost feels more about "mortality, and the rise and fall of era, and also people's dreams... and that we all dream... so for a moment while we listen to this song let's picture a time, and imagine the dreams of a prior generation, whose values and ways of life fades from our scope of recognition... from younger generations, as time buries all. It's a sad song, about a sad song, and a time that's fading. Even in the authors mind... he is older than I but still such a baby in the face of Sinatra and his era... and John McCrea likely thought it seemed a very interesting time and also a little sad that he can't see it in fresh light during it's time, to live and breathe it)
   
   
   
   beyond the suns that guard this roof,
   beyond your flowers of flaming truths,
   beyond your latest ad campaigns,
   
   Beyond the Sun that guards this roof
   
   (We know their to be a greater expanse, and meaning then our solar system and what we know of the universe.)
   
   Beyond your flowers of flaming truths
   
   (What you as a small mortal, have discerned to be truth, perhaps truths by which you stand by in conviction to be important, but even so in the face of it all it's just a small piece of the puzzle)
   
   Beyond your latest add campaigns
   
   (You may be relevant now, but soon you will be an old man and buried with everything else)
   
   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 some day.
   
   (He sits doing a common hobby of elders from his time, in a room filled with physical goods, that he believed and stubbornly still contends to be his answer to the wealth he'd dreamed of in his American dream of prosperity. That all it takes is a good idea, some hard work and determination.)
   
   And then back to chorus, speaking of a man who made it big, and yet slowly becomes an echo of the past... as his music plays on faintly glimmering radio stations; who play the music to a smaller public.
   
   
   -----------------
   I've always loved this song, and feel it's great to see music where lyrical depth is appreciated, and people are inspired to use their minds to solve the riddle.
   
   That bit about the dead Stars was an eye opener. I don't know very much about space, so that really helped unravel the bit I was bound to get stuck on for another ten years.
   
   Thanks all.
5. anonymous

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   Apr 12th 2020 !⃝

   'while frank sinatra sings stormy weather the flies and spiders get along together cobwebs fall on an old skipping record'
   
   to me that part seems like some mob shit. the spiders are the mobsters and the flies are the people caught in their web, and when the music plays the web seems cobby, and disillusioned.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. anonymous

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   Jul 2nd 2017 !⃝

   In the music video, there are cells and people in army costumes so my guess is that it is about war.
   "we know of an ancient radiation," is part of the song and it kind of makes me think of atomic bombs and other kinds of radiation using bombs. Also, in the music video a person is looking through a telescope at what looks like a war camp, and in the end you see fireworks and everyone looks happier, and I interpreted it as an American win because of the American flag that is shown off in other scenes of the video. The verse about the old man collecting stamps and other throwaway junk makes me think about how many things were scarce, and people would take anything they could get during wartime, so the part about being rich oneday might mean he is earning money little buy little by selling some of the things to other families.
   I don't know if I have anough evedince to back this up, becuase music videos are normally off topic, but this is my entrepritation of the song.
7. anonymous

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   Mar 6th 2011 !⃝

   "The song is about LEGACY.
   The song is about how although things are dead, they will live on in one form or another."
   
   This interpretation is similar to what I have, but I interpret the following passage in a more cosmic way, perhaps because I'm a huge nerd:
   
   we know of an ancient radiation.
   that haunts dismembered constellations,
   a faintly glimmering radio station.
   
   
   Nothing (human civilization included) is permanent. But long after we are gone, our radio transmissions will keep traveling, haunting the distant stars.
   
   Other civilizations will still hear the legacy of Frank Sinatra and other artists, streaming from a 'a faintly glimmering radio station'.
8. brian

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   Oct 15th 2005 !⃝

   In this song it talks about things that once were important and are not now.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway