There is more than one artist with this name:
1) An American indie roc… Read Full Bio ↴There is more than one artist with this name:
1) An American indie rock and hip hop band
2) A British folk-pop band

1) A trio of Cincinnati-born men who fiddle with skins, strings, bells and microphones and present their findings to the listening public. Singer Yoni Wolf grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop. At art school, he learned how to drop out. Yoni’s brother Josiah played drums at Rabbi Wolf’s worship service as a kid, became a band geek as a teen, and fell in love with Thelonious Monk on his way to study music at University of Cincinnati. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from that same school for carrying a stun gun, but first he was raised by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He also went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands.

In various permutations together and with other now-notables (i.e. Doseone, Odd Nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, Atmosphere’s Slug), these three created and/or contributed to several freewheeling rap and lo-fi rock-related projects including Greenthink, Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Reaching Quiet, and the seminal cLOUDDEAD outfit. Their wildest dreams were achieved when they relocated to Oakland to make pop-inflected psychedelic folk-hop.

For four years, two EPs and 2003’s cult classic LP, Oaklandazulasylum, WHY? comprised Yoni Wolf alone. He honed his trademark delivery – a sickly sweet, half-rapped, singsong style – shined up his wry, picturesque poetry, and developed a clip-and-collage aesthetic using keyboards, toys, guitars, samplers and anything worth banging on. When Doug and Josiah moved west to join Yoni, they brought with them a hoard of instruments and the ability to wail on every last one. By chops and imagination, WHY? grew into a thing of flesh, bones and fully fledged songs, resulting in 2005’s Elephant Eyelash album. Critics swooned; ladies lauded; WHY? neither resisted nor rested. They toured – with Silver Jews, Yo La Tengo, and Islands. They collaborated – with Danielson Family, Department Of Eagles, and Subtle (Yoni also recorded with Fog’s Andrew Broder as “Hymie’s Basement”). They put out yet more music.

The brand new album Eskimo Snow is something of a companion piece to last year’s celebrated Alopecia LP. In February of 2007, the WHY? trio temporarily relocated to Minneapolis and officially inducted Fog players Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson. Recording live as a five-piece, WHY? created two distinct albums from those sessions: Alopecia, with its taut rhythms and biting wit, and Eskimo Snow, a shadowy and sprawling set that finds Yoni resigned to and ever-awed by those infinite erring bits of existence that make WHY? what it is.

2) Also an English folk-pop band active during the 90s. They released nine albums between '91 & '99, including the curiously-titled Pinnenstripeensuitenwearenfoddergeburnenclippenclopen.

Waterfalls
Why? Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Hey friend, where have you been?
The roads getting long
And the lights growing dim
Hey friend, how have you been?
Been so long since we've spoken again, like
Hey friend, where have you been?
Needed to call on you
No answers again

I just spiral out with liquor
Waterfall the pain
Hey friend, where is the liquor again?
Hey friend, where can we smoke?
Hey friend, no one's the victim
Hey friend, learn to let go
Waterfall
A fountain of
Everything that becomes
Anything you like
Sing a little song for her
Sing a little song for her
Believe
Just so you know I wrote you a song
But I deleted it
And when you left I wrote you a poem
But I know you wouldn't read if I was
On top of the world and all they heard was just me screaming it
I'd stop thinking of you girl until this verse and now I'm thinking
This I've been
Really caught up in my feelings
Feeling so lost but I'm healing
Ha, healings a lie
I can barely decide if my feeling subside and not really
And all my friends say I'm blue
This waterfalls are not yours
You hear these tears in my eyes
I only build these waterfalls for you
Waterfall
A fountain of
Everything that becomes
Anything you like
Sing a little song for her
Sing a little song for her
Believe
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Waterfall
Hey friend, where have you been?
Hey friend, how has it been?
Hey friend, all in your head
Your rapping and singing all over again, like
Hey friend, tell me the time
Hey friend, you can not mind
Hey friend, this is the life
Take it you want it, everything's alright
Waterfall
A fountain of
Everything that becomes
Anything you like
Sing a little song for her
Sing a little song for her
Believe
Waterfall a fountain of
Everything that becomes
Anything that matters
Sing a little song for her

Sing a little song for her
Believe

Overall Meaning

In Why?'s song Waterfalls, the lyrics describe the physical and emotional impact of crying. The opening lines introduce the image of tears flowing down the gutter created by two teeth, emphasizing the small and personal nature of this physical manifestation of emotion. The tears running a groove in your cheek suggest a deeper, almost permanent impact of emotional expression on one's physical self. The next lines introduce the idea of waterfalls leaving smooth rocks when the river dries up, emphasizing the idea that tears and crying leave their own marks and impact on the human body.

The chorus lyric "Your face never forgets a cry" echoes this theme, suggesting that the emotional expression of crying leaves a lasting impact, like trace remnants of acid in your spine. The imagery of acid and erosion suggests a negative, painful effect on the individual, and is followed by the line "Make whiskers prematurely sprout in men/And in women, homogenize complexion/Diluting pigment/Until the whole face is washed with a slight mascara tint." This echoes the idea that emotional expression can have physical and social consequences, affecting how people are perceived and treated by others.

Overall, Why?'s Waterfalls is a somber reflection on the impact of crying and emotional expression, touching on themes of physical, emotional, and social consequences.

Line by Line Meaning

Tasting the tears That run down the gutter two teeth make
Experiencing the salty drops of sadness That trickle through the path parted by two teeth

Tears in route Running a groove in your cheek
Tears in transit Carving a furrow in your skin

Waterfalls leave smooth rocks When the river dries up You can determine where a river once was Just by examining rocks
Waterfalls create polished stones And when the water ceases to flow You can identify where the river flowed before Just by studying the rocks

Your face never forgets a cry Like trace remnants of acid in your spine
Your face bears the memory of tears shed Like faint residues of acidity in your vertebral column

The erosion cries cause Make whiskers prematurely sprout in men And in women Homogenize complexion Diluting pigment Until the whole face is washed with a slight mascara tint
Crying causes the erosion of one's face Leading to premature beard growth in men While flattening women's skin tone Reducing melanin concentration Until the entire face takes on a faint blackish hue

Lyrics © O/B/O DistroKid
Written by: Brandon Goode, Matthew Giordano, Tyler Gildersleeve

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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