Knife, The - You Make Me Like Charity Lyrics

Had to let the children freaking out about Bernie giving less than 1% to charity in on this one.

The Black side says, Fuck You!

We mad the system, stupid.

Intercepted the period I mailed? With CM?

I love this

I personally interpret this song as people looking at problems that are occurring in other countries (corrupt government, war, sexism, drug epidemics, disease, etc.) then trying to "wake up" and realize it's happening around them, doing everything they can to try to feel what these other people in these other countries are feeling.

so underrated it's sickening.

I’ve had this album for twelve years and still I wind up here just to listen to it. It’s legendary. Silent Shout reigns though.

Right now !

i took a pill there to feel what she felt

Oryx and Crake?

,,,,,,,,,,,hammer 2018**

carmen köchl ця

Ryan and Tomi, I agree with both of you and I love it. It makes me think that this song is about the alienation of responsibility and problems. The verse "You make me like charity instead of paying enough taxes" makes me picture a person born in a environment where the fix of the problem is to pay it off and that idea extends to the government using taxes to fix bigger problems. This level of alienation drives the person to be disconnected, fake and never really feeling what it means to be a fully actualized person. So, instead of paying taxes this person takes a cab or plane to go to the heart of the disaster to connect with and be a part of the pain of the human race.

this shit slaps

Taxation is theft but I love this song so much.

...but I still... Don't . Wake . Up .

such a (proto-)woke line

pandora has turned me onto so many cool obscure bands.

Anyone notice that this is a prelude for the 3 years later "We share our mother's health"? Amazing

Epo Nandrolone if you have the album y’all u know.

Man, I heard this song like 10 years ago on some schmuck myspace page saying that he was the artist behind this song and I've always remembered really liking it but never knew where to find it. Then I heard another song by this band in a movie and knew instantly it was them and found it pretty easily.

Lucas Biron what movie?

Stealing from such a brilliant duo and claiming to be the original artist... wtf? What an asshat

Lucas Biron good for you. The knife is an amazing experience. I too am back to them ten years later. Still in love.

Hey don’t call me a schmuck!

Perhaps the comment section on a YouTube video is not the appropriate place to have this discussion, but I have always interpreted this song as a socialist response to the notion of charity as a substitute for more formalized welfare. The Knife has a distinguished history of singing a song from multiple perspectives (such as in "Marble House"), and in these cases the intent is often to juxtapose the feelings and social constructions that permeate different social classes. In the case of this song, I feel that the intent is to portray a more affluent speaker who hears about the suffering of somebody else, and whose response is a desire to offer charity. The intent, as I see it, is to put this speaker in conversation with the object of their charity, and to experience the issue from both sides. This enables us as listeners to have a more framed conversation about the idea of charity vs. welfare- How do they make the giver feel, and how does it feel to be on the receiving end?

uptick. I love the mixture of voices.

I like your interpretation, although I feel that the line "you make me like charity, instead of paying enough taxes" is a methaphor - the person speaking is putting some effort into making things better and the other is doing nothing about it, although it's something that everyone should do, just like paying taxes. The one that is doing something about this problem is like charity, because they care about it and put their energy, but if everyone just what they are supposed to, the problem wouldn't even exist.
Personally I think the song is about sexism and the inequality it brings. The singing woman is subject to sexism as well but "doesn't wake up" and just tolerates it, then she sees something in the newspaper (or just the news, whatever) and she notices the problem, she goes on to do something about this, and she states that it just takes people to "pay enough taxes" so to be human and be considerate of each other etc. and the problem wouldn't exist.
I'm not sure if I put my interpretation into words in the right way, but I hope you see my point :) I just mean that I think charity is a metaphor - not actual charity/including money etc.

Paying taxes is paying for war. If you pay taxes you’re guilty of murder.

@Joel Love The Knife is a sweedish band.

I have interpreted the same way.
The intro indicates that these are very naive people, struggeling to find their empathy. Their childish voices indicates how naive they view the world. They have empathy when it is visual, not taking under consideration that taxes goes to welfare also for people not on TV, the thousands lying at home awaiting an operation for instance.
"I saw myself in the picture", almost like bloggers wanting to brag about their big hearts in a photoshoot, when they have no idea what tax really is about.

this song isn't even talking about taxes or charity. that part is an analogy to the attention people give to sexism and objectification of women in media
(ex: oversexualization, like the line in this song says:
"When reading the newspaper
I felt the war
I felt her exposed position" the phrase here being "her exposed position" )
the war being the war against those who are against sexism and those who push it onto media to be consumed by others.
people give as much attention to sexism as people do charity, it is something they feel is only VOLUNTARY to give rather than something we need to do or pay attention to and act upon(taxes are mandatory to pay for, unlike giving out money for charity, that is a person's own choice)
please stop talking about this song as if it's about anti-materialism.

@lobsterbark There's lots of artists with lots of different political views. the knife are a bit too radical for my tastes honestly. i like their music tons.

I believe it's about being woke as a privileged white womxn, they just didn't have the language to express that when it was made so they keep saying wake instead.

Nina Garcia YES!!

“Her exposed position” is referring to a countries exposed position. This song is talking about war. War that wouldn’t exist if you stopped paying your taxes and gave your money to charity. Get therapy. Live wise. Live above your own denial.

Its called artistic interpretation. Have yours, someone else will have theirs..

vagabundos!!

por que?

The best anti materialism song ever! if people helped each other out, no one would have to pay taxes <3

@Myles Ainley come on... wake up

@Re△Love∞ution Communism is where force dominates every interaction.. it's only anti-materialistic insofar as people want to take all material goods and share them amongst their greedy pathetic selves.

@bluediablo9 
you know what I don't give a fuck about politics

I took a cab there to hold her
I took a plane there to feel what she felt
You make me like charity
Instead of paying enough taxes

KOCHAM WAS !!!DALIŚCIE MI DUŻ OWRAŻEN JESTEŚCIE NAJ! NAJ! LEPSI.

Soko, is that you?

I thought the same thing!

Actually, I thought: "Yoko, is that you?". But then there was autocorrect.:-)

@Ronald Paul van Dam still accurate tho lol

Corporate whore confessions.

LIBERTARIAN WIERDNESS

@bluediablo9 well, I agree to some level to both of you

@bluediablo9 How you could possibly think The Knife are libertarian or even have libertarian views absolutely baffles me. Just listen to Shaking the Habitual and try to tell me that they're libertarian, if anything they'd probably align themselves with socialist viewpoints more than anything else

@D. Dei989 You know what? You're right. I agree with you, however, in a vacuum the lyrics are ambiguous enough to have my kind of reading. It's socialist, the knife is socialist, and that's fine. Sure there is sarcasm, but given the knife, it's hard to tell that they aren't just whackos trying to be different. I don't really listen to them, so when I heard this, I got excited to hear someone compare charity and taxes in a song, but really they are just socialists, maybe even communists, after further research.

@bluediablo9 Wow, I think we just had a civil discussion on the internet. We should both be very proud of ourselves.

@D. Dei989 haha you're right.

They do, no wrong

i love the comma

I wanna thank Moss for getting me back to my old roots! Appreciate it old man! (Y)

Insane <3

This is so easy to masturbate to.

dont even need lube.

holdmybeer is

fucking awesome

oh hi there Hamster

The second comment! This song reminds me of an old metro

First comment!! lol... Only comment...