Magazines by Duncan Sheik

Album: Daylight (2002)

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Songfacts®:

In this song, Duncan Sheik is walking down the street when a magazine catches his eye. When he looks inside, he sees a girl he once knew looking very different from how he remembered her. Apparently, this is a dirty magazine ("I wondered if I would be punished for my voyeuristic pleasure").
"Magazines" is a track from Duncan Sheik's fourth album, Daylight, which he produced with Patrick Leonard, the man who crafted many of Madonna's early hits. Sheik had a hard time finding a hit after his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing," but he retained a solid fanbase and made a successful move into musical theater.

Comments: 3

David Brazil from BrazilI think you didnt get the sarcasm... "You're a little bit different" is him being nasty, as this pictures are always "corrected" with Photoshop
Andrew from Houston, TxIn a first person song, the (young, male) narrator describes his shock at seeing an ex-girlfriend on the cover of a skin mag. He’s not a prude (“yeah, I’ve bought a few… they show you everything.) But he jumps to the conclusion that she’s done it to pay him back for the break up, or maybe she’s just in it for money. He should have known she’d have behaved like that.

He pulls the magazine off the shelf, and leafs through the pictorial (“all that naked skin, as sweet as honey”). But as he examines every photograph he comes to the realization that it isn’t his ex after all (“you’re a little bit different… it never was you”).

There’s a humblebrag - yeah, my ex really was that hot. But his jealousy and shallowness (and sexual objectification) might just be why she broke up with him in the first place. And the rest of us men, we’ve bought a few, know what I mean? How well do we know the women we say we love, or loved once?
Sarah from Madison, Wii thought this song was about one of his old girlfriends who wanted revenge and got into playboy magazine. "now everyone can gaze upon your body" and "all that naked skin as sweet as honey" makes it pretty obvious to me. he talks about how she has completely changed from when he once knew her "its not really you i see when i look real close"

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