be tight

[Do228]

What's the meaning of "be tight"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgdBhTl44Yc Minute 1:07

 

[emsr2d2]

That's one of my favourite songs and I still own the single (yes, on vinyl). I know the words off by heart but I can't pretend to be able to tell you what most of them mean. Many songs don't make sense grammatically and yet they sound amazing anyway. My best guess is that "be tight" might mean "sit tight" which means "stay there/don't move".

 

[kilroy65]

Personally, I take it to mean "be/act cool".

I love that song!

 

[emsr2d2]

That's a meaning of "Be tight" I've never heard in BrE.

 

[jutfrank]

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3533

In a 1998 interview with the German online magazine Re.flexion, Alphaville lead signer Marian Gold explained:

"'Big In Japan' tells about a couple of lovers trying to get off Heroin. They both imagine how great it would be to love without the drug: no steal, no clients, no ice age in the pupil, real emotions, true worlds. Till nowadays Berlin station Zoo is an important meeting place for junkies. That's why this place became a venue of the song."

It's anyone's guess what be tight means, but in the light of the song being about drugs and possibly prostitution, I can well imagine the phrase relating to sex.

 

[Skrej]

'Tight' can mean 'close friends' in AmE slang. 'Sit/stay tight' can also mean 'don't move'. Not sure if either of those meanings exist in BrE, but then neither works particularly well in this context, anyway.

John and I are tight = John and I are good/close friends.
Sit/stay tight, and I'll be right back.

There's also a good chance they used 'tight' simply because it rhymes with 'tonight'.

 

[emsr2d2]

They're both used in BrE. I mentioned the meaning of "Sit tight" in post #2. I think the simple rhyming explanation is the most likely.

 

[jutfrank]

I think the simple rhyming explanation is the most likely.

I'm not sure if I understand this right. Do you really mean to suggest that there is no meaning at all? I'm stunned that anyone could think that. There's close to a zero chance that that is the case. It's just not how serious songs are written. (Though of course it is almost certain that the rhyme with tonight had some influence on the writer's word choice.)

 

[kilroy65]

The songwriter might have chosen that particular word on purpose. I've just found this:

http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/tight

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tight (slang: adjective 5.)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tight

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not sure if I understand this right. Do you really mean to suggest that there is no meaning at all? I'm stunned that anyone could think that. There's close to a zero chance that that is the case. It's just not how serious songs are written.

I'm stunned that you're stunned. Plenty of "serious" songs (whatever that means) have essentially nonsensical lyrics. I sincerely hope that no learner here ever asks us to explain "I see a little silhouetto of a man, scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening, me" etc, or "Forty winks in the lobby, make mine a G&T". Never mind all the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!

 

[jutfrank]

I'm stunned that you're stunned. Plenty of "serious" songs (whatever that means) have essentially nonsensical lyrics. I sincerely hope that no learner here ever asks us to explain "I see a little silhouetto of a man, scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening, me" etc, or "Forty winks in the lobby, make mine a G&T". Never mind all the lyrics of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!

Okay, I'm not sure we're going to get anywhere here. I would be happy to interpret the lyrics of any of those songs you mentioned.

 

[emsr2d2]

But that's exactly what it would be - an interpretation. To find out why a songwriter used a particular word and what they meant by it, you would have to ask the songwriter. All we can do is guess, particularly when it's grammatical but doesn't seem to fit with the surrounding lyrics.

 

[jutfrank]

But that's exactly what it would be - an interpretation. To find out why a songwriter used a particular word and what they meant by it, you would have to ask the songwriter. All we can do is guess, particularly when it's grammatical but doesn't seem to fit with the surrounding lyrics.

Well, yes, of course. This is the same with all forms of art, and more generally to all language, and more generally still to all communication. Without direct access to the mind of the lyricist/artist/speaker/writer, there is only interpretation.