| Simon and Garfunkel – Peggy-O Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Also, this song is like most songs by simon and garfunkel in that the happy melody hides a somewhat depressing lyrical meaning. See "the sun is burning in the sky" for a straightforward example | |
| Simon and Garfunkel – Peggy-O Lyrics | 16 years ago |
|
I remember reading that this song is an adaption of a Scottish poem, wherein a military man (A captain) finds himself in a town and falls in love with a young girl, presumably during wartime. The song starts with the point of view of the captain's comrades, then shifts to the captain's viewpoint from the fifth line onwards. The poem continues in this first stanza to show the love of the captain for this girl. In the second stanza, there is evidence of the captain's hopeful marriage to the girl, with the reference to her riding in a carriage with her true love. The second half of this stanza brings to light the conflict that is central to the song; the girl’s mother. What will the girl's mother say when she finds her daughter has married a soldier and left the town during wartime? She'll be pretty annoyed. Note the future tense of this second half of the stanza. There appears to be a lot of information missing between the second and the last stanza, but it can be assumed that the last stanza reflects the feelings of the captain after being denied marriage to the girl by her mother. The extremely violent imagery shows just how enraged the captain is; he'd burn the city to the ground if he ever bothered to return, destroying all the women like a pouting child destroys a rosebush that it has been pricked by. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.