Dull Boy (Mudvayne's Myspace version)

To me I think this song is about taking blame for societys wrong doings and they are tired of it. They are tired of running Mudvayne don't want to be the scapegoats or martyrs anymore. And they feel like its payback for all the wrong things they have done in there past. And no matter what they do, they can't get away from the criticism and blame.

Thats just the main theme to me. The part where he commits suicide. I think thats to get away from all the shit. But then it says "throw back my pills and take a sip of my drink" right after it.

Maybe someone can help clear this up for me.

I'm not meaning to single you out or anything Karmatic Refire, but how do you derive the assumption this is about "The Shining". I am a big Stephen King fan and have seen the movie/read the book, and see no relation. The man character in "The Shining" is a man who goes crazy from isolation while writing a story. In this song, it is obviously a person who is frustrated or has completely had enough of being the person blamed for problems. A person who doesn't want a finger pointed their way unjustly.

If you have a justification for your reasoning, please explain. But I do not see where that could be truty.

As for Metal4Wes and your question of

"But then it says "throw back my pills and take a sip of my drink" right after it."

The only thing I can say is either it makes no sense to come in that order to me. Or there is a few small possibilities.

1. Envy can be directly translated from a thesaurus as another word for prejudice and or hate. And thus that sentence can mean that the individual is smothered with hate and singled out. Like the song obviously covers.

2. As for the line about the "throw back my pills and take a sip of my drink" line, unless he is telling them to sit in his place, and this line is a Command for the people after his departure, I have no idea.

This would make a little sense in the fact that if you continue to blame something, and once it's gone the problem still persists, then you have to come to terms with reality that what you believed the problem was, was truly not the problem at all. They would eventually fall into pointing fingers at once another, and the other innocents would feel how he did.

In other words, that line could be another way of saying, "Take a walk in my shoes"

If you or anyone else has an opinion, let me know though.

I do not have the "official" lyrics so i'm only going on what I'm hearing and what makes sense.

The line

Live like a Transian

sounds more like

Live like a transient.

which does make a lot more sense

transient for those who are curious is an adjective describing something that is fleeting, has no defined place, is passing quickly into and then out of existence. You get the idea.

Which to me makes a lot of sense with the rest of the song.

I agree with the shining analogy but like any good song there more to it than just that

To me this is how the song's meaning plays out in my head

He opens by describing his futile attempts to essentially hide from his pain, he'd rather live in a lie because he feels the truth is much more painful

Even when he trys to look out from his hiding place he realizes it is no brighter than his hiding place

Along with his attempts to hide from the pain, he's also acknowledging that all his life for all it's success or failures in the end is just an insignificant flash in the pan when it comes to life itself. He's saying in a round about way when he dies people will sooner than later forget him or anything he did, and/or more importantly that people won't care who he was or what he did.

On the second first he's conveying his feeling of being missplaced of not belonging.

Then it's like he's finally had enough and self defenestrates

I believe the lines that follow are to be interpreted as him being dead

You could be selfish whatever you think Throw back my pills and take a sip of my drink

He's saying those left living can be selfish if they want and think what he did had anything to do with them. he's then offering them to take his pills and drink his drink to first numb the pain but to also drag them into what his life was like to more or less force them to understand what he went though since they all have skewed ideas of his life.

Walk under the clouds Walk under the trees Always again envy covering me

To me that simply means he's in Hell, he's walking under the clouds and UNDER the trees as in the traditional belief that Hell is at the center of the earth. It's his last eternal payback for his past

Which in the bridge to me is why he says the sunshine is all gone, he's in Hell where he never again will see the sunshine.

Thats my take.

I was working on it to and here is what I got:

All work and no play makes me a dull boy All work and no play makes me a dull boy All work and no play makes me a dull boy All work and no play makes me a dull boy

Live in a secret Live in a lie Live in a dark hole beneath the black sky Live like a martyr and draw my last breath Feel like a old man with a knife in my chest Live like a Transian Live like a thief Hide in a closet, grinding my teeth Sit in a small room with the walls closing in Opened the shutters but everything’s still dim

Payback For all the things I’ve done in my past

I’m not the reason It’s not my fault It’s not my problem I’m not the cause I’m not your scapegoat I’m not your god I’m not your martyr I’d leave you all

I’m not the reason (I’m not your scapegoat) It’s not my fault (I’m not your god) It’s not my problem (I’m not your martyr) I’m not the cause (I’d leave you all)

Work and no play makes me a dull boy Feel like a clown without my funny nose Walk to the window, break it out with my fist Jump from the sill and I’ll plunge to my death You could be selfish whatever you think Throw back my pills and take a sip of my drink Walk under the clouds Walk under the trees Always again envy covering me

Payback for everything There are no take backs

I’m not the reason It’s not my fault It’s not my problem I’m not the cause I’m not your scapegoat I’m not your god I’m not your martyr I’d leave you all

I’m not the reason (I’m not your scapegoat) It’s not my fault (I’m not your god) It’s not my problem (I’m not your martyr) I’m not the cause (I’d leave you all)

Sunshine’s gone (it’s all gone) By the way Just so you know Always This is how I feel

By the way Just so you know Always Every day This is how I feel

I’m not the reason It’s not my fault It’s not my problem I’m not the cause I’m not your scapegoat (not your scapegoat) I’m not your god (not your god) I’m not your martyr (not your martyr) This is how I feel (this is how I feel)

By the way Just so you know Always Every day This is how I feel

Well, I agree with A-Web 21 on the meaning of the song, but I dont think that he is saying take a walk in my shoes, but more of a take something to numb the pain, because right after that he speaks of the envy coming back again so I take it as him covering that pain and then it creeping back as the pills effects wear off.

mudvayne kicks major ass! can't wait for the new album in 2008! think it's gonna be called shades of gray??....

Musicfan06, you have a very valid point.

I can't believe no one has asked what a Transian is yet. I didn't know until I did some research.

A-Web21, The part where Wendy goes searching for Jack, intending on leaving the hotel. During her search, she spots his manuscript next to the typewriter. She reads what Jack has been writing: hundreds of pages of repetitions of a single sentence, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". She realizes Jack has gone mad.

When they played it on the radio they said it was about the movie. I had figured that they had gotten it from an official source, but I guess not.

I assumed the rest of the lyrics were about him going mad and how he feels.

The only thing I could find on a Transian was from Marvel.

I think theres another part where Jack blames Wendy for everything that has gone wrong in his life, which would explain "a person who is frustrated or has completely had enough of being the person blamed for problems."