| Modest Mouse – Cowboy Dan Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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I think the part after that is absolutely necessary to this song. I'm a wee bit high but bear with me: Imagine the "Standing" verse as Cowboy Dan's moment of clarity: Being able to see the universe as objective facts, rather than subjective thoughts. Hence, "Thinking nothing" This is followed by his mind OBJECTIVELY observing that everything he has done was devoted to the perpetuation of his problems. "Every time you're looking You're just looking down" BUT THEN: He is pulled back into his previous struggles and problems, shown by the repetition of the first few verses. This is a big part of the human struggle: We all grasp the truth for fleeting seconds, maybe even days, but inevitably get pulled back down into the thinking that brought us so much pain before. I wrote a tl;dr summary a few down, but if you combine it with this thought, it really puts the song together. |
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| Modest Mouse – Cowboy Dan Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Well, I guess it would be more that the city ALREADY took over, but still the fact that he wants out desperately but doesn't get out suggests the thinking is about the same. | |
| Modest Mouse – Cowboy Dan Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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Wow, I think everyone is pretty close to interpreting the lyrics correctly, just with a few pieces missing that make the song hard to put together. I always thought this song was about about some guy Isaac knew from Issaquah. It probably is, but Modest Mouse is brilliant in their ability to add layers of meaning to songs. We know Cowboy Dan gets drunk and shoots at stuff, but do we know why? Obviously because he's concerned with the city encroaching on his land and old way of life, right? I thought that, until I looked at one line closer: "Can't do it, not even if sober Can't get that engine turned over" His apparent conflict is that the city is coming to take over, and he's too drunk to do anything. However, take this line as a personal revelation of Cowboy Dan: That even when he's sober he can't fix this problem he sees in his life. He blames God, He blames the drugs, He blames the city, but his mind knows who's to blame: Cowboy Dan So this is truly an everyman's tale. At some point in our lives we are all guilty of blaming fate for our situations, then tacking on more problems to prove "fate" right. This song shows, through a very obvious example, that we must admit the only way to improve our current situation is to accept it and work to better it. Oh yeah, sorry if all this stuff has already been said. I really can't imagine too many people finding this to point that out anyway |
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