| Fleet Foxes – Icicle Tusk Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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This song is a story about a peeping tom who observes the woman he loves being killed by an affluent man. The peeping tom realizes that the murderer will never be brought to justice so he shoots him down in the gambling hall. A few items I noticed were: In the first stanza we realize that this poem is addressed to someone. The "you" in this song is the person that he is going to shoot dead. This person is also referenced in the fourth stanza as his "surveillance keeper," or the one that will not be forgotten even though his "memory rusts". In the second stanza he describes the "fluttering door". Could it be a window? A symbol representing the means by which the peeping tom observed the murder? In the third stanza we learn a little more about the environment. It seems to be a gambling parlor. The reference to money is to show that the person who was killed ran around with an affluent crowd. He was very wealthy and was possibly a man of prominence. The song seems to take place in the days of the wild west and twenty-five thousand would have been a lot of money back then. At the end of the third stanza and into the fourth we learn more about who is speaking. He is "not responsible for the reputation of the neighborhood whore" but he is a "keyhole peeker". In other words, he had never been with the prostitute but he was a peeping tom who was peeking into the room of the prostitute when he saw her murdered. I agree with @amatterofgrace that the icicle tusk was the weapon used, but I wonder if the murderer may have used an actual icicle to kill the woman. This would make it very difficult to prove the murder because the icicle would just melt. The peeping tom realized that nobody would ever believe his story and so he took matters into his own hands. The last stanza describes how lonely he is in prison ("on my shelf"). I agree with @Lyle that the message of the song relates to doing the right thing even when there will be consequences. The song also speaks to the powerlessness of the lowly against corruption in high places. |
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