| 10,000 Maniacs – A Campfire Song Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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It's about greedy, selfish, exploitation of the land and of workers by a capitalist landowner. He is materially rich because of his property but in truth he does not own what he has got because it is the land/mine and its workers that have provided him with it. Moreover he is spiritually and morally unfulfilled/unhappy. Money cannot buy that. By extension it is about our relationship with natural resources (there is a strong environmentalist bent to the final verse) and with one another as a society (the 500 men with axes and the fishermen clearly have a greater claim to what they dig and catch than does the person who claims legal ownership of the land). |
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| 10,000 Maniacs – My Sister Rose Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I read this as a fairly scathing analysis of 'traditional' marriage/weddings and especially of the seemingly inevitably way in which Sister Rose (and all of the 'single girls' who 'hear the call' from the onlookers) falls into (and are encouraged by society into) it, almost without thought. It is a feminist song criticising the unquestioning changing of the bride's name, the pomp and pageantry of the dresses and dances, and the implicit subservience of the wife that all of this is there to legitimise. The line 'He's a banker, she'll be well off now' expresses clearly where the power is in this relationship. Arguably the line about 'Uncle Sam and Uncle Joe' (embodiments of the USA and USSR?) suggests that marriage/family/etc is an important part of maintaining a much broader social and political status quo. The final line suggests Mercahnt (or whoever she is giving voice to in the song) sees beyond all of the symbolic stuff on the wedding day and still sees and loves sister Rose for the person she is/was, not just as a wife, not just as 'Mrs Rocky'. |
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