| Mumford & Sons – The Boxer (Paul Simon cover) Lyrics | 9 years ago |
| I believe this song is about people from the Great Depression who would leave home around the age of ten (or older) to find work. These people were called Boxers. This was because they would use trains as a means of travel to find a job. They would do this by jumping onto freight cars as the train began to leave the station (which was very dangerous and illegal) with many other boxers (strangers). From the trains they would go off and find jobs or if they hadn't found one yet they would find a place in the open that other boxers had used as shelter and occasionally left clothing or food for the next people. They would occasionally work for any wage as long as they got meals and shelter thus "asking only workman's wages". But due to the many people looking for jobs, it was often hard for anyone to find a job. Many of these people would get lonely as they'd be traveling alone and would "take comfort" with the "whores on seventh avenue" (they would go to a whore house) as often if they had a job they would only be with other men (as men were usually the ones looking for jobs and the women would just look for a man). The boxers usually missed their old life and would want to go back to the times before the depression as reference as "home" or literally wanting to go to their old home before they had to leave to find work. When the song refers to the "boxer and a fighter by his trade" it is talking about how the boxer had to fight the early elements and occasionally other people to survive. And the pieces about the "glove that laid him down or cut him til he cried out" it is talking about the bosses that fired them or that turned them down when they asked for jobs. They would, from time to time, get fed up with their lifestyle and say they were going to leave but when it came down to it they wouldn't leave thus the line "but the fighter still remains." | |
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