submissions
| 10,000 Maniacs – Can't Ignore The Train Lyrics
| 2 years ago
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@[Evilgranny606432:46629] The omniscient narrator references the privileged younger daughter of a prosperous family, who escaped from the stifling life of convention, but fell into a life of crime. She now wishes not to relive that life, but to have lived otherwise. "The train" is both literal and metaphorical: literally, it is the means of escape to adventure; metaphorically, it represents the inevitability of choices and their consequences. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Red River Shore Lyrics
| 3 years ago
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@[mindfull51:41525] That would be the literal interpretation, correct so far as it goes. But as always, Dylan is looking deeper. "The girl from the Red River Shore" is a metaphor for any wonderful elusive thing you can never have, something you once almost had, or imagine that you did. The wish that there could be that one fine thing that you could have and hold forever -- that plausible, palpable god or ideal that would never let go. The singer stands at the point just before the rational mind embraces the absurdity of perfections and immortalities, and learns to take things as they come, with humor and gratitude. Though we can\'t know what Dylan himself, personally, wished us to take away, if indeed he wished for any particular effect at all. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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Add @[ranprieur:39145] to @[severn:39146] and I think we have it. Don Quixote (Senor) as the mad American imperial project, leading the servient public (Sancho) into endless foreign wars and risking nuclear annihilation. As @[ranprieur:39145] sees, Senor in verses three and five justifies the project based on "myth and memory," while Sancho keeps asking what's the point, why are we doing this crazy thing again, where's the comfort in this, what are we waiting for, let's get it over and go home to peace and comfort (a world at peace and prosperity with no lingering danger of nuclear annihilation -- Armageddon). |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[ranprieur:39144] Yes -- Don Quixote (Senor) as the mad American imperial project, the narrator/servant (Sancho) is the American public being led into imperial wars, risking nuclear annihilation for the benefit of war profiteers, and all the while Sancho just wants to give up the madness, go home in peace, and eat good old olla podrida. |
submissions
| Bob Dylan – Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) Lyrics
| 4 years ago
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@[crunchiefrog:39141] You're quite right that the lyrics have multiple implications, and It's understandable that those inclined toward a christian worldview will interpret "Senor" as tracking christian mythology. While this interpretation can be supported by many of the lyrics, Dylan rules this out in the subtitle itself: "Tales of Yankee Power." Yankee power has to do with Vietnam and American imperialism in the nuclear age, while the images mirror such seemingly diverse threads as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Legend of Billy the Kid (Lincoln County) as well as christian myth. In the end there can be no one simple answer as there's nothing simple or coherent in Dylan's imagery. |
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