| Melvins – Skin Horse Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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- There's a character in the old children's book "Velveteen Rabbit" called Skin Horse. He's a toy rocking horse and the oldest and most battered toy in the nursery, who's witnessed countless other toys break down and "die". The book is very melancholy and nostalgic, and the music of the song reaches for a similar mood - like a heartwarming farewell to someone or something, with a clear infantile element represented by the chipmunk outro. The story goes that the stuffed rabbit protagonist wishes to be more than just a lifeless toy, he wants to become "Real", but he's cheap, unfit and gets bullied by other, more expensive toys. Skin Horse then memorably explains to the rabbit: "Real isn't how you are made... It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real". - What I believe is happening in the lyrics, parallel to the book: the stuffed rabbit is owned by a kid (unnamed in the story, I guess Buzzo named him "Ty"), who's busy playing games on his "battle fold" (some kind of a play mat?), pretending that his hand is a criminal and so on. Ty grows to love the rabbit so much, he declares him Real and treats him like a living being, even as he gets old and worn. One day Ty gets very sick ("Everyone is shifting all around his agonize" = his concerned family shifts around his sickbed; "Can't make the sort of sound this and dust could sanitize" = can't breathe properly), and the one support he clings to during his sickness is hugging the rabbit whom he keeps in bed ("Shoulder only angel" = the bunny stays like a guardian angel by his shoulder; "Only those who really help me time unveils" = only the friend who stays by you in hard times is a real friend, and like Skin Horse said, it takes a long, long time to realize that your friend is Real). "Ty regarding visionary" = Ty's ability to regard the rabbit as Real is like a prophetic vision. - Then the chipmunk stanza is delivered by a different, inhuman sounding character - perhaps the toy rabbit himself. This section contains lines that sound both hostile and loving, and could refer to various mixed up parts of the story: 1. After the boy was cured, all of his furniture was to be burned to contain the illness - sadly including the beloved rabbit ("I didn't wanna be / singled out for the fire"). He reminds himself how he's just an old worn out toy anyway, and comes to terms with his death ("Too old for that / buy me a big one" = To buy a big one means to die) 2. The toy rabbit was once momentarily left alone and discovered by two live rabbits, who mock him for being fake, and he gets upset and cries ("To say what's real / you're not the boss of me"). Perhaps "old man" is how he refers to Ty in front of the rabbits, who scatter once Ty approaches to pick him up. Ty gives him more love than the rabbits could strip him of ("He makes more than you will take it away") 3. Before he's about to be burned, the toy rabbit recalls his good times playing with the boy ("I've got the only wisdom / we're still friends"), and sheds a single tear, which turns into a fairy who "takes old and worn toys away and turns them into Real". She moves him into a nearby forest and turns him into a real rabbit. The final four lines are a timeskip to when the real rabbit now has grown old, and anticipates that the fairy will "take him away" once more, this time to heaven. "Little place near the holy one" could be either heaven, or his forest (or an amalgam of the two?), where the rabbit spends his twilight years "running" with the others. In some retellings of the story, it's Skin Horse who closes the narrative. - So in this interpretation, the central theme of the song is about standing up for what is Real, whether your own Real nature or your Real friends, and how time and circumstance make our old friendships drift away. Conjecture? It's a Melvins lyric, who the hell knows. But it makes the track feel sad and meaningful all the same. |
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