"Pentagram" as written by and John Mccrea....
Your pentagram is down below our floor.
Your naked body shimmers in the night.
Dancing and chanting in a sacrificial rite.
Your feet are dry with the ashes from dead babies
Who have passed the test just like all the rest
But never really understood the reasons why
They took it in the first place.
Ah in the first place.
Your feisty eyes won't make me fall apart.
Your turquoise and silver won't weaken this old heart.
Yeah, dancing and chanting in a sacrificial rite.
I fell to the ground on a windy, windy night.
Well I have passed the test just like all the rest,
But never really understood the reasons why
I took it in the first place.
Ah, in the first place.
Well I have passed the test just like all the rest,
But never really understood the reasons why
I took it in the first place.
Ah, in the first place.
Your naked body shimmers in the night.
Dancing and chanting in a sacrificial rite.
Your feet are dry with the ashes from dead babies
Who have passed the test just like all the rest
But never really understood the reasons why
They took it in the first place.
Ah in the first place.
Your feisty eyes won't make me fall apart.
Your turquoise and silver won't weaken this old heart.
Yeah, dancing and chanting in a sacrificial rite.
I fell to the ground on a windy, windy night.
Well I have passed the test just like all the rest,
But never really understood the reasons why
I took it in the first place.
Ah, in the first place.
Well I have passed the test just like all the rest,
But never really understood the reasons why
I took it in the first place.
Ah, in the first place.
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Pentagrams, naked sacrificial rites, ashes of dead babies, evil eyes, silver and turquoise jewelry are all stereotypical trappings of satanism - which is easily confused with wicca and other pagan religions by people who really don't care about getting "evil things" right. They're using the ridiculousness of this misinterpretation to make the point that most people that follow a religion - even Christians - go through the trappings and don't understand why they're doing these rituals - they do them because they were told that they were the right thing to do.
Although, if you're dead set on the relationship thing, those rituals would include the marriage ritual. But I still don't think the dead babies have anything to do with it.
Finally - I think it's truly amusing and very subtle that they've made this a bluegrass tune. The root of the word pagan is paganus - which means "from the country", and bluegrass music is from the country.
Cake is freakin cool!
This lady lives 'down below our floor', which could mean she lives in the apartment below our narrator and she *could* be a prostitute. The fact that her 'feet are dry with the ashes from dead babies' suggests to me that she takes the boyhood from young people so that they can be men and the 'dead babies', i.e. the childhood innocence that they once had, they leave dead in her apartment once they're gone. BUT. The analogy to ritual is ironic, because they've 'passed the test just like all the rest but never really understood the reason why they took it in the first place.'
So then we have a coming-of-age ritual, in some sense, which has no meaning. The verses of the song build up this woman's power and significance for young boys and then the refrain tramps it back down again. Apparently, they've gained nothing from their experience with this woman; they don't even know why they did it.
Then, our narrator is implicated. At the beginning of the second verse, he resists this woman:
'Your feisty eyes won't make me fall apart.
Your turquoise and silver won't weaken this old heart.'
But he's tempted. Then he succumbs:
'I fell to the ground on a windy, windy night.'
And he's passed the test too, just like everyone else but it has no significance for him.
It sounds to me like it's a song about losing your virginity to a woman in a empty, impersonal encounter. Young boys who are virgins are often envious of boys who are not as they're perceived as more 'manly' or 'grown up.' But when the times comes to actually lose it, it's just a banal and pointless experience and doesn't really lead to anything better.
"Well I have passed the test JUST LIKE ALL THE REST,
But never really understood the reasons why
I took it in the first place."
He's not sure why he has this sex drive.
The dead babies part could be a reference to protected sex.