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The Giant of Illinois Lyrics
The giant of Illinois died from a blister on his toe after walking all day in the first winter's snow. Throwing bits of stale bread to the last speckled doves, he never even felt his shoe full of blood. Delirious with pain, his bedroom walls began to glow and he felt himself soaring up through falling snow. And the sky was a woman's arms. A boy with a club foot had sat next to him in school. Once upon a summer's day they went wandering through the woods. They spotted a sleeping swan on the banks of a muddy stream and they stormed it with rocks till it collapsed in the reeds. They lay out on a green lawn full of chocolate and lemonade, but under the blue bowl the giant was afraid because the sky was a woman's arms.
Song Info
Submitted by
leonperkin On Jan 05, 2005
More The Handsome Family
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Weightless Again
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A Dark Eye
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To me this is one of the most beautiful and saddest songs I've ever heard.
Aside from the literal connection to Robert Wadlow... the song strikes me as poetic in a way that I don't think I've experienced before.
The first verse, a man so engrossed in his care for the lowest of birds (pigeons) that he does not even tend to his own pain. A penance of sorts. Dies in his duty, comforted so very deeply in the end by the eternal, who like a mother forgives him his sin.
The second verse, a child, who meets a friend who leads him astray to commit a deep sin, to kill the most beautiful of birds. And even though they could have lived in indulgence after that, the child realizes what he did was wrong, but in realizing this, the eternal, who like a mother, comforts him and gives him his duty (to right his wrong).
What I love about the song is how the first verse is actually the chronological future, and the second is the past, and how it just all ties in so nicely and so beautifully and sadly. And how much pain you feel for the swan. And how sometimes you live with something wrong you did for the rest of your life. But that there is a comfort that it can somehow be righted.
@mr.doodle I heard this song and was gripped by it, a bit. I pulled over my car and looked for some clues in terms of the meaning, I read what you wrote here and sobbed a good sob for about 5 minutes, snot and tears ... then made my way home. Signed up for an account here only to tell you this. I needed that sob. Thanks for your interpretation, it came at the right time.
@mr.doodle I heard this song and was gripped by it, a bit. I pulled over my car and looked for some clues in terms of the meaning, I read what you wrote here and sobbed a good sob for about 5 minutes, snot and tears ... then made my way home. Signed up for an account here only to tell you this. I needed that sob. Thanks for your interpretation, it came at the right time.
This song is about Robert Wadlow, the tallest man to ever live, who was from Alton, Illinois. He did, in fact, die of a blister on his ankle. What a tragedy that the human giant was brought down at such a young age by an infection on his foot.