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His Grinning Skull Lyrics
How can you pine anymore?
It is beautiful
and for all
unavoidable
so these are his bones
and his grinning skull
so now he is home
to the bluebottles
he who was your bull
and made the shadows run
and I understand
In all things he was quite the man
but now perched on his skull
he now wears cuckold's horns
and they're growing full
pushing through the soil
pools gathering round my knees
temptation leers at me from every door
so these are his bones
why won't you leave them alone?
worms crowding her feet
trying to pull me back to their holes
tap-tapping in the room below
nothing more than dead piles of bones
saying:
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will'
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will'
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart'
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
with fists for spades we raid his grave
with big black boots we stomp the roots
with fists for spades we raid his grave
with big black boots we stomp the roots
and HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
heave-ho
It is beautiful
and for all
unavoidable
so these are his bones
and his grinning skull
so now he is home
to the bluebottles
he who was your bull
and made the shadows run
and I understand
In all things he was quite the man
but now perched on his skull
he now wears cuckold's horns
and they're growing full
pushing through the soil
pools gathering round my knees
temptation leers at me from every door
so these are his bones
why won't you leave them alone?
worms crowding her feet
trying to pull me back to their holes
tap-tapping in the room below
nothing more than dead piles of bones
saying:
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will'
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will'
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart'
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
with fists for spades we raid his grave
with big black boots we stomp the roots
with fists for spades we raid his grave
with big black boots we stomp the roots
and HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
HEAVE-HO
heave-ho
Song Info
Submitted by
starlight152 On Jun 10, 2008
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'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will' 'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will' 'I'll eat this young whelp's heart'
^For me the most heart-breaking musical moment of 2008 so far.
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will' IS a wonderful line. What do you reckon this song's about. My guess is that it's a kind of vanitas. The first half seems clear: man dies, woman misses him, but death must be accepted. But who is the narrator? A gravedigger? the woman's new lover? A graverobber? Why is the narrator in pools? What is the temptation? Then they raid his grave. So perhaps it is a graverobber? Anyways, brilliant song, superb live too.
'I'll eat this young whelp's heart I will' IS a wonderful line. What do you reckon this song's about. My guess is that it's a kind of vanitas. The first half seems clear: man dies, woman misses him, but death must be accepted. But who is the narrator? A gravedigger? the woman's new lover? A graverobber? Why is the narrator in pools? What is the temptation? Then they raid his grave. So perhaps it is a graverobber? Anyways, brilliant song, superb live too.
Such a great song.
Such a great song.
I never thought of it as a song about a death in the literal sense, that's interesting, as if the man were dead and his wife/lover who stood by him through all was finally leaving him.
I never thought of it as a song about a death in the literal sense, that's interesting, as if the man were dead and his wife/lover who stood by him through all was finally leaving him.
Obviously there's a lot of death imagery, but I imagined it as "digging the grave" for the lover you scorned, as in ridding yourself of him completely, particularly because of the lines "and now perched on his skull/ are these cuckold's horns." I see the song as the story of a man who was his wife/lover's protector ("he who...
Obviously there's a lot of death imagery, but I imagined it as "digging the grave" for the lover you scorned, as in ridding yourself of him completely, particularly because of the lines "and now perched on his skull/ are these cuckold's horns." I see the song as the story of a man who was his wife/lover's protector ("he who was your bull/ and made the shadows run"), and has now been cheated on and left by said lover; hence, the reason that even after he is cuckolded, he is humiliated ("I'll eat this young whelp's heart..."; "with fists for spades..."). I agree with regulus, in that maybe the song is narrated by the wife's new lover. He could be sympathetic toward the cuckolded man, but it's a condescending and hypocritical sympathy.
This song's about a man sleeping with a woman whos husband is dead. "He who was your bull" "In all things he was quite the man" "He now wears cuckolds horns" The last line signifies that he's sleeping with a dead womans husband, but perhaps she's still missing him.
It definitely seems to be about a man who's with someone mourning a past love, but I can't help but think it is about The Lord of the Flies...