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Big Black Bull Comes Like A Caesar Lyrics
This is what it sounds like when my brother calls me. ~
My parents, they up and passed when I was none than three.
I forced myself onto my brother, made him watch me swell.
When we’d sit round the kitchen table he would whip out his brand new blade.
He’d scratch out words into the wood of the table, I never could tell what they say.
But i could tell they were dirty.
I brought them words on down to the elementary, I pulled them boys behind the elementary wall and I spoke them words hard- yeah I did...
When my brother was a child he was given an animal.
He raised it up to be a big black bull, it never did pitch or sway.
It would ride on the back of our flat bed,.
it looked like one of them greek Caesar’s, and when go to McCintyre’s.
the McCintyre’s got a pen, with a she-cow.
When that she-cow saw his chariot arivin’, She gave the bull her big soft cowy eyes, then she started talkin’
And she was talkin’ dirty...
Then the big black bull come down hard offen the flatbed, forced himself inside the pen with the she-cow. He stood up tall on two legs, like a man does, he swoll himself up hard. Me myself I stood up tall on the flatbed, I pitched when I saw them sway. When that bull he come back down to four legs, my brother forced himself onto the flatbed, he handed me his brand new blade, said ‘scratch out the words on the wood of the flatbed,’
-and I did....
When I was none, I fell out my mamma, I was a breach born son, I come backwards.
And then the calf come, it come, like I come, he come backwards.
And my brother he called the calf my name, and its mother she called the calf my name...
I forced myself onto my brother, made him watch me swell.
When we’d sit round the kitchen table he would whip out his brand new blade.
He’d scratch out words into the wood of the table, I never could tell what they say.
But i could tell they were dirty.
I brought them words on down to the elementary, I pulled them boys behind the elementary wall and I spoke them words hard- yeah I did...
He raised it up to be a big black bull, it never did pitch or sway.
It would ride on the back of our flat bed,.
it looked like one of them greek Caesar’s, and when go to McCintyre’s.
the McCintyre’s got a pen, with a she-cow.
When that she-cow saw his chariot arivin’, She gave the bull her big soft cowy eyes, then she started talkin’
And she was talkin’ dirty...
-and I did....
And then the calf come, it come, like I come, he come backwards.
And my brother he called the calf my name, and its mother she called the calf my name...
Song Info
Submitted by
meow_kitties! On Sep 23, 2008
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These lyrics are really screwed up, brilliant, but absolutely horrible. My interpretations range from he was sexually abused as a child; to he was born gay. It also may be about him and his brother witnessing something mortifying when they were very young, multiple times even. If anyone has any other insight please share. I find Munly's songs to be heavy with symbolism, but its hard for me to decipher what he is exactly singing about sometimes.
Judging from the title and the verse:
"I was a breach born son, I come backwards."
I believe that the narrator was born by Caesarean section.
It probably was regarded extremely unnatural at the time when the story's set, thus, his brother used an insulting word to refer to both the narrator, and later on, the calf which was born the same way.
I believe this song is about toxic masculinity in general but I also tend to subscribe to the homosexuality angle specifically, and how gay children are treated in a toxic and suffocating upbringing, in this instance gay young boys.
The protagonist is raised by his brother after the death of their parents, and after awhile it becomes clear the younger sibling is "not right" - considering the anachronistic seemingly mid-19th century period this song seems set in, as well as the psychosexual feel of the song, it seems likely that the perceived "wrongness" from his older brother's perspective is homosexuality. The line about the experience in the elementary school might be exemplary to this; the brother engages in experimental activity with his peers, as many people do when they're coming of age. Obviously the environment he lives in is suffocating and unapproving, and his brother reinforces this by telling him he is wrong and defective - later on comparing his "wrongness" to the "wrongness" of the baby calf the brother owns.
As for the bull, which is integral to the song, there's some obvious phallic and disturbingly venereal imagery in this song. The reference to the brother's "brand new blade" is obviously phallic and I believe it probably refers to the penis as a symbol of masculinity and strength.
This is reflected in the central part of the song, where it seems as though the protagonist's brother forces the protagonist to watch his bull mate with their neighbor's cow, maybe multiple times (or even worse, forcing his brother to undergo heterosexual behavior with a woman and the animals are just a metaphor? Munly's lyrics are so oblique it's hard to really tell). In the end, too, it's something the younger brother is still continually shamed and ridiculed for, by comparing the behavior of the calf to the behavior of the protagonist in a negative and insulting light, as his parents and brother both did. He came into the world "backwards" by the standards of his family and the repressive society around him, and given how he was treated for his ultimately normal behavior, he ends up internalizing it and truly feeling as though his desires are defective. Such was the sad reality of many gay/LGBT teens, and still even continues in many conservative upbringings to this day.