When the Pin Hits the Shell

It's a song about a friend's suicide. A really great song and a great summary of my feelings on suicide: I'll remember you and the times we had, but I'm not gonna mourn for you cause you selfishly took your own life.

Cooley strikes again!

There's two songs on this album about the same suicide. Patterson's is "Do it Yourself".

Jose Garcia got it right, but I figured I'd provide a little more detail. The lyrics are straightforward, but there are a few interesting twists thrown in by Cooley that are worth checking out.

-The most interesting aspect is the distance the narrator puts between himself and the decedent. Indeed, despite the fact that they were obviously good friends who shared good times in the past, he shows no sympathy, no frustration, indeed no discernable emotion at all. He talks about the good times they shared drinking, drugging, and driving fast ("racing trains from Second Street to Avalon"). The times were inevitably replaced by serious trouble for both of them ("...damn near killed me too."). The decedent kills himself, and the narrator is surprisingly unmoved as he matter-of-factly tells his dead friend that he's going to hell for committing suicide. But this heavy moral judgment isn't brought about by the narrator's anger, desperation, or confusion at the event. The narrator admits he's in no position to pass judgment ("I gonna get up on no high horse") and even more amazingly, doesn't even feel the need to defend the friend against criticism ("If you were my brother man I'd probably stand by you/But you ain't man so I gotta go my way"). Most strikingly, he doesn't even seem moved by the death, as he states that he's not going to mourn his friend. This is all complicated by the fact that no explanation is given as to why one guy killed himself and the other didn't.

There's enough of a tease from Cooley about the characters' past to make the audience's mind bristle with questions. What made the good times turn bad? Most importantly, why did the two characters go in two different directions? Why does he not care at all that his friend kill himself? The lack of answers is haunting.

Old South.... thanks for that outlook.

People misinterpreting this song as judgemental and self righteous even though Cooley takes strides to not come off that way.

"I ain't gonna crawl up on no high horse, cuz I got thrown off of one when I was young, and I ain't no cowboy so I ain't goin' where I don't belong."

"It wouldn't do you no good to let you know that it damned near killed me too So I ain't gonna mourn for you, man, now that you're gone."

He's not declaring the suicide as selfish or passing judgement. The loss devastated him, but he sees mourning as pointless. It won't change anything. If it would, he would.