Go Long

I think this song is essentially a song about men and masculinity and how women and femininity are viewed and/ or relate to that.

The song begins with the set-up of a dream. I believe the entire song is meant to be a dream, made up of shifting imagery about a singular situation, told through metaphors. It seems to be about a man, “tortured” in a sense. From one view it would seem that the man is cruel (and he probably is) but the song lends a lot of sympathy, makes him sound weak and pathetic and pitiful rather than strong and secure and manly as he might imagine he is viewed.

The narrator is supposed to “save” this man. The first verse looks as if she is a beautiful woman (a “princess of India”) brought in almost as an offering to this wealthy, extravagant and insincere man. It’s no secret that he goes through women quickly, as she’s brought in on a bed of their sacrifice to him. These women too hoped to be the one to “save him,” to end his cruelty, to make him love truly another person. Instead, he has continued to live a life of extravagance, of freedom, and therefore, of great loneliness.

It seems that maybe with each new woman (who I believe, as the princess changes from an Indian one to a Kentucky one, are meant to be all the same, to embody this femininity that is out of reach for these men.) the man truly does believe he is being “saved,” he will no longer have to prove himself as a man, he will sink into the sweet bliss of domesticity and care from a woman he loves, and when he still does not feel fulfilled, with his disappointment, kills these women. The narrator is the newest addition, and they both hope for him. She recognizes though, as he does not, that when he kills these women for their failure, it is his failure, and his violence, which is truly causing him such pain. He can’t own this. He thinks that when he leaves his palace, his woman, disappears, takes advantage of his wealth and freedom, he will again be free, but he is forever stained by the remains of the women who have loved him and who he has torn up. He does not change by leaving; leaving does not save him. The list of attributes these lonely men have: jaws, fists — to represent violence, masculinity, fighting; guitars and pens — artistic and intellectual endeavors; and then sugarlip, a way of being irresistible to women. These men value these things and focus on them so entirely, seeing that men and only men can have these aspects, and gather around firepits to celebrate their manliness. No women are allowed, no women could be as violent, have such a great mind, as these men believe they have. And no woman has ever been invited, or crossed the threshold, into this burning and sad manliness, isolated in its surety of isolation.

The narrator is concerned and sad for the man, wondering how he got this way, if he will ever have children, if he will ever have a wife that will care for him when he needs it. In his stark independence, his refusal to need anyone (ironically while needing someone so badly) he will end up alone. Worried for him, almost like a mother, the narrator is telling him softly how miserable he will be, and that soon enough, he won’t have a chance. No one will love him.

Instead of mellowing himself, forgetting his quests for valor, he repeatedly goes on them; he tortures himself to prove himself. However, the sympathy is there. As a man, he’s repeatedly been failed by those who raised him, those around him, from his birth. It becomes a cycle, everyone just hurting each other.

Again, softly, maternally, yearning for a simple domesticity, the narrator asks him about his clothing, wondering about his choices, teasing him. At this point though, he has almost destroyed himself. Covered in the remnants of him trying so hard to prove himself, he acts like a delirious and senile old man, groping at the women around them, not even able to respect or understand the women that are paid to care for him.

The narrator likens herself to a horse, to something men watch and use for a sport. She tries to appeal to him, saying look at your princess now. She is also failing him, she has not saved him, and he will kill her soon. She attempts to get him to look at his life spiritually, to show him his fear, and his ignorance and betrayal of women and how he is hurting himself. She tells him that though he’s looking, he’s blinded himself. He’s sunk further into isolation and as she tries to pull him out, she wonders if she’s does the right thing, or if she’s made it worse.

He leaves then, as he leaves them all, trying to embrace his freedom, off to the firepits probably, off to do something terrible to himself just to ensure that he can. He leaves his home and his comfort to punish himself, and she is left there. It is then of course that she realizes the true extent of the women he has used and deserted in his attempts for salvation, their sacrifice, and the sadness of it all. She realizes she too will die because she has not saved him either.

Though he is lonely and sad and terrible, she has loved him, like all other women have too, and forever they feel his kiss, and he is forever kissing, asking for something he won’t accept. He is far away, lonely and alone, with all the other men, begging for and refusing help in the same breathe.

She accepts it then, and speaks of him, of every man like him, the ones that are on an eternal quest to be something that doesn’t exist. They understand nothing about themselves and are always moving. The narrator knows now that they cannot be helped. She hopes only for the next best thing: that he becomes what he wants to be in a true sense, that, like he’s been doing his whole life, he will love, and then he will cast away, and then he will do it again, until he’s let everyone go, and it is only him, only the men, in one place, all together, steeping themselves in isolation and a journey that they refuse to let end.