I Found a Whistle

it's reasonable to believe that not every song is about drugs, but it makes more sense to me that not every song lyric is meant to mean just one thing. they wrote this song to song to sound like a love song and it's lyrics are ambiguous however if one takes a closer look:

15 centuries of dissolution and grief to return a yellow trickster and a thief

• to give up a drug that one doesn't enjoy

Yeah I found a whistle that works every time that's when the trail escapes to nowhere -the drug is an escape / it works every time

Yeah I found a whistle as thin as a sheet -acid.

there is little doubt in my mind that mgmt does psychedelics. and I understand people's disappointment with 'songs about drugs' but the beauty of it is in a dual nature of lyrics. also they write to connect with an audience that has tried the drugs that they have tried

Why do you think this, of all songs, is about drugs? Not every MGMT song is, y'know.

I can't explain why, but I feel this is just a really sweet romantic song. About someone that's waited a long, long time, and didn't really love himself; he's world-weary and jaded, but he's finally found someone that they can fall into, someone that can make things right 'every time'.

This song is about pencils.

Yeah I partly agree with the OffAir. Ive listened to this song quite a few times and I think Andrew see's his popularity as a "whistle." He could use popularity now to work on his side when it comes to women in his life and now he has the ability to just get relations started easily with women, fuck and end them on his own command and without the worry of being so tied up with one girl and the problems that go along with dating and getting something "real" started with ladies. Thanks to the stardom and the rush of being on the road. "The flood erases the crime" all the business thats going on and fast paced concerns of getting the music portion taken care of first helps him hide the guilt he is feeling.

Yeah I found a whistle that works every time that's when the trail escapes to nowhere and the flood erases the crime

repeatedly raising the flag all ignored, real emotion's such a drag (Lotsa sex and it not meaning very much to him since hes ignoring real emotions. Such a drag(MGMTS sarcasm)

Hey I've got a pistol that's aimed at your heart and on dark nights when the moon is right I could show you the head attached with a scarf aerophane sorceress, at home obeying the fates when it's gone, has it gone all the way? (Pistol aimed at your heart could just show his selfishness, sex, and when a great girl comes around and is gone the next day, that feeling he felt might just be lying around the corner (or the next city)

It hangs like a charm (it will always be there)

Idk seems pretty simple to me. Def dont think this song is about drugs.

Peace

i'm just gonna throw this out here, at the risk of getting a million thumbs down from all the "MGMT is not all about drugs" kids, but i think every last one of their songs are about drugs... and something else. it's such a recurring theme with them, but then their songs always have some other theme in them that fits just as well. but the drug related imagery is SO specifically referenced and so intense that it can't really be chance. it just seems to me as though drugs have had such an influence in their everyday lives and can be related to just about everything these days, that they are using it in relation to everything just to subliminally imply that drugs are all around us and are a huge part of the world if you let them in. rereading this i realized it makes more sense in my head, but oh well.

I think that this song could be about fame, a relationship or friendship. The first time I heard this song, the word whistle reminded of some one blowing a whistle for help. Also, many hunting dogs are trained to come to their masters by the blow of a whistle. In the first line he is definitely referencing that he could blow the whistle as he is hanging for a noose and some one (his fans, a friends, or a girl) would immediately be there for him. The whistle "hangs like a charm," meaning it is always there and reliable source of help.

Hey I've got a pistol that's aimed at your heart and on dark nights when the moon is right I could show you the head attached with a scarf aerophane sorceress, at home obeying the fates when it's gone, has it gone all the way?

I think that this part of the song refers to a relationship or friendship that has been polluted by fame. When he says that he has "got a pistol that's aimed at you heart," I think he telling that he is trying to force the same relationship/friendship to work out. He has to do this "on dark nights when the moon is right" because his fame gets in the way of it. In the last line, he is wondering if after his fame and popularity is over, will his relationship go back to normal?

Just a wild guess here. Maybe the "whistle" is the authors one true love.

"and when my noose is tied I could blow it and fall down into your arms"

When he feels like the world is going to end, he can go to his love, and they make everything okay.

"Yeah I found a whistle that works every time that's when the trail escapes to nowhere and the flood erases the crime such conviction to paint all the wall with the blood of the young and the faithful and the good"

He found someone who can look past all the stupid things hes done, all of the girls in the past, and all of the hearts he's broken. His love still loves him no matter what.

It's a love song.

"15 centuries of dissolution and grief to return a yellow trickster and a thief"

Are (currently, anyway) my favourite lines/words in any of the songs off of Congratulations. =)

I definitely would see this song as a love song rather than about drugs. Or maybe it has no meaning at all? Who knows. But @aussieblues there are actually a lot of real MGMT fans out there who actually like their music, and don't just think they're good looking. So your statement about kerrigwen85 was pretty ignorant. Do you think you're all high and mighty because you think you can detect when something is about drugs? Maybe you've done a few too many. I'm pretty sure you don't know everything just because you like to "take a few psychedelic journeys". Don't deem someone as wrong when you don't have the answers.

Hey I found a whistle that hangs like a charm and when my noose is tied I could blow it and fall down into your arms

Yeah I found a whistle that works every time that's when the trail escapes to nowhere

could the whistle be the same as found in the Super Mario series? When you use the magic whistle in the game you are transported to the warp zone into any of the mario worlds.