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The Dutch Boy Lyrics

My heart it goes out to that poor little
Dutch boy who stopped a great flood with the tip of his thumb.
Through parades and medals he felt no joy and took to his bed with a bottle of rum.
The queen she arrived in her motorcade to give the good
Dutch boy a commemorative pen, but he watched as the milkmaids all withered and grayed
And he knew that the waters must rise again.
Because the world is made up of milk and scissors,
Milk and scissors in a spiraling chain.
Milk and scissors like a cheap squirting flower,
Milk and scissors like worms when it rains.
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Cover art for The Dutch Boy lyrics by Handsome Family, The

milk and scissors... any ideas anyone? I mean, the first few lines are about the loss of idealism I think. That, even if you do succeed in saving the world or some fraction of the world, you are going to be rewarded with empty gestures that make you think whether it was even worth saving, and, in the end, some other crap is just gonna rise up and try to the destroy the world anyways. So was it even worth saving?

However, I don't really get the last lines about what the milk and scissors means.

Cover art for The Dutch Boy lyrics by Handsome Family, The

I think you're on the right lines. I'd probably go for the meaning of milk = eventually goes sour / scissors = eventually go blunt - which would tie in with the thoughts on futility you outlined above.

The line 'like a cheap squirting flower' is difficult - maybe fakery / unfunny / a bad joke

and 'like worms when it rains' - possibly meaning inevitable / always occuring and has connotations of death as well.

Great song whatever the meaning!

My Opinion
 
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