Mommy Daddy You and I

Always figured this was about a disaster of some kind - something that would force a mass exodus. Either that or the narrator's parents joined a cult.

This is one of Byrne's finest koans. I've been trying to figure it out (in the context of the album, Naked, which is definitely a concept album about human nature where songs like "Nature Boy" and "Nothing But Flowers" express different points of view) for about 20 years.

First, the lyrics are from a little boy's point of view, but the music in the verses is sinister. It starts specific "All the way from Baltimore . . ." and gets general: "Crawling out of bed . . . we're not the only family to make this little trip." Cold s a central image. "Chilly Willy". There is obviously immigration, the sense of enforced forward progress through a strange world where we aren't ever going home, such as through a 'normal' lifetime: "Making changes day by day, we still ain't got no plan . . " . And we rely on tradition to help us, because it's a crazty world out there: "some are born to take advantage . . . and we're wearing our grandfather's coat . . . "

I feel it's almost existentialist, where we all need to go but can never know where we're going. "Changing the water of life.". There isn't a song on Naked that isn't a wider metaphor, whether its presented that way explicitly or not. This one is, but it's obscure and the little details throw you off. Now, to see if anyone has any insight on 'Big Daddy' and 'Bill'. This is an album worth figuring out. It's meant to be, but I don't know if a critic has ever risen to the challenge!

This song popped in my head the other evening.

It somewhat was catalyst for me to think in shock - oh my - this song is about adoption- they're giving up their child.

However reading the lyrics today, twice, I am thinking this is POV of an African American slave family, and they are heading north either pre or post abolition - likely post.

Baltimore IS a big part of Byrne's home I think - I remember that line about what's that smell- it's ONLY the river and I did smell that river one day but ANYWAY - I have a hunch Baltimore here is a clue - this family is heading North POSSIBLY the underground railroad - first lines 'conductor says' - certainly plants train in my view.

So that's my take- a song about a former slave family moving north to be free.

Eh- I also thought Steve Miller's Jungle Love was about 'Jelly Fish Island' this island in the Pacific, that one was a FAR FAR reach but they DO use mango's to treat the stings from this rare lake where millions of Jelly Fish exist, and there IS that line about I brought you a crate of mango's. Again FAR REACH on Jungle Love, LIKELY far reach on this one.

HOWEVER Jelly Fish Island is a very neat place- and there IS A tide such that all the jelly fish come in and out - I even researched to see if Steve Miller visited Jelly Fish Island !

David Byrne was born in Scotland, the elder of two children born to Tom and Emma Byrne (Mommy Daddy You and I...).\n(We\'re goin on a trip and we\'re not goin home) Two years after his birth, his parents moved to Canada, settling in Hamilton, Ontario. They then moved to the United States, making their home in Arbutus, basically in Baltimore Maryland where he spent a lot of his time developing his musical talents.\n(Keep that little man a shinin\' see how the tail can wag the dog)\n\nI imagine a story that switches up the locations of their travels. Leaving out Scotland. Maybe war started and the draft was taking place and some fled with them no choice but to travel up north to Canada, where it\'s pretty cold compared to Maryland. They had to take a greyhound bus all the way there with no seating, because so many people were packed on the bus fleeing the draft. His father had him on his shoulder the whole way there they had to make stops and take care of David, with what little resources they had, like drinking from the paper cup. They were wearing their grandfathers stuff because like most draft dodgers they were in the hippie movement and probably were living with him, and got kicked out for the their father\'s choice to go against the country because that\'s a pretty serious offense. No turning back...

David Byrne was born in Scotland, the elder of two children born to Tom and Emma Byrne (Mommy Daddy You and I...).\n(We\'re goin on a trip and we\'re not goin home) Two years after his birth, his parents moved to Canada, settling in Hamilton, Ontario. They then moved to the United States, making their home in Arbutus, basically in Baltimore Maryland where he spent a lot of his time developing his musical talents.\n(Keep that little man a shinin\' see how the tail can wag the dog)\n\nI imagine a story that switches up the locations of their travels. Leaving out Scotland. Maybe war started and the draft was taking place and some fled with them no choice but to travel up north to Canada, where it\'s pretty cold compared to Maryland. They had to take a greyhound bus all the way there with no seating, because so many people were packed on the bus fleeing the draft. His father had him on his shoulder the whole way there they had to make stops and take care of David, with what little resources they had, like drinking from the paper cup. They were wearing their grandfathers stuff because like most draft dodgers they were in the hippie movement and probably were living with him, and got kicked out for the their father\'s choice to go against the country because that\'s a pretty serious offense. No turning back...

Most of this suggests The Great Migration – the movement of Black Americans north in the decades after Reconstruction. The era of slavery doesn't fit – there were no buses back then – but The Great Migration took place in the twentieth century, when some of the same problems from slavery, as well as new ones like Jim Crow laws and lynching, made life so undesirable in the South that many Black Americans moved north for better – not easy but better – lives in the North. That wraps up most of the details of the song… going north, not the only family to make the trip,

A detail that doesn't fit perfectly… Baltimore. Baltimore is more middle than North or South; it was a city with slavery before the Civil War, but was a net destination during The Great Migration, and it has snow of its own, if not as often as places like Chicago and Boston. That's not a hard contradiction with the facts of the song: A family could still be moving from Baltimore farther north. As Byrne himself had lived in both Canada and Maryland, he could be thinking of Baltimore as the southern point of reference.

However, The Great Migration is the one historical event that makes the other elements fit. And with Give Me Back My Name a shout-out to Malcolm X, it shows that Byrne's songwriting definitely has chosen one person whose life followed that pattern (Malcolm's family arc went from Georgia to Massachusetts by way of Nebraska).