This song is timeless, and nearly 20 years after its creation, still possesses the mystique it did the first time i heard it ~1994. To me, at first blush, all those years ago, it had some kind of homo-erotic allure. The line "so that the others may do" tells of something which must be done for others to follow suit. It felt like like some kind of roxy-glam-pop invitation to sexual liberation.
Upon further introspection I think the song may not have an intrinsic meaning, but simply represents a sort of "holding open the door" for people who otherwise might be affronted by this song/band's unusual style. I know, as a sort of armchair rock-historian, that there have been few bands so daring and so true to the sound that wanted to emerge from within, whether the creator wanted it or not. This band handled it with elegance and grace seldom, if ever, seen.
A Chicago needle took her in the summer
I pawned our shit and caught a bus out west
I got off the Greyhound in a corn and cattle town
Because the name recalled my mother's place of rest
It seemed like a haven for clean Christian maidens
Who'll love a man despite the holes he's made
But the scourge arrived a decade before I did
Provided by the trailer parade
New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does
Cornfields can't quite cover the bodies of our lovers
Singing from the Cook County morgue
I managed to bandage my memory of the damage
With the sheets of the clerk from the store next door
She had left the church when her cursing father left her in the lurch
She told me sleep is for the old
I met her friends tending bar when harvest ended
So wide awake I couldn't feel the cold
New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does
For our sins, we've got modern bathtub gin
It's a long night, a long night to go
And I know in the shack on Felton's curve
I'll get, I'll get what I deserve
Lord, steady my nerves
The lives we've led are never really dead
Nor the psalms that set the bombs off in our heads
By the time I'm clean this prairie will mean nothing to me
I'll curse another place instead
Whoa, it's a long night, a long night to go
I pawned our shit and caught a bus out west
I got off the Greyhound in a corn and cattle town
Because the name recalled my mother's place of rest
It seemed like a haven for clean Christian maidens
Who'll love a man despite the holes he's made
But the scourge arrived a decade before I did
Provided by the trailer parade
New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does
Cornfields can't quite cover the bodies of our lovers
Singing from the Cook County morgue
I managed to bandage my memory of the damage
With the sheets of the clerk from the store next door
She had left the church when her cursing father left her in the lurch
She told me sleep is for the old
I met her friends tending bar when harvest ended
So wide awake I couldn't feel the cold
New Virginia, Iowa
Virgin land apart from who I was
New Virginia, Iowa
Poisoned boys do as poison does
For our sins, we've got modern bathtub gin
It's a long night, a long night to go
And I know in the shack on Felton's curve
I'll get, I'll get what I deserve
Lord, steady my nerves
The lives we've led are never really dead
Nor the psalms that set the bombs off in our heads
By the time I'm clean this prairie will mean nothing to me
I'll curse another place instead
Whoa, it's a long night, a long night to go
Lyrics submitted by uublog
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