Slinky Thing Lyrics
Near the carousel,
I met a light young beauty
And we talked there for a spell.
We walked up by the green lawn
And my heart began to sing.
Mad man on a bench screams out,
"Hold onto that slinky thing
Hold onto that slinky thing."
Everybody stood around
Thinking, "Hey, what's she doing
With a burned out hippie clown?"
Young dudes were grinning,
I can't say it didn't sting.
Some punk says, "Pops, you better
Hold onto that slinky thing
Hold onto that slinky thing."
More light, more light, more light, more light, more light, more light
By the reptile cage.
I thinking that she needs somebody
Who's closer to her own age.
Try not to worry
What tomorrow may bring.
I'm just gonna do my best to
Hold onto that slinky thing
Hold onto that slinky thing.
More light, more light, more light, more light, more light, more light
By the reptile cage.
I thinking that she needs somebody
Who's closer to her own age.
Try not to worry
What tomorrow may bring.
I'm just gonna do my best to
Hold onto that slinky thing
Hold onto that slinky thing.
She laugh; that's my power supply.
She stayed with me,
I know heaven is right here on earth.
She goes, I cry.
A lament, I think, for an older man foolishly falling for a younger woman. She lights him up, make him feel alive, but all the while he knows she won't be staying. Relationships are an endless loop, a carousel. The cold blooded reptiles look on.
The German poet Goethe supposedly said on his deathbed "More Light!" The last words of a dying old man.
The phrase is used again in a poem by Anthony Hecht entitled "More Light! More Light!". http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179058
In that poem a martyr is burned to death slowly. Later, a polish man, near the memorial to Goethe, refuses a Nazi command to bury two Jews alive. The dying men in one way or another reference the calling out for light, i.e. mercy, only to die horribly anyway.
I think, then, that the protagonist in "Slinky Think" is, in a way, calling out for mercy. He burns, she's his power supply, but he is anticipating the painful end.