Pamphleteer

Gestetner is a printing press - I was driving home one day and saw a billboard for Gestetner printing machine, and I almost jumped out of my seat, spurting something about "WT#%^WEARKTANPAMPLET - THATS WHAT IT MEANS!"

JK Sampson, the lead singer,said that the song was based on a movie script his friend was writing. I read it in an interview in Punk Planet.. he said "it started off as purely fiction. A friend of mine wrote a film scriipt and asked me to write a song for it. It was a script about various things, and it had a newspaper story to it. But I suddenly had this image of an activist, someone involved in politics, who passed out pamphlets on street corners and suddenly one day cracked and started churning out these pamphlets about his personal life."

There have been a lot of good posts. I'm going to offer my interpretation, which is kind of a mix of different opinions.

The basic gimmick of the song involves John is taking some very famous leftist cliches and then subverting them to express the narrator's state of mind as regards his personal life. Someone already noted the "Solidarity Forever" lyric - a famous union anthem that John has sung live at some concerts - but there is an allusion to the Communist Manifesto, namely, "A spector's haunting Albert's Street." In the Communist Manifesto, Marx declares that a spector (the spector of Communism) is haunting Europe and all have conspired against it. Also, the expression "to the barricades" can be used to conjure up images of revolution. Indeed, that is the name of a biography of Emma Goldman, an American anarchist that John looks up to, judging by the liner notes of his last Propagandhi album, Less Talk, More Rock.

Okay so that's the background. Having this in mind, John K's explanation makes total sense. Basically, there's this political activist who, for whatever reason, grows tired of standing out in the rain, handing out pamphlets to people who don't care. This, in turn, reminds him of an unfortunate relationship wherein he sees his partner in "all that I could never overcome". So he snaps, and can no longer (or has no desire to) distinguish between the cause he is trumpeting and the details of his personal life - a very important theme in getting the Weakerthans, who are actually a very political group.

Well, that's my interpretation. If it helps someone, I'm glad. If not, go listen to Propagandhi. It has the same message, but a lot louder and not less subtle.

I agree mostly with what was said by those like blackemma, however I would like to say that I've always thought that the line "I am your pamphleteer" meant that he was a supporter of this girl in his life, like she were his cause. It's a metaphor, another way of saying, that she is a kind of belief for him; that his love is so strong, so devoted, that he would support her like any other campaign. I do agree that he is an actual pamphleteer who is disillusioned by the last of care.

"Sing 'Oh what force on earth could be WEAKER THAN the feeble strength of one"

Hmmm....

How I don't know what I should do with my hands when I talk to you. How you don't know where you should look, so you look at my hands.

One of the best lines in lyrics history.

I love this song so much.

A pamphleteer often hands out (duh) pamphlets for something he cares very much about to people who often just don't care; likewise, he may be offering himself to someone who just doesn't care.

This song is about more than that...ah, it's awesome.

hey thanks catherineks, you helped me get a different perspective on the song... anyway, who cant identify with trying to accomplish a message when it keeps being denied? i sure can...

Think deeper... this song has a stonger and more meaningful political message.

his pamphlateer is of some movement or cause, but he can't fight it one his own "Oh what force on earth could be weaker than the feeble strength of one*" he's crying for help, but in the only way he can, by handing out pamplets on Albert Street.

who knows if that's right, but that's my take on it.