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Rattlesnake Lyrics
Let's go hang out in a mall, or a morgue
A smorgasbord
Let's go hang out in a church
We'll go find Lurch
Then we'll haul ass down through the abbey
Is it money, it is fame
Or were they always this lame?
It's a crazy, crazy, mixed-up town
But it's the rattlesnake I fear
In another place, in another time
I'd be drivin' trucks my dear
Dear, dear
Let's go hang out in a bar
It's not too far
We'll take my car
We'll lay flowers at the grave of Jesco White,
The sinner's saint
The rack is full and so are we
Of laughing gas and ennui
It's a crazy, crazy, mixed-up town
But it's the rattlesnake I fear
In another place, in another time
I'd be drivin' trucks my dear
I'd be skinnin' hunted deer
Deer, deer
It's a crazy, crazy, mixed-up town
But it's the rattlesnake I fear
In another place, in another time
I'd be drivin' trucks my dear
I'd be skinnin' hunted deer
Deer, deer, deer...
Apparently it's about fate.
This song like "Shit Towne" is about their hometown of York. Its another slam on the town they grew up in. Living only 20 miles from York trust me they aren't far off of anything.
"Is it money, is it fame Or were they always this lame"
This is the line that shows this the most. This is Ed coming back after his fame and fortune and pretty much saying....were these people always this lame?
His art and daring to be something more than this damn town would want him to be saved him from becoming another loser who gave in to something sad and insane like just being another... another.
Dare to be more. Now. Because otherwise you'll find yourself doing what your daddy did and even more frightening than that? Being comfortable with it.
I always thought this song was about LA, and that whole 'life of fame-and-fortune'.
Kowalczyk mentions "is it money, is it fame? Or where they always THIS lame?".
To me it speaks of the excesses of Hollywood, and how 'the high life' is so far from what he imagined it to be.
He refers to the 'rattlesnake', and, as Kowalczyk is religious, it always seemed to me to be a metaphor for the 'serpent' in the Garden of Eden (he chooses the rattlesnake because it's about California, and the desert - hence the serpent comes in the form of a rattlesnake).
The song seems to be a cautionary tale of "be careful what you wish for"; that for all the excesses of fame, a price must be paid to the devil; that, by eating of the fruit, you must submit to the devil inside; you must sacrifice something of your soul...and even your body to the devil.
I'm an Atheist, but that's how I always interpreted the song.