Nature Boy

To me this song is about doing what you want in your own home – be it naturism, drugs, parties, watching TV all night, weird or not it’s up to you (or should be, depending on what it is e.g. drugs). It’s no-ones business so long as it doesn’t affect anyone negatively you should be free to choose how to act and live at least in your own home where you can’t or shouldn’t be judged. Nosy neighbours aside, no one should know anyway.

It can be applied more liberally, such as crimes/other-stuff such as drug posession or masturbation that have little if any effect on anyone but the person doing it so should arguably be their responsibility and potentially legal right to do those kinds of things, so long as it doesn't negatively effect anyone else.

The songs literally about how social pressures disappear when you shut the blinds to your house...there's nothing to be afraid of when you're alone at home. I guess figuratively your blinds could mean personal inhibitions...if you shut them off, the fear of being yourself will go away. Nature boy never shows his true self to anyone.

That's all deliberate, methinks. If you listen to Mephisto And Kevin, you can see that Les can speak/sing without an accent when he wants to. Primus is all about good humour and great instrumentals.

Additional Lyrics: Well, I've been known to tell a tale in two and three and four, and I've been Persecuted since I sailed in thorugh the door, and I've been known to sing a song in three and four and five, and I've been getting my ass chewed, since the day arrived here.....

That's what he says in the middle of the bridge.

Honestly, if I wanted to pretend a song was about masturbation, I could do it easily. How does filing out his income taxes have to do with masturbation? Oh, I suppose the pen could be a metaphor for a penis, right? How is the first verse even "obvious"? Because he uses the word genitalia?

I have nothing to offer further than that when they say, "I pull the blinds, then I take my clothes off, dance around the house like Nature Boy," they mean that he's comparing himself to someone who may walk around naked, and such people tend to live in tropical jungles or other places where walking around naked might be a good idea.

Other than that, I'm still thinking about what he says in the bridge. He wouldn't say it if it had nothing to do with the rest of the lyrics, and, clearly, what he says during the bridge has nothing to do with masturbation. So all you masturbation-crazy kids have failed to convince me that this song has anything to do with jerking it.

I think Les often uses innuendo just as a joke for such misineterpretation, like in Wynona (something they rarely play as the joke got old).

The actual meaning is either (or both) about doing what you want in your own home, and/or about spending time alone (arguably even mysogyny) and how bad lonliness is.

No, it's about a person who knows for a fact they're not like everyone else but no one will except them. They notice the weird things, and they do them, and no know acknowledges them because they're different. The person also isn't even happy with who they are, but they can't help it. And he says;

Well, I've been known to tell a tale in two and three and four, and I've been Persecuted since I sailed in thorugh the door, and I've been known to sing a song in three and four and five, and I've been getting my ass chewed, since the day arrived here.....

meaning he's been taking shit his entire life for not being like his peers.

Yea I gotta say as much as I love Southbound Pachyderm, this song is better. This is personally one of my favorites of Primus'. I think it's basically what most people have already said about this song but put together. Claypool's analogies and perspective is fuckin' awesome, pretty stonered out too in a lot of ways.

Great song, my favorate Primus song, by far. I love their style, its almost hickish.

almost toooo hickish