Avon

queens of the stone age songs with references to canablism or people being eaten- avon leg of lamb sick sick sick(in the music video the band gets eaten) mosquito song some ones in the wolf i never came and debatable tension head if anyone can think of any others feal free to add

Seems pretty obvious to me that it's about not living as an individual. And Josh is the 3rd party observer of what's happening. In the first verse, you have, 'through a park in a haze - traffic going the same way.' Metaphor for following the masses (traffic) without much thought (haze). Then, the ending line, 'a simple system.' Metaphor for society aka the masses. In the second verse, you have, 'free range humans all cooped up' and 'naked clone is playing lame.' Comparing mindless humans to mindless chickens going through the motions in life. Not living an aware, active life.

Homme is obsessed with the idea of man as game or more precisely, food. He first visits the idea of Man as game in Avon when he mentions chasing someone, presumably into a park with ill intentions and even alludes to canibalism with the term "free-range humans", free range obviously a term applied to cattle or poultry, in the same line he mentions that although his prey is "free-range" it most certainly is trapped and is't aware of it which hints at Homme viewing the stalking as a sick game. This bares more than a glancing reseblence to Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw massacre, a theme which appears to be revisted in the Mosquito Song, particularly the them of humans being food and the references to hooks knives, cutting boards and cooking books. I've not invested a great deal of time to this idea but there are several other references I can think of which show that Homme is preoccupied with this idea that Humans being game and or food, particularly the video for No-one Knows where a Buck kills all the members of QOTSA to make game trophies out of back home. First it giveth also mentions hooks, but I do feel that applying that reference of hooks etc. to the concept of cannibalism or human victimisation or humans as food is pushing it slightly.

Please feel free to contribute.

PS: Avon means river. It comes from the Welsh, afon. QUOTSA's use of it is simply Nova reversed though.

I agree. Perhaps he's alluding to the fact that humans are for all their intricacies are just animals. Consumers and the consumed and somewhere along the way have forgotten this so he sees humour in the fact that we're mortal, that we're animals and that somehow we think we're better than other animals and feels we can escape our fate, which is to provide food for other things. At the end of the day, only cremation stops us feeding the worms. Just like Romero did with Dawn Of The Dead and belittled man through his consumerism allegory, I feel Homme does this too. I feel he mocks man for his attempts to separate himself from nature only to be seduced into other forms of consumerism, be it drug use or materialism...perhaps that is why he covered Never Say Never.

FYI, Nova and Avon is basically the same song. They did it as some kind of test, to show how you can change the how feel of a song just by changing the vocals. So Josh sang Avon and Pete Stahl sang Nova.

Absolutely correct that Homme has themes of self medication, as well as references to humans as food, game, and plenty of cooking references. I read his parents worked in the service industry which might lend to his infatuation with humans as food, cooking, knives, etc. Avon is certainly one of the first songs to references these themes.

I think the song is called Avon because the song sounds a lot like a song called Nova, made by the desert sessions. That's avoN backwards.

yeah, both "avon" and "nova" are desert sessions songs

like monsters in the parasol, millionaire and hangin tree, avon was updated for qotsa

Just heard what avon is... a fucking river in england, haha.

elin is nile backwards - did your parents name you after the river?