Locked In The Trunk Of A Car

It'd be better for us if you don't understand.

Like all hip songs, there are multiple threads or ideas woven into the song, not always strongly related, but in this case they all focus around bodies. The song starts off, quite plainly with an archaeological, or other type of dig, where a skeleton has been found - there's lots of archaeology going on around Kingston all the time - that's what I do. In fact I have have worked in McBurney Park in Kingston that used to be a graveyard & is commonly called "Skeleton Park". There is a summer music festival there (Skeleton Park Music Festival) & the Hip have recorded a song called "Skeleton Park" that hasn't been on an album, but was available as a specal download for a wireless company. The 'chronologically fucked-up' section (an archaeological term) happened decades ago in a village NW of K-town whre a pot-hunter/looter was trying to sell a red ocher burial mound skeleton out of the trunk of his car. The cool, sweet, dark, rotted section refers to an incident that took place in the late 80's or early 90's north of Kingston (Barry's Bay) just south of Algonquin Park, where a guy took a girl in the summer, killed her & hid her body in the woods & went to visit it & have sex with it, for a while. Of course Gordie's not going to talk about this in interviews. kinda bad PR - he usually justs makes up stuff on the spot for his own intertainment - a mystery is also good. The last section is about the mental anguish of committing a crime where a body has been dummped in a wooded rural area outside of a city & finnaly the screams of a kidnapped victum locked in the trunk of a car. I don't see any link to the FLQ incident - the body was never dumped.

A 1994 New York Times article reported on a traveling shark exhibit that appeared at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. One of the items on display was a replica of a full suit of steel armor with a helmet. A 16th century French physician named Guillaume Rondelet recorded this discovery in his Libri de Piscibus Marinis, or “Summary of Marine Fishes” after finding the armor in a dead great white shark. Both the location of the find and how the armor ended up in the water in the first place remain mysteries.

This may be one of the darkest songs I've ever heard.

I had the pleasure of meeting Gord in a small Q&A session and one of the questions that was asked of him was what the meaning of this song is. He explained he was trying to get into the mind of a serial killer when he wrote this and that this song is very dark and actually disturbs him which is why he tends not to perform it live. I think that it is naive to believe that any single Hip song has only one meaning/or significance. Most have many I believe. Gord is a brilliant artist - there are very few folks, (if any), that can truly get inside his head in my opinion. I SURE LOVE TRYING THOUGH!

The anthem of a serial killer. Though he 'dumps the body', it is the serial killer who still feels locked in the trunk of a car...until he can find his next victim.

Gord Downie has said in an interview that the song is a metaphor for a suffocating relationship.

I think this song means a few things, really, but the general theme is about this person who has suddenly "woken up" in a very bad place for him, and he doesn't want to be there anymore. The lines "They don't know how old I am, they found armour in my belly. From the sixteenth century... Conquistador, I think." Seems to suggest that he's been "sleeping" for a very, very long time, and he himself isn't sure exactly how long it's been.

"Morning broke out the backside of a truck-stop the end of a line a real, rainbow-likening, luck stop where you could say I became chronologically fucked up."

I think what the narrator is doing right here is describing the last thing he remembers... where it all went wrong and he became "chronologically fucked up" and went to "sleep". He's describing in a sense, the when and where it happened, as he's trying to put the pieces together.

"Put ten bucks in just to get the tank topped up. Then, I found a place it's dark and it's rotted. It's a cool, sweet kinda-place where the copters won't spot it and I destroyed the map, I even thought I forgot it, however, everyday I'm dumping the body. It'd be better for us if you don't understand. It'd be better for me if you don't understand"

I think right here is where the narrator is describing the events, as they happened and how he was in a sense "romanced" into this bad place for him, and how he made a not-so-clear headed decision to destroy any possible way back, because he thought this place was perfect for him. Whether this is a lifestyle choice or anything like that, I can't really say. The "dumping the body" line is basically the narrator going through the motions of everyday life, as he's trying to adjust and stay on course with this choice he made.

The ending, where he screams over and over again "LET ME OUT!" is him deciding that this was a wrong choice, that he's let himself "sleep" for far too long and that he was a bone head for making the choice to begin with. He wants to rectify it, he doesn't want this anymore and he's practically begging for someone to find him and let him out, so he can get back to life. Basically I think this song is a metaphor for an anti-social life, where bad experiences lead to bad choices and someone believing that it's "better if you don't understand", meaning that he's done something or he's experienced something that he's not terribly proud of, and maybe it's what let him fall into the haze/sleep that he's wasted so much time on.

Although the song is about ending a relationship, I also agree with biggreenmonkey, where the song serves as a testament to the FLQ killing of Pierre Laporte during the October Crisis. The lyrics fit so perfectly for the event. I've used these lyrics in a university paper and the prof started listening to The Hip thereafter. Good grade too!

Aftermath of the ending of a relationship dealing with the results and reminiscing juxtaposed with an actual murder (don't know much of Pierre Laporte, but I'll look into it).

raidu- I agree with you except for the last part. I think this is where either the narration switches from the criminal's point of view to the victim's, or that this point reveals that the criminal and victim are one in the same.