Chaos of the Galaxy/Happy Man

Momus, while I like your interpretation, Mark Linkous (rest his soul) wrote every song on this album (with the exception of Saint Mary) before his near-death experience. As we now know all too well, Mark Linkous was not a "happy man", and his depression was something he struggled with well before his brush with death.

If we look at the first few lines to this song, he's clearly speaking to someone who's favor he wants, likely a lover. This song appears to be an appeal to that person. All he wants is to be a happy man, and all he wants is this person's favor so he can be that. That's what I think, any way.

A great song of a great album.

I think it means he was all hyped about becoming this rising talent in the world of music, touring different continents, opening for huge bands, and then he had this cathartic event that refocused him on what he really wants.

The event, of course, is his near-death in England while on tour. More than near-death actually, as he was apparently legally dead for a few minutes.

Anyway, the line "I woke up in a horse's stomach one foggy morning" refers to being in the belly of the beast, the beast or "horse" in this case being the whole Sparklehorse getting more famous juggernaut. (And foggy morning being a reference to England where all this went down.)

"His eyes were crazy as he smashed into the cemetary gates." He started believing his own hype and started living more out of control as it apparently befits so many people getting bigger in the world of rock. As a penalty to living out the Sparklehorse dream, he got a first hand look at death.

"All I want is to be a happy man." No interpretaion necessary. A straightforward return to reality. And who doesn't just want to be happy at the end of the day?

The "If I had more more would be laid at your feet" is in Ulysses by James Joyce.

its almost Sigor Ros... heroin music.. haunting, sad.. mixed up... i like the lyrics.. :)

And the tragedy is he couldn't ever be.

Hmm, I think this song is different to all the rest, and judging by other comments you may want to read this all the way through cause its completly different to what you may think.

I believe that this song is meant to be interprited as how Mark was feeling at the time of reccording. I think as with alot of his music the actual effects make up more of a picture than the lyrics. For instance, the changing of a old style reccord, the fading in and out of clarity i think is his way of depicting his "meh" mood towards rock style music on that day. By this I mean he couldent decide what he wanted to listen to/ make. Which he then manages to transmit that into a song. Which is where the beauty of this song is, he takes a feeling many artists find to prevent their work, known as writers block sometimes. And he manages to cover it so well using a familiar thing such as a radio which everyone can relate to, maybe not in the modern day but back before the current crap you would browse the airwaves deciding what to put on. Anyway im slightly digressing here. The lyrics are meant to be very simple as the focus is in the other features that compose the music. If you think about it as a film or if you where watching mark toying with a radio slumped on one arm it would look like this. Bored, (repetative drone in distance at start) Fed up, wants to do something (picks up guitar and starts playing) Dosent forfill what he wants (Not the same, not as interested, Its the in and out part on the radio) Decides, fuck it lets go whole hog. (radio picks up correctly, song plays fine for 2 min, gets louder) Enjoying it, but it ends, and he falls back into his prior bored/depressive state. (the drone back in at the end of the song again.)

Now I believe this is what is really intended despite it maybe going to deep as it can be seen with other songs mark has made while he was with us. For example, "A ballad of a cold lost marble" This song is what i beleive to be Marks depiction of him trying to force a song out of his mind aggressivly to put on the album, aggresive, repetative, stuburn as it wont work and annoying. As all of these describe the sound in the song, it also works to a heart beat, or a raging pulse. This song then leads into Someday i will treat you good, once again we can hear the same style as this song and with the radio effects, but i beleive he may of been more fond of this song so he kept with it, and the lyrics are more descriptive so i think Mark felt it was important to elaberate on this song more than chaos of the galaxy/happy man.

My final point is that the title gives it away, he has all the stress of the galaxy and he just wants to drop it all, rock out and get a lil crazy, as he does but it cant live forever and he is back into his previous problems again, but he was happy while it lasted.

Thank you so much if you have read this far and i would very much appriciate some replys to this, maybe i went to deep but its all my interpritation. Thanks -Ben. NB: I'm 16 and I have dyslexia so sorry for any spelling mistakes.

the way this makes me feel is as if the noise and radio interference through the first half of the song symbolice all the pain and suffering you go through but you have to go through some suffering to appreciate being alive, being happy, the noise goes away completely about 2:30 into the song and you're left with an uplifting beat with him singing all I want is to be a happy man he's gone through it he's happy but the end of the song I find the instrumental like he's not going to be happy forever he has to go through more suffering to get back to the top again, the song starts over again in a way to me.

I'm not good at structuring what i want to say but I just wrote what this song makes me feel this song has a special place in my heart and i just wanted to share my feelings about this song.

dude I think this is just jibberish. Country Rawk. great song though.