One of my absolutely favorite songs as well. Viva Last Blues is an album that wavers between thudding strength and wavering fragility (not a bad thing in any respect - it's part of what makes it so unique a record), and this song obliterates the rest. It's those slide guitars.
Yeah, I've always heard it as a breakup song to a certain degree, and that's the way that it most effectively registers with me on an emotional level. This song pulled me through a bad split as well. But I think it's important to note that there are two other main readings to the song, both of which deal with that "awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisitely grand". (Whoa...that line...)
-murder
-molestation
And the rest of the song is guilt, guilt that could just as easily support the reading that this deals with a breakup. All three at the same time?
The best line for me is the one that leads into the final go at the chorus: "When you think like a hermit, you forget what you know." Not only does it come out with such a wonderful climax, but it helps push him against the guilt to a place that wants to accept it. And that's the intent that I find in the song - to push past feelings of guilt, which often only engender isolation.
maybe my interpretation of most things are always perverted but when i think about the first verse ...
maybe my interpretation of most things are always perverted but when i think about the first verse ...
"lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs
There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand"
"lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs
There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand"
.. i can't help but think he's initiating and receiving oral sex from a woman either during his relationship or soon after a heavy break up that was perhaps his own fault (with mention of haunts and guilts and the where the lyrics end up, i think it's during his relationship). And...
.. i can't help but think he's initiating and receiving oral sex from a woman either during his relationship or soon after a heavy break up that was perhaps his own fault (with mention of haunts and guilts and the where the lyrics end up, i think it's during his relationship). And maybe or maybe not she ends up being his 'new partner'. I feel the guilt in this song.. He was so insecure and unsure, not knowing she(his main girl, the one always on his mind) WAS actually there(or "here"(..if i knew you were here)) and that his motives for cheating(moving, special action) were unclear and foggy. Yet he's haunted by guilt and still he doesn't understand why he's done it other than out of insecurity.
and the third verse - more uncertainty yet a realization - "We all know what we know, it's a hard swath to mow, when you think like a hermit you forget what you know"
He's become self-absorbed, introverted, disregarding of his woman and began shutting her out so he's become lost in himself, and forgotten what he's ALWAYS KNOWN - that he actually DOES and ALWAYS has loved his first woman dearly and she was with him just as strongly.
i'm actually interpreting this from a personal experience of my own and it fits in my head this way. It's just that since i've heard this song, i've always heard it as the verse lines telling of his evening affair on a night that just felt right at the time. Kind of lost in the sunset and the prettiest of skies, where he simply forgot his about his real woman and by nightfall he and this chick were 'ready to go'.
And of course the choruses being the strong and repetitious point of the song that he is haunted by his foolishness of what he's done but that she is forever on his mind, even as he's with whoever his 'new partner' that he's riding with now may be.
One of my absolutely favorite songs as well. Viva Last Blues is an album that wavers between thudding strength and wavering fragility (not a bad thing in any respect - it's part of what makes it so unique a record), and this song obliterates the rest. It's those slide guitars.
Yeah, I've always heard it as a breakup song to a certain degree, and that's the way that it most effectively registers with me on an emotional level. This song pulled me through a bad split as well. But I think it's important to note that there are two other main readings to the song, both of which deal with that "awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisitely grand". (Whoa...that line...)
-murder -molestation
And the rest of the song is guilt, guilt that could just as easily support the reading that this deals with a breakup. All three at the same time?
The best line for me is the one that leads into the final go at the chorus: "When you think like a hermit, you forget what you know." Not only does it come out with such a wonderful climax, but it helps push him against the guilt to a place that wants to accept it. And that's the intent that I find in the song - to push past feelings of guilt, which often only engender isolation.
maybe my interpretation of most things are always perverted but when i think about the first verse ...
maybe my interpretation of most things are always perverted but when i think about the first verse ...
"lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand"
"lay back,lay back, rest your head on my thighs There is some awful action that just breathes from my hand, just breaths from a deed so exquisetly grand"
.. i can't help but think he's initiating and receiving oral sex from a woman either during his relationship or soon after a heavy break up that was perhaps his own fault (with mention of haunts and guilts and the where the lyrics end up, i think it's during his relationship). And...
.. i can't help but think he's initiating and receiving oral sex from a woman either during his relationship or soon after a heavy break up that was perhaps his own fault (with mention of haunts and guilts and the where the lyrics end up, i think it's during his relationship). And maybe or maybe not she ends up being his 'new partner'. I feel the guilt in this song.. He was so insecure and unsure, not knowing she(his main girl, the one always on his mind) WAS actually there(or "here"(..if i knew you were here)) and that his motives for cheating(moving, special action) were unclear and foggy. Yet he's haunted by guilt and still he doesn't understand why he's done it other than out of insecurity.
and the third verse - more uncertainty yet a realization - "We all know what we know, it's a hard swath to mow, when you think like a hermit you forget what you know" He's become self-absorbed, introverted, disregarding of his woman and began shutting her out so he's become lost in himself, and forgotten what he's ALWAYS KNOWN - that he actually DOES and ALWAYS has loved his first woman dearly and she was with him just as strongly.
i'm actually interpreting this from a personal experience of my own and it fits in my head this way. It's just that since i've heard this song, i've always heard it as the verse lines telling of his evening affair on a night that just felt right at the time. Kind of lost in the sunset and the prettiest of skies, where he simply forgot his about his real woman and by nightfall he and this chick were 'ready to go'.
And of course the choruses being the strong and repetitious point of the song that he is haunted by his foolishness of what he's done but that she is forever on his mind, even as he's with whoever his 'new partner' that he's riding with now may be.