Of course, the meaning of this song is explicit in the song's title. Like all the songs on the album "Share This Place," "Love Song of the Fly" is from the perspective of a bug (well, technically not a bug in this case, but an insect).
But if you set aside the title--the only title on the album that explicitly mentions the type of creature the narrator inhabits--the song gets much more interesting.
What we have here is essentially a lustful obsession. "Even just the scent of what you've left behind..." It's very reminiscent of Chrétien de Troyes’ "Lancelot (The Knight of the Cart)," in which Lancelot goes gaga over a glove dropped by the kidnapped queen. It's an unhealthy obsession.
And if you take into consideration the trap and subsequent lines about being despised and criticized, the whole song seems almost to apply to the perpetrators caught on "To Catch A Predator."
So, are we supposed to feel disgusted with the fly for its unhealthy obsession? Or sympathetic with the pedophiles for their unrequited love? That's probably a stretch, but it bears consideration.
This song humanizes the fly and coaxes us into sympathy, making us at least somewhat sorry for it. Yet if the narrator were human, wouldn't we find it repulsive? And the cool irony is that we do find flies repulsive. Following this logic full circle puts us with a song about how flies are gross, but not in the way you might assume.
Of course, the meaning of this song is explicit in the song's title. Like all the songs on the album "Share This Place," "Love Song of the Fly" is from the perspective of a bug (well, technically not a bug in this case, but an insect).
But if you set aside the title--the only title on the album that explicitly mentions the type of creature the narrator inhabits--the song gets much more interesting.
What we have here is essentially a lustful obsession. "Even just the scent of what you've left behind..." It's very reminiscent of Chrétien de Troyes’ "Lancelot (The Knight of the Cart)," in which Lancelot goes gaga over a glove dropped by the kidnapped queen. It's an unhealthy obsession.
And if you take into consideration the trap and subsequent lines about being despised and criticized, the whole song seems almost to apply to the perpetrators caught on "To Catch A Predator."
So, are we supposed to feel disgusted with the fly for its unhealthy obsession? Or sympathetic with the pedophiles for their unrequited love? That's probably a stretch, but it bears consideration.
This song humanizes the fly and coaxes us into sympathy, making us at least somewhat sorry for it. Yet if the narrator were human, wouldn't we find it repulsive? And the cool irony is that we do find flies repulsive. Following this logic full circle puts us with a song about how flies are gross, but not in the way you might assume.
A really great song.