Hm, you all have smart things to say about it. I LOVE this song. The CD single is one of my favorite recorded things ever: this song, then the song about the ladies at the beach club on a Sunday afternoon (clucking lowly like enemy platoons), then a freakin' great Spiral Stairs song about Pelican Beach being closed. Great cover to the CD single too.
So . . . anyway, I've kind of vaguely thought it was about fear of marriage? That is, fear of committing and settling down. I guess because a lot of SM's songs from this era seem to be about that subject, and I think I read an interview once where he said that "Rattled by the Rush" was about fear of marriage. If you look at "We Are Underused" from Brighten the Corners, that one seems to be about what he's afraid he'll become after he gets married: a boring, "underused" middle class person who's worried about stupid things.
So, my lyrical evidence:
(1) "Ugly steeple fear" is fear of going to the church to get married. "
(2) Rotten device": he's defensively accusing his girlfriend of trying to trick him into getting married (hey, it happens--i.e. women do it, and men imagine it). Then he says a bunch of mean things about her (her sharpened heel, how he's looking around for someone else in case she breaks up with him because he won't ask her to get married).
(3) "Calling the bluffs," "talking tough," he's talking about how his girlfriend has, in effect, said, "well, if you love me, why won't you marry me?", and implicitly threatened breakup if they don't get married.
(4) "Good times forever after," that's the myth of marriage.
(5) "I'm just a man / you see who I am," he's saying, "I'm really quite simple, I want comfort without commitment."
But the hooks, books, angel of Corpus Christi, I don't really know how that fits in. If someone wants to connect A to Z for me here, I'd love to hear it.
Hm, you all have smart things to say about it. I LOVE this song. The CD single is one of my favorite recorded things ever: this song, then the song about the ladies at the beach club on a Sunday afternoon (clucking lowly like enemy platoons), then a freakin' great Spiral Stairs song about Pelican Beach being closed. Great cover to the CD single too.
So . . . anyway, I've kind of vaguely thought it was about fear of marriage? That is, fear of committing and settling down. I guess because a lot of SM's songs from this era seem to be about that subject, and I think I read an interview once where he said that "Rattled by the Rush" was about fear of marriage. If you look at "We Are Underused" from Brighten the Corners, that one seems to be about what he's afraid he'll become after he gets married: a boring, "underused" middle class person who's worried about stupid things.
So, my lyrical evidence:
(1) "Ugly steeple fear" is fear of going to the church to get married. "
(2) Rotten device": he's defensively accusing his girlfriend of trying to trick him into getting married (hey, it happens--i.e. women do it, and men imagine it). Then he says a bunch of mean things about her (her sharpened heel, how he's looking around for someone else in case she breaks up with him because he won't ask her to get married).
(3) "Calling the bluffs," "talking tough," he's talking about how his girlfriend has, in effect, said, "well, if you love me, why won't you marry me?", and implicitly threatened breakup if they don't get married.
(4) "Good times forever after," that's the myth of marriage.
(5) "I'm just a man / you see who I am," he's saying, "I'm really quite simple, I want comfort without commitment."
But the hooks, books, angel of Corpus Christi, I don't really know how that fits in. If someone wants to connect A to Z for me here, I'd love to hear it.