I don't believe this song is just about beauty. I think that when you look at all the references its about childhood and more specifically the experiences people have when growing up. Like someone said above the badger and the toad are references about to a childrens story in which one, (the toad I think) is wild and the badger is controlled. The toad ends up getting hurt a lot for his recklessness. In the song I believe these references are the narrators parents or someone he looks up to who always have that wise look of the old, something that most kids don't accept and ignore as this narrator did which ended up getting him hurt as well. The parent figures didn't try and shelter him so it seems and the narrator had to experience everything on their own. The three experiences he mentions are finding a beautiful stone, getting a lock of hair from a beautiful girl and getting a ring from the wild horses. The stone seems an odd reference that I can't place, maybe a materialistic thing he loved like a ring or trinket or simple a "lucky stone" he found in youth. The girl is a first crush it seems, and the ring from the wild horses implies a reference to The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caufield (or however you spell that lol) in his travels goes to the Coney Island Fair and rides the Carousel. There was a game on carousels back then in which you had to lance a ring as you went around. Since the narrator mentions a fair I assume this is a similar game that he is references. In order to get to that ring it was a great accomplishment and while it may have made him SO proud when he was younger, he is older now and the ring, and its meaning, is rusty. All these things, the stone the girl and the ring have fallen into his past as the wise badger and toad look on giving their wise old look of experience.
I don't believe this song is just about beauty. I think that when you look at all the references its about childhood and more specifically the experiences people have when growing up. Like someone said above the badger and the toad are references about to a childrens story in which one, (the toad I think) is wild and the badger is controlled. The toad ends up getting hurt a lot for his recklessness. In the song I believe these references are the narrators parents or someone he looks up to who always have that wise look of the old, something that most kids don't accept and ignore as this narrator did which ended up getting him hurt as well. The parent figures didn't try and shelter him so it seems and the narrator had to experience everything on their own. The three experiences he mentions are finding a beautiful stone, getting a lock of hair from a beautiful girl and getting a ring from the wild horses. The stone seems an odd reference that I can't place, maybe a materialistic thing he loved like a ring or trinket or simple a "lucky stone" he found in youth. The girl is a first crush it seems, and the ring from the wild horses implies a reference to The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caufield (or however you spell that lol) in his travels goes to the Coney Island Fair and rides the Carousel. There was a game on carousels back then in which you had to lance a ring as you went around. Since the narrator mentions a fair I assume this is a similar game that he is references. In order to get to that ring it was a great accomplishment and while it may have made him SO proud when he was younger, he is older now and the ring, and its meaning, is rusty. All these things, the stone the girl and the ring have fallen into his past as the wise badger and toad look on giving their wise old look of experience.