I always took the "human wheels" to be about alienation of labour - Peoples lives tick away, just wheels in the machine, while the world sweeps around, huge and incomprehensible and wonderful, which the narrator grieves at, but refuses to relinquish the idea. I may be strongly influenced by knowing of Mellencamps general leftist tendencies though.
I always took the "human wheels" to be about alienation of labour - Peoples lives tick away, just wheels in the machine, while the world sweeps around, huge and incomprehensible and wonderful, which the narrator grieves at, but refuses to relinquish the idea. I may be strongly influenced by knowing of Mellencamps general leftist tendencies though.