I never understand why people make prefatory statements like “clearly this means,” when they refer to a song’s meaning. Forums like this contribute to the ongoing discussion of what a song means to the individual listener, and what it may have meant to the author.
Personally, this song speaks to me as the voice of my best friend, whom I’ll call “T”. When I moved to New York, I left behind the small town where I spent my late teens and early twenties–and developed some of the best friends I’ll ever have. T told me once that my anthem was Mudville because, coming from a military family, I must have left a lot of people feeling the sting of loss (like him). And one night when I was visiting home he explained over a few drinks. He said it was like a piece of him is missing, and it went with me to New York. He said he could see himself singing in that song. Then, living in a hipster neighborhood in Brooklyn, I started identifying with parts of that song as well–and was comforted by the notion that someday T would find his way up at least two flights of stairs, in my brownstone apartment.
This is not a “clearly” point of view, clearly. I just want to suggest that song meanings are mutable things, and that although original intent is interesting contemplate–the critic who uses original intent doesn’t have a monopoly on interpretation.
I never understand why people make prefatory statements like “clearly this means,” when they refer to a song’s meaning. Forums like this contribute to the ongoing discussion of what a song means to the individual listener, and what it may have meant to the author.
The song has ties to Lou Reed’s musical career, and most certainly deals with Ben’s contemplating that career (not to mention Lou’s life) if we base our analysis on explicit allusion. But the track also falls on an album that deals with love and loss in some form, as cliché as it may sound. No Joy in Mudville seems to be a final ode, at least to the person with whom Ben is struggling to reconcile, that things are not (and will not be) the same without her/him. With or without the influence of The Velvet Underground, this song is a perfect homage to the emptiness that follows a friend’s, or a lover’s, moving away.
Personally, this song speaks to me as the voice of my best friend, whom I’ll call “T”. When I moved to New York, I left behind the small town where I spent my late teens and early twenties–and developed some of the best friends I’ll ever have. T told me once that my anthem was Mudville because, coming from a military family, I must have left a lot of people feeling the sting of loss (like him). And one night when I was visiting home he explained over a few drinks. He said it was like a piece of him is missing, and it went with me to New York. He said he could see himself singing in that song. Then, living in a hipster neighborhood in Brooklyn, I started identifying with parts of that song as well–and was comforted by the notion that someday T would find his way up at least two flights of stairs, in my brownstone apartment.
This is not a “clearly” point of view, clearly. I just want to suggest that song meanings are mutable things, and that although original intent is interesting contemplate–the critic who uses original intent doesn’t have a monopoly on interpretation.