Horses? Hunting? Militia? Labor laws? Oh, SM...what a feast, as always. Not sure about the "Fort Ham" lyric, but 1) that's what it sounds like he's saying, more than "fore-hem" -- which is what I initially had down (and is, I guess, vaguely sartorial) -- and 2) in an abstract, cartographic vision, it makes sense, sort of. Fort Ham(ilton) is a military outpost at the far south end of Brooklyn, NY. If a woman is the Fort Ham of her dress, her dress is the rest of Brooklyn (seen upside down), and her head is the Fort, guarding (as it were) her chastity ("No one will lay it...").
Shandy Town is the geographical name of a few towns in the world, rather than "shantytown" (which I'm fairly sure he doesn't say, because of the hard "D" sound he makes). It's also the name, apparently, of an old Southern California horse farm.
Horses? Hunting? Militia? Labor laws? Oh, SM...what a feast, as always. Not sure about the "Fort Ham" lyric, but 1) that's what it sounds like he's saying, more than "fore-hem" -- which is what I initially had down (and is, I guess, vaguely sartorial) -- and 2) in an abstract, cartographic vision, it makes sense, sort of. Fort Ham(ilton) is a military outpost at the far south end of Brooklyn, NY. If a woman is the Fort Ham of her dress, her dress is the rest of Brooklyn (seen upside down), and her head is the Fort, guarding (as it were) her chastity ("No one will lay it...").
Shandy Town is the geographical name of a few towns in the world, rather than "shantytown" (which I'm fairly sure he doesn't say, because of the hard "D" sound he makes). It's also the name, apparently, of an old Southern California horse farm.