On the surface this sounds like a bitter kiss-off to a once-beloved figure (in the creative spectrum: probably music considering Bob's environment and interests). Someone whose growing irrelevance (increasing with age, as it does for most of us) contributes to the protagonist becoming more and disillusioned and disappointed.
But knowing Bob, I rather suspect the song is aimed at himself. Outed--dragged from the closet kicking and screaming--Bob notices once-loyal friends conspicuously ignoring him ("never knew he was a fag,") or re-evaluating him: either as stereotype, or anti-stereotype (implicitly overrated, in the eyes of Bob himself). Myth disintegrating.
The self-titled Bob Mould CD is dripping with self-loathing from start to finish. These sessions--I'm guessing--also gave birth to "JC Auto" from Sugar's Beaster CDEP, the crucial loud loud loud track in which Bob complains he can no longer keep up the painful self-crucifixion pose his fans expect for their $5 ticket (and then he makes a very thinly veiled suicide threat: hardly unfamiliar territory for Bob, reeling from survivor's guilt).
Perhaps also the Sugar outtake "And You Tell Me" which can be found on the Besides CD--or double CD with live bonus disc, if you were one of the lucky purchasers who got that unofficially deluxe edition). So over-the-top (pessimistically-speaking) is this stalker-to-stalker paranoid fantasy that its author finally creates a setting in which a now-insane Mould shares a cell with a faceless man he is determined to avoid...
Our hero now a lifer who has no future, and is well aware of this fact. ("It's a suicide note. Of course it's dark.") Not that they'd ever let him out...whatever he's done (and Bob's not talking), obviously it's so egregious they'd never release him into the community; he's a danger to himself and others, permanently. Damaged goods.
The latter two words not casually chosen. Bob's place in the industry is rarely far from his lyrical concerns. Putting out "product" makes Mould painfully aware of a modern rock musician's status: person-as-commodity. As the Loud Family song goes, "I won't go knocking doors to find out/How many tickets to me I can sell..."
On the surface this sounds like a bitter kiss-off to a once-beloved figure (in the creative spectrum: probably music considering Bob's environment and interests). Someone whose growing irrelevance (increasing with age, as it does for most of us) contributes to the protagonist becoming more and disillusioned and disappointed.
But knowing Bob, I rather suspect the song is aimed at himself. Outed--dragged from the closet kicking and screaming--Bob notices once-loyal friends conspicuously ignoring him ("never knew he was a fag,") or re-evaluating him: either as stereotype, or anti-stereotype (implicitly overrated, in the eyes of Bob himself). Myth disintegrating.
The self-titled Bob Mould CD is dripping with self-loathing from start to finish. These sessions--I'm guessing--also gave birth to "JC Auto" from Sugar's Beaster CDEP, the crucial loud loud loud track in which Bob complains he can no longer keep up the painful self-crucifixion pose his fans expect for their $5 ticket (and then he makes a very thinly veiled suicide threat: hardly unfamiliar territory for Bob, reeling from survivor's guilt).
Perhaps also the Sugar outtake "And You Tell Me" which can be found on the Besides CD--or double CD with live bonus disc, if you were one of the lucky purchasers who got that unofficially deluxe edition). So over-the-top (pessimistically-speaking) is this stalker-to-stalker paranoid fantasy that its author finally creates a setting in which a now-insane Mould shares a cell with a faceless man he is determined to avoid...
Our hero now a lifer who has no future, and is well aware of this fact. ("It's a suicide note. Of course it's dark.") Not that they'd ever let him out...whatever he's done (and Bob's not talking), obviously it's so egregious they'd never release him into the community; he's a danger to himself and others, permanently. Damaged goods.
The latter two words not casually chosen. Bob's place in the industry is rarely far from his lyrical concerns. Putting out "product" makes Mould painfully aware of a modern rock musician's status: person-as-commodity. As the Loud Family song goes, "I won't go knocking doors to find out/How many tickets to me I can sell..."