I'm so surprised no one's commented on this song. It's gorgeous. Such a sweet love song tinged around the edges with the prescience of apocalypse. Perhaps the ticket-taker is not the best choice for a society that feeds on itself, values the men who "can afford the arc," but he is certainly the best choice for when he is the only arc, above the chaos with his solid valuables. There is also something pitiable in the narrator's hanging around an "old river town" stockpiling weapons, presumably waiting for both a woman and the collapse.
Another reading could be that the monotony of ticket-taking has wound up his psyche and made him into what Sherwood Anderson might call a grotesque-- someone fixated on only one aspect of their existence so as to ignore all other aspects and thereby turn in on themselves, exemplifying some spiritual malaise. I see this most prominent in that "Marianne" most likely snubbed him for a richer gentleman, and as a perfectly reasonable reaction, the ticket-taker has to make up for his lack of wealth in some other way. When she comes back to him after the sky caves in, he won't rub it in her face TOO much.
TL;DR
It's one of the prettiest, most lyrically interesting songs I've heard in a long while.
I'm so surprised no one's commented on this song. It's gorgeous. Such a sweet love song tinged around the edges with the prescience of apocalypse. Perhaps the ticket-taker is not the best choice for a society that feeds on itself, values the men who "can afford the arc," but he is certainly the best choice for when he is the only arc, above the chaos with his solid valuables. There is also something pitiable in the narrator's hanging around an "old river town" stockpiling weapons, presumably waiting for both a woman and the collapse.
Another reading could be that the monotony of ticket-taking has wound up his psyche and made him into what Sherwood Anderson might call a grotesque-- someone fixated on only one aspect of their existence so as to ignore all other aspects and thereby turn in on themselves, exemplifying some spiritual malaise. I see this most prominent in that "Marianne" most likely snubbed him for a richer gentleman, and as a perfectly reasonable reaction, the ticket-taker has to make up for his lack of wealth in some other way. When she comes back to him after the sky caves in, he won't rub it in her face TOO much.
TL;DR It's one of the prettiest, most lyrically interesting songs I've heard in a long while.