The song is about doing "straight time"--metaphorical "time" (i.e. jail time) while you're supposedly free after coming out of prison.
I want to expand on some of the comments made below. Charlie (protagonist) finds the the straight life restrictive ("half free") and unhappy: his behavior has to be entirely pure because no one trusts him ("Walked the clean and narrow / just tryin' to stay out and stay alive"). Even his wife cannot seem to trust him in what should be a happy and innocent moment ("Kitchen floor in the evening, tossin' my little babies high / Mary's smilin', but she watches me out of the corner of her eye").
Charlie's life feels like a dead end. His job doesn't have much potential ("Got a job at the rendering factory, it ain't gonna make me rich") and he feels trapped ("Eight years in, it feels like you're gonna die / But you get used to anything / Sooner or later it becomes your life"). Meanwhile, he's surrounded by people who are making it big illegally: his hot car-running uncle apparently has $100 to throw around. Charlie's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.
Charlie is always tempted to go back to crime ("Got a cold mind to go tripping cross that thin line / I'm sick of doin' straight time"; "Sometimes I can feel the itch") and, ultimately, gives in to this urge. He does NOT kill himself, though perhaps the "gun in the basement alone" bit is suggestive of a metaphorical suicide. He takes his "huntin' gun and a hacksaw" and cuts off "thirteen inches of barrel." Stereotypically, sawed off shotguns are used by criminals; you don't need to saw off a barrel to kill yourself. There is also a final scene (last three lines) where Charlie is definitely alive.
The end is very ambiguous. Charlie comes home (from a crime), goes to sleep and goes "drifting off into foreign lands." I think the most reasonable interpretation is that his dreams are a continuation of his life: Charlie is alienated from the world and is adrift; his return to crime is not so much a decision as an indecision, the desperation of someone lost.
You could also read it to say that the freedom he has found is foreign or that he is dreaming of a freedom foreign to him.
The song is about doing "straight time"--metaphorical "time" (i.e. jail time) while you're supposedly free after coming out of prison.
I want to expand on some of the comments made below. Charlie (protagonist) finds the the straight life restrictive ("half free") and unhappy: his behavior has to be entirely pure because no one trusts him ("Walked the clean and narrow / just tryin' to stay out and stay alive"). Even his wife cannot seem to trust him in what should be a happy and innocent moment ("Kitchen floor in the evening, tossin' my little babies high / Mary's smilin', but she watches me out of the corner of her eye").
Charlie's life feels like a dead end. His job doesn't have much potential ("Got a job at the rendering factory, it ain't gonna make me rich") and he feels trapped ("Eight years in, it feels like you're gonna die / But you get used to anything / Sooner or later it becomes your life"). Meanwhile, he's surrounded by people who are making it big illegally: his hot car-running uncle apparently has $100 to throw around. Charlie's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.
Charlie is always tempted to go back to crime ("Got a cold mind to go tripping cross that thin line / I'm sick of doin' straight time"; "Sometimes I can feel the itch") and, ultimately, gives in to this urge. He does NOT kill himself, though perhaps the "gun in the basement alone" bit is suggestive of a metaphorical suicide. He takes his "huntin' gun and a hacksaw" and cuts off "thirteen inches of barrel." Stereotypically, sawed off shotguns are used by criminals; you don't need to saw off a barrel to kill yourself. There is also a final scene (last three lines) where Charlie is definitely alive.
The end is very ambiguous. Charlie comes home (from a crime), goes to sleep and goes "drifting off into foreign lands." I think the most reasonable interpretation is that his dreams are a continuation of his life: Charlie is alienated from the world and is adrift; his return to crime is not so much a decision as an indecision, the desperation of someone lost.
You could also read it to say that the freedom he has found is foreign or that he is dreaming of a freedom foreign to him.