Sorry for repeat posting, but I wasn’t happy with the formatting, I hope this reads better. Read this instead if it’s bigger!
I enjoyed your interpretation and also found the darkness too in some of the lyrics. Mark shows again great richness in this, another interesting character portrayal.
Firstly, the man telling her to leave the dog out the back because of the fight is interesting, as you pointed out [which didn’t occur to me]. A dog is a man’s best friend, almost an extension of him, and loyal and trusting [particularly so for a farmer]. The dog is thus an expression of his hurt: the man hurts - so will the dog. So it’s as if the man is choosing to be in the doghouse by telling her to ‘leave him [the dog] be’. The dog being left out the back is like a reversal of the sleeping on the sofa idea when a couple argue, but this time the man has license to take the initiative by telling her to leave the dog alone, since he’s the wronged one. The dog and the farmer are effectively unified in their contempt of resignation against the wife. Furthermore the shared hurt of the farmer and his dog is suggested as being something that the wife won’t understand: he says ‘leave him be’ and one would think that the dog would not want to be in her company anyway, whatever she does. By saying ‘leave him be’, he’s really saying ‘leave me be’, in a nice reversal of the bright way the likes of the Beatles and Louis Armstrong [‘how do you do/they’re really saying I love you’] expressed idealised sentiments — It is a blues song after all, this one.
The theme of loyalty is also in the fact that the man appears to have been so: ‘don’t get me wrong, you were the only one’. His indignation against her seems righteous and you can feel that the last thing he wants is to be made a fool of again by her having the cheek to get to have a relationship with the dog, in his absence, given what she’s done.
I like how you pointed out the dark theme, which I got listening to it. I find his shopping activities typical of a man, who would want to retreat to his work and routine in order to try to deal with his hurt. The items he buys such as ‘killer for the weed’, ‘razor wire’ and ‘shells’ are interesting. One might see a less likely vision of him engaging in a murderous revenge, than what is far more likely symbolic of his therapy: he may be repairing and/or building new fences with the ‘razor wire’ in order to protect his heart or is acting to fend off who might have tempted his wife. The retreat into his work includes cathartically shooting pests on the farm and killing weeds.
As to the less likely more literal interpretation, it occurred to me having been watching the Jodi Arias murder trial that the farmer could indeed have been wronged and is seeking to take revenge, like she did on her boyfriend Travis. Such a view highlights the way that writers like Mark sometimes takes inspiration from events in life, and portrays stories to not only give insights into interesting character perspectives, but also into the creative writing process itself.
@daveeeed i like the air of your interpretation. I would have wrote almost the exact same words you wrote. 🙌. I believe that mark always puts letters together in a the spectrum where there's light.
@daveeeed i like the air of your interpretation. I would have wrote almost the exact same words you wrote. 🙌. I believe that mark always puts letters together in a the spectrum where there's light.
Sorry for repeat posting, but I wasn’t happy with the formatting, I hope this reads better. Read this instead if it’s bigger!
I enjoyed your interpretation and also found the darkness too in some of the lyrics. Mark shows again great richness in this, another interesting character portrayal.
Firstly, the man telling her to leave the dog out the back because of the fight is interesting, as you pointed out [which didn’t occur to me]. A dog is a man’s best friend, almost an extension of him, and loyal and trusting [particularly so for a farmer]. The dog is thus an expression of his hurt: the man hurts - so will the dog. So it’s as if the man is choosing to be in the doghouse by telling her to ‘leave him [the dog] be’. The dog being left out the back is like a reversal of the sleeping on the sofa idea when a couple argue, but this time the man has license to take the initiative by telling her to leave the dog alone, since he’s the wronged one. The dog and the farmer are effectively unified in their contempt of resignation against the wife. Furthermore the shared hurt of the farmer and his dog is suggested as being something that the wife won’t understand: he says ‘leave him be’ and one would think that the dog would not want to be in her company anyway, whatever she does. By saying ‘leave him be’, he’s really saying ‘leave me be’, in a nice reversal of the bright way the likes of the Beatles and Louis Armstrong [‘how do you do/they’re really saying I love you’] expressed idealised sentiments — It is a blues song after all, this one.
The theme of loyalty is also in the fact that the man appears to have been so: ‘don’t get me wrong, you were the only one’. His indignation against her seems righteous and you can feel that the last thing he wants is to be made a fool of again by her having the cheek to get to have a relationship with the dog, in his absence, given what she’s done.
I like how you pointed out the dark theme, which I got listening to it. I find his shopping activities typical of a man, who would want to retreat to his work and routine in order to try to deal with his hurt. The items he buys such as ‘killer for the weed’, ‘razor wire’ and ‘shells’ are interesting. One might see a less likely vision of him engaging in a murderous revenge, than what is far more likely symbolic of his therapy: he may be repairing and/or building new fences with the ‘razor wire’ in order to protect his heart or is acting to fend off who might have tempted his wife. The retreat into his work includes cathartically shooting pests on the farm and killing weeds.
As to the less likely more literal interpretation, it occurred to me having been watching the Jodi Arias murder trial that the farmer could indeed have been wronged and is seeking to take revenge, like she did on her boyfriend Travis. Such a view highlights the way that writers like Mark sometimes takes inspiration from events in life, and portrays stories to not only give insights into interesting character perspectives, but also into the creative writing process itself.
@daveeeed i like the air of your interpretation. I would have wrote almost the exact same words you wrote. 🙌. I believe that mark always puts letters together in a the spectrum where there's light.
@daveeeed i like the air of your interpretation. I would have wrote almost the exact same words you wrote. 🙌. I believe that mark always puts letters together in a the spectrum where there's light.