Thomas Jefferson was of a firm belief that "[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." This song has a lot of the same imagery of war, and the imagery in the first half brings to mine the old, "honourable" way of fighting. The two sides would work out a time and place to fight, then line up and take turns shooting and being shot. However, part of the reason that the Americans won was because they wouldn't wait for their turn to shoot:
Watch em drop, pull the bolt back, load another up till the clip goes "pop"
Till you sweep your block, and you can hear a pin drop
The next few lines reference the battlefield cross, a kind of monument for wounded soldiers that involves sticking a gun in the earth, placing their helmet on top of it, and sometimes hanging dog tags on it or putting their boots on the ground in front of it. However, this started in the civil war (which Thomas Jefferson wasn't alive for), not to mention that dog tags weren't used during the revolution, so either Astronautalis is forgoing historical accuracy for imagery this time or the title is only symbolic and not literal.
The song mentions the Georgia peach watered by "red rum", an obvious metaphor for blood which leads back to Jefferson's ideology. However, this also seems to point towards the civil war as Georgia (along with much of the South) played a much more influential part there.
The second verse, both by the lyrics and the voice change, seems to indicate that this is the first narrator's son singing. His father has died in battle, and while I'm not entirely sure, the civil war connection implies that the son is a slave. Still, he tries to sow seeds of rebellion even as he sows actual seeds, even though he knows he won't live to see freedom himself.
Finally, the chorus: I'm not sure just how much it connects to the song, especially because I don't know enough of Jefferson's history to refer to it, but it seems like the narrator is drifting further and further from his ideals or what he was raised to believe. "Every song I sing" - war songs?
Anyways, I can definitely see it all being an extended metaphor for a rough neighborhood (which would make sense with the mixing of Thomas Jefferson and the Civil War), but I don't think it has to do with music. The only connection there I can see is that Astronautalis himself is a musician, but usually he sings songs about separate characters rather than about himself.
Thomas Jefferson was of a firm belief that "[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." This song has a lot of the same imagery of war, and the imagery in the first half brings to mine the old, "honourable" way of fighting. The two sides would work out a time and place to fight, then line up and take turns shooting and being shot. However, part of the reason that the Americans won was because they wouldn't wait for their turn to shoot: Watch em drop, pull the bolt back, load another up till the clip goes "pop" Till you sweep your block, and you can hear a pin drop
The next few lines reference the battlefield cross, a kind of monument for wounded soldiers that involves sticking a gun in the earth, placing their helmet on top of it, and sometimes hanging dog tags on it or putting their boots on the ground in front of it. However, this started in the civil war (which Thomas Jefferson wasn't alive for), not to mention that dog tags weren't used during the revolution, so either Astronautalis is forgoing historical accuracy for imagery this time or the title is only symbolic and not literal.
The song mentions the Georgia peach watered by "red rum", an obvious metaphor for blood which leads back to Jefferson's ideology. However, this also seems to point towards the civil war as Georgia (along with much of the South) played a much more influential part there.
The second verse, both by the lyrics and the voice change, seems to indicate that this is the first narrator's son singing. His father has died in battle, and while I'm not entirely sure, the civil war connection implies that the son is a slave. Still, he tries to sow seeds of rebellion even as he sows actual seeds, even though he knows he won't live to see freedom himself.
Finally, the chorus: I'm not sure just how much it connects to the song, especially because I don't know enough of Jefferson's history to refer to it, but it seems like the narrator is drifting further and further from his ideals or what he was raised to believe. "Every song I sing" - war songs?
Anyways, I can definitely see it all being an extended metaphor for a rough neighborhood (which would make sense with the mixing of Thomas Jefferson and the Civil War), but I don't think it has to do with music. The only connection there I can see is that Astronautalis himself is a musician, but usually he sings songs about separate characters rather than about himself.