My take is it is clearly about death - I think we all can agree on that. I feel the two verses are about two ways one may die - but the result is the same - we "are on the road to where all that was is gone" - the lyric acknowledges that your identity and memories are gone. The song offers no answer to what lies beyond but because of the lyric I quote, I feel that Bernie was trying to accept that it may be nothingness.
The first death in my mind was drug related - at first a pleasurable experience and then it goes bad with paralysis and death. Song writers - like Steely Dan's Deludin in Gaslighting Abbie - like to make up new names for drugs, hence Blue Canoe. Remember the narrator in the song took it voluntarily - it wasn't forced on him like in an execution. The second death feels like the Civil War - which would be in keeping with the historical period expressed in many of the other songs on Tumbleweed Connection. Of course you must accept that foreign means the other side of the conflict ( I can see how it may be interpreted as a WW1 or WW2 death ). Final though I just love the use of the double meaning of the word report - the sound of a loud gun - and a summary of one's life.
My take is it is clearly about death - I think we all can agree on that. I feel the two verses are about two ways one may die - but the result is the same - we "are on the road to where all that was is gone" - the lyric acknowledges that your identity and memories are gone. The song offers no answer to what lies beyond but because of the lyric I quote, I feel that Bernie was trying to accept that it may be nothingness.
The first death in my mind was drug related - at first a pleasurable experience and then it goes bad with paralysis and death. Song writers - like Steely Dan's Deludin in Gaslighting Abbie - like to make up new names for drugs, hence Blue Canoe. Remember the narrator in the song took it voluntarily - it wasn't forced on him like in an execution. The second death feels like the Civil War - which would be in keeping with the historical period expressed in many of the other songs on Tumbleweed Connection. Of course you must accept that foreign means the other side of the conflict ( I can see how it may be interpreted as a WW1 or WW2 death ). Final though I just love the use of the double meaning of the word report - the sound of a loud gun - and a summary of one's life.