In my experience, similar to what I believe the song is about (already described well here by others, I think), "the many colored beast" was neither TV nor drugs, but a huge, fancy, crocheted blanket, big enough to cover a queen-sized bed, that an ex-girlfriend's grandmother had made for the two of us.
The girl gave it to me as a kind of "parting gift" - although I had actually been the one who rejected her and "our future together," not the other way around - and I understood why she did not want it any longer. I accepted the blanket. So, while I knew that she and I were not meant to be together, in ensuing times as a single man, occasionally, when I felt "so alone" and wondered why, wondering "Where is my woman?" (not my ex, but just, "the one for me"), I wrapped myself in that blanket. Its multi-colored design reminded me of this song. It kept me warm, gave me an "embraced" feeling, and so it became "the beast" - a reminder that I had a pretty good girl and relationship, but, there was then, both before and after the breakup, "no peace" in me about having the girl and relationship I was meant to have.
That peace came a couple of years later, when I met the girl who I've been with since, over 35 years. Now I can't remember where that blanket is! I believe we still have it, in storage since we rarely need blankets like it in our warm climate. I am sure I have never told my wife this whole "inside story." It doesn't matter anymore. It's a beautiful blanket. And the memory now is just like a quilt-scrap piece, a fragment of my life.
In my experience, similar to what I believe the song is about (already described well here by others, I think), "the many colored beast" was neither TV nor drugs, but a huge, fancy, crocheted blanket, big enough to cover a queen-sized bed, that an ex-girlfriend's grandmother had made for the two of us.
The girl gave it to me as a kind of "parting gift" - although I had actually been the one who rejected her and "our future together," not the other way around - and I understood why she did not want it any longer. I accepted the blanket. So, while I knew that she and I were not meant to be together, in ensuing times as a single man, occasionally, when I felt "so alone" and wondered why, wondering "Where is my woman?" (not my ex, but just, "the one for me"), I wrapped myself in that blanket. Its multi-colored design reminded me of this song. It kept me warm, gave me an "embraced" feeling, and so it became "the beast" - a reminder that I had a pretty good girl and relationship, but, there was then, both before and after the breakup, "no peace" in me about having the girl and relationship I was meant to have.
That peace came a couple of years later, when I met the girl who I've been with since, over 35 years. Now I can't remember where that blanket is! I believe we still have it, in storage since we rarely need blankets like it in our warm climate. I am sure I have never told my wife this whole "inside story." It doesn't matter anymore. It's a beautiful blanket. And the memory now is just like a quilt-scrap piece, a fragment of my life.