Dutchman Falls

First off, the lyrics above are all wrong. If you get the volume just right, you can hear it clear enough:

"Out in the cornfields, beneath the hangman's tree, is a rock, some initials and beneath it is me. I need all of your forgiveness and most of your love, you see, the hangman you saw hanging, well that wasn't who I was.

But nobody noticed, nobody cared but me.

Well i knew she'd been unfaithful, but he knew she had to pay so I grew more like him with each passing of each day and I slept out on some side road; I thought things i'd never dare so I went to the tool shed and put shellac in my hair.

But nobody noticed, nobody cared but me.

Well I came to Dutchman Falls with my hatchet and my dog Well she must've raised her head, I must've cut her down just like cake. You know the man I was, he left me long enough and strong enough to sin.

Now rage, it were a virtue and pride, it weren't a sin. I have no need for redemption. I have no need for him."

This song, to me, is almost split personality, or just building enough anger inside to commit something you'd never normally do, sort of like a blind rage. In the beginning, he's at the hangman's tree near a rock and some initials. He's in agony, he's asking for forgiveness and love. I assume he made the initialed rock in memorium he made for his dead wife. And then he relives how he did it. He was faithful to her, she cheated on him, and his inner self, be it jealousy or rage(or a bad conscience even), caused him to begin thinking about making her pay.

He grew into his rage by continually thinking about it and ended up sleeping alone, outside, plotting to kill her, then going to the tool shed to get a hatchet. The "Put shellac in my hair" line is basically making his outer appearance different than what it usually is, maybe further turning into his rage persona. Shellac is a super shiny resin, so it could have just been a word for greasing up his hair to look different. But there actually is a shellac hairspray, so it could've been just that! He probably invited his girl to the falls, and chopped her up there in a blind rage, claiming the man he used to be( the nice guy) left long enough to allow his rage to do the job.

The very end, and I went over it a bajillion times, is correct in my version. The changed tone, the eerie calm, makes me believe he likely became his rage persona and abandoned his former self. "Rage it were a virtue and pride it weren't a sin" is odd grammar but I partly blame it on the new person he's become. I think that line basically means Rage, or himself, was a virtue. it saved him from suffering. "pride weren't a sin" gives me the impression he believes that being proud that he did it isn't bad because she's gone and he isn't hurting anymore because of her actions. "I have no need for redemption, i have no need for him" is saying that he's not looking to redeem himself by admitting what he'd done or turning himself in, and he has no need for the weak man he used to be.

The thing that gets to me most of all is the line "But nobody noticed, nobody cared but me." So all the while even before he knows she's cheated, when he's slowly changing and suffering and becoming a monster and changing his appearance and essentially getting ready to kill his wife, nobody noticed or said anything at all. Only person who cared about anything he was feeling or doing was him. Poor guy.