It seems to be about his girlfriend getting maced in the protests, which would of course have been more widely known at the time and not at all now. Yeats is almost certainly referring to himself who would rather claim she was dead than continue searching. As Phil said in an interview in 1971 the song describes a poet who "visits the chaos" before retreating to the outskirts. It is a major theme of the entire album in one way or another. How much of the political turmoil of the time should impact him personally and what is the nexus between the public sphere and his immediate environment (Chicago, LA. or even the bottom of the ocean where he claims the victims of the Scorpion disaster chose to remain rather than come back to the nightmare of life on earth).
It seems to be about his girlfriend getting maced in the protests, which would of course have been more widely known at the time and not at all now. Yeats is almost certainly referring to himself who would rather claim she was dead than continue searching. As Phil said in an interview in 1971 the song describes a poet who "visits the chaos" before retreating to the outskirts. It is a major theme of the entire album in one way or another. How much of the political turmoil of the time should impact him personally and what is the nexus between the public sphere and his immediate environment (Chicago, LA. or even the bottom of the ocean where he claims the victims of the Scorpion disaster chose to remain rather than come back to the nightmare of life on earth).