From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V7 #259 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Saturday, November 5 2005 Volume 07 : Number 259 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics ["Matthew Bullis" ] Re: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics [Lisa Davis - home Subject: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics Hello, I wanted to get interpretations on this song. The first thing might only be something Richard could clear up. Perhaps he has done. I don't know how to interpret this line. Should you read it " I betcha Indians could really reel them in," or "I bet "you Indians" could really reel them in." Also, what and where is Port Campecino? When the officer says he fled the nets, they are still waiting for him. Does this mean that he has done so recently, and that the fish are still good? I would assume that once they're caught, you can't just leave them there, even in the water, or they would either get eaten by others or rot. Also, were these people trying to get into the Spanish-speaking country, or out of it? Is there something more punitive about deportation than being removed from the country? Does it mean jail time? If you only get removed from the country, then it wouldn't be a big deal if you wanted to leave anyway. Any help with this is appreciated. Thanks a lot. Matthew Tired of HotMail? Try Runbox. 1 gig of storage for a reasonable price. Use this link as your referral. http://1362.runbox.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 15:32:46 EST From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics Also, what and where is Port Campecino? It's not Port Campecino, it's "poor campesino." Campesino means "simple farmer" in Spanish, pretty much the equivalent of "peasant" in English. RG ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 17:19:27 -0500 From: Chris Foxwell Subject: Re: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics On 11/5/05, Matthew Bullis wrote: > > Hello, I wanted to get interpretations on this song. The first thing might > only be something Richard could clear up. Perhaps he has done. I don't > know > how to interpret this line. Should you read it " I betcha Indians could > really reel them in," or "I bet "you Indians" could really reel them in." The latter lyric is correct: "I'll bet you Indians can (could) really reel them in". That's how I've always heard it, since the implied stereotyping is appropriate to how the officer views the interrogationee, and it's also how the lyric is written on Richard's website. > Also, what and where is Port Campecino? What Ron said. > When the officer says he fled the nets, they are still waiting for him. > Does this mean that he has done so recently, and that the fish are still > good? I would assume that once they're > caught, you can't just leave them there, even in the water, or they would > either get eaten by others or rot. I think you may be misinterpreting this part: the last verse of the song is written from the *interrogationees* point of view, not the officer's. It is the interrogationee saying "yes senor, as you have said, I was a fisherman", then goes on to contrast the traditional style of fishing (nets, hauled by hand), used by those who depend on fish for a livelihood, to the sporting flyfishing used by idle whites on vacation. (Brilliant touch, that.) The rest is a tad bit more ambiguous, and I've heard several interesting interpretations. My view is that the interrogationee, having made his subtle dig at the officer's style of fishing, switches back to using the officer's analogy and uses "fish" to refer to himself and his fellows. The "fleeing" that they are doing is from the raid or patrol or whatever method was used to capture the interrogationee, from which the others escaped. Thus the interrogationee is saying "I'm not betraying my fellows to you; they're still out there, 'running deep' (hidden), and I'll rejoin them eventually." Basically, the song closes with quiet defiance from the interrogationee. Another interpretation that sounds reasonable to me is close to your own, that the "flight" referred to by the interrogationee is one from another country to the U.S., and that his reference to fish is a literal one. According to this interpretation, the last verse has the interrogationee saying "go ahead and deport me; I've still got my livelihood waiting for me back there." This too has the song closing with defiance from the interrogationee, but it doesn't resonate with me as much as the other interpretation does. It also requires an assumption concerning the reason that the interrogationee has been captured and is being threatened with deportation. Not an unreasonable assumption, to be sure, especially in light of "Che Guevara T-shirt", but still one that doesn't strike me as having conclusive evidence. (Note that my preferred interpretation also allows for this assumption to be true; it just doesn't require it for the last verse to make sense.) Also, were these people trying to get into the Spanish-speaking country, or > out of it? Is there something more punitive about deportation than being > removed from the country? Does it mean > jail time? If you only get removed from the country, then it wouldn't be a > big deal if you wanted to leave anyway. Relatively speaking, deportation might not be as horrible a thing if you had just entered the country, true, but consider everything that such individuals go through to enter the country. Death by exposure or starvation upon desperate journeys from their homelands; legal repercussions in their native countries that might be far more harsh than deportation; etc. I would imagine that to be stuck on a plane and send back immediately after arriving, having survived all that (and while possessing all the financial hopes of one's family, like as not), would be simply crushing. --Chris - -- "We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water." - -- J.R.R. Tolkien ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 19:45:32 -0500 From: John McDonnell Subject: [RS] There's a Bathroom on the Right Hi All, Matthew, I read the line as "I bet you Indians can really reel 'em in" as a kind of patronizing line from the agent, which is highlighted by the fact that he mentions what I take to be a fishing/leisure trip to Lake Michigan--fishing was never leisure for the deportee, but was his trade and how he made a living. I also don't think the agent speaks the line "but when we fled"--I think it's the deportee. Coming as it does at the end of the song, to me this image dovetails the analogy between the fishing by the deportee, and what the agent is doing--"easy to bite, just take the bait" etc. In the end, I think the deportee is refusing to give up his friends--they're still out past the coral reefs, running deep. Also, I read it as a deportation from the U.S. perhaps back to a country with civil unrest and danger to those who are perceived as supportive of one faction or another, even if they are not. In that sense, deportation means danger, and the agent is holding it over the fisherman's head. The bait, of course, is the prospect of staying, but to do so he has to identify his friends and loved ones. On the other hand, what he leaves out past the coral reef could also be the nets, which may represent a kind of forced labor, since it seems reasonable to infer that he was not a fisherman in the U.S ("it says here"). That would leave the ending more ambiguous, since that situation, from which he fled, is still waiting for him if he is sent back. Either way, I think the plight of the immigrant/deportee is an unpleasant one--"good citizen"/rat or back to being a "poor campesino"/exploited worker. That's my $0.02 John McD. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:40:06 -0500 From: Lisa Davis - home Subject: Re: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics > Also, what and where is Port Campecino? > > It's not Port Campecino, it's "poor campesino." Campesino means "simple > farmer" in Spanish, pretty much the equivalent of "peasant" in English. Time for another round of "mondegreens," and I forget why it has that word, but mis-heard lyrics with hysterical results? Lisa Davis ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:37:16 -0500 From: Lisa Davis - home Subject: Re: [RS] Questions about Fishing lyrics Richard is about my age and when I think of deportation and interrogation in this context I am back in the 1980s with Iran Contra and earlier, the flight of Salvadoreans from persecution, when churches gave sanctuary to those who had been tortured, when the CIA was training people to torture, etc. My sister worked for CISPES and met victims she has never forgotten. Does the INS routinely try to force illegals to identify others for deportation? Isn't that something we would associate with a more sinister motive, political persecution? Remember 6 months without a lawyer because the Tshirt had Che Guevara on it. ANyway, this particular INS agent just sounds more sinister to me, as if he knew that sending his victim back could mean death. OR maybe it's just the 1980s in my mind. As to running deep -- the NETS. In prior posts the point was made that this was terribly environmentally incorrect, that if you leave nets under water like that things will get caught in them and be unable to escape! Presumably although nets will rot eventually, not immediately, and who knows how long the fisherman has been away from them. Chris Foxwell wrote: > On 11/5/05, Matthew Bullis wrote: > >>Hello, I wanted to get interpretations on this song. The first thing might >>only be something Richard could clear up. Perhaps he has done. I don't >>know >>how to interpret this line. Should you read it " I betcha Indians could >>really reel them in," or "I bet "you Indians" could really reel them in." > > > The latter lyric is correct: "I'll bet you Indians can (could) really reel > them in". That's how I've always heard it, since the implied stereotyping is > appropriate to how the officer views the interrogationee, and it's also how > the lyric is written on Richard's website. > > >>Also, what and where is Port Campecino? > > > What Ron said. > > >>When the officer says he fled the nets, they are still waiting for him. >>Does this mean that he has done so recently, and that the fish are still >>good? I would assume that once they're >>caught, you can't just leave them there, even in the water, or they would >>either get eaten by others or rot. > > > I think you may be misinterpreting this part: the last verse of the song is > written from the *interrogationees* point of view, not the officer's. It is > the interrogationee saying "yes senor, as you have said, I was a fisherman", > then goes on to contrast the traditional style of fishing (nets, hauled by > hand), used by those who depend on fish for a livelihood, to the sporting > flyfishing used by idle whites on vacation. (Brilliant touch, that.) The > rest is a tad bit more ambiguous, and I've heard several interesting > interpretations. My view is that the interrogationee, having made his subtle > dig at the officer's style of fishing, switches back to using the officer's > analogy and uses "fish" to refer to himself and his fellows. The "fleeing" > that they are doing is from the raid or patrol or whatever method was used > to capture the interrogationee, from which the others escaped. Thus the > interrogationee is saying "I'm not betraying my fellows to you; they're > still out there, 'running deep' (hidden), and I'll rejoin them eventually." > Basically, the song closes with quiet defiance from the interrogationee. > Another interpretation that sounds reasonable to me is close to your own, > that the "flight" referred to by the interrogationee is one from another > country to the U.S., and that his reference to fish is a literal one. > According to this interpretation, the last verse has the interrogationee > saying "go ahead and deport me; I've still got my livelihood waiting for me > back there." This too has the song closing with defiance from the > interrogationee, but it doesn't resonate with me as much as the other > interpretation does. It also requires an assumption concerning the reason > that the interrogationee has been captured and is being threatened with > deportation. Not an unreasonable assumption, to be sure, especially in light > of "Che Guevara T-shirt", but still one that doesn't strike me as having > conclusive evidence. (Note that my preferred interpretation also allows for > this assumption to be true; it just doesn't require it for the last verse to > make sense.) > > Also, were these people trying to get into the Spanish-speaking country, or > >>out of it? Is there something more punitive about deportation than being >>removed from the country? Does it mean >>jail time? If you only get removed from the country, then it wouldn't be a >>big deal if you wanted to leave anyway. > > > Relatively speaking, deportation might not be as horrible a thing if you > had just entered the country, true, but consider everything that such > individuals go through to enter the country. Death by exposure or starvation > upon desperate journeys from their homelands; legal repercussions in their > native countries that might be far more harsh than deportation; etc. I would > imagine that to be stuck on a plane and send back immediately after > arriving, having survived all that (and while possessing all the financial > hopes of one's family, like as not), would be simply crushing. > --Chris > -- > "We were born in a dark age out of due time (for us). But there is this > comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much love, what we do love. I > imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water." > -- J.R.R. Tolkien ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V7 #259 ***********************************