From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V12 #276 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, February 2 2013 Volume 12 : Number 276 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] I don't need no weapons [Pete Jameson ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 14:36:56 -0500 From: Pete Jameson Subject: [RS] I don't need no weapons ...you may be commenting on Richard's "You Stay Here" lyrics alone, but I feel it incumbent upon me to point out that I've lived 54 years without weapons of any kind, and, yes, i do acknowledge that my "freedom", this absurdist notion of freedom that has been cultivated in this country, is largely the result of our imperialistic conquests elsewhere...i have no idea, from an "anthro-historical" perspective, how i might have anthropomorphized sans weaponry, but i would have liked to have been a conscientious objector in 1776...remember, i can run like a rabbit, Shin-diggers... stumbling amidst the arrowheads, little pete in westsylvania On Feb 2, 2013, at 10:12 AM, Chris Foxwell wrote: > While trying to articulate my preference for "You Stay Here" in Ron's > contest, it occurred to me that the things I was trying to say might be > worth a separate e-mail. I'm curious if anyone else is drawn to the same > interpretation I am. > > The song's story alone is haunting and powerful, of course, but I'm more > taken with a more general anthro-historical statement it seems to be > making. From my very first listen, I've always been really struck by the > song's engagement with the concept of human survival, and the things that > are (considered to be) essentials for human life throughout our species's > evolution. It's like the song is running down a brutal checklist of five of > these essentials--fire, food, protection from elements, weapons, > faith--while pointedly leaving the sixth, love, completely unmentioned. > > It's almost like...I dunno, this sounds silly, but it's almost like Richard > is constructing a golem in the song, a non-life assembled from the family's > lack of those essentials. As though the narrator's sequential noting of > each absence, and the bitterness of that noting, is bringing into being > a...construct, or something. A Frankenstein's Monster made from the strife > and pain and inhumanity that the song's story evokes. By the time the last > essential is listed, and the painful "I know where He's *not*" line is > uttered, with that harsh emphasis on the final word...it's like the final > touch being put on an avatar of human inhumanity. > > I'm using overly lurid descriptors, of course, but has anyone formed a > similar impression of this song? > > 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 V12 #276 ************************************