submissions
| The Decemberists – Calamity Song Lyrics
| 13 years ago
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The line is actually "Hetty Green," not "Petty green," referring to the first woman whose investments significantly impacted Wall Street. "Queen of supply-side bonhomie bone-drab" is an apt description of the Hetty Green, who was notorious for being well-off but extremely stingy. |
submissions
| The Decemberists – Calamity Song Lyrics
| 13 years ago
|
|
I agree with this interpretation of the line. Colin doesn't need to explicitly say "heaved A SIGH of relief" to get across the basic idea there (it doesn't scan with the music anyway). The character and his/her fellows are relieved that they weren't among the dead of California. It's simultaneously a positive ("hurray, we aren't dead") and negative ("who cares about the dead, so long as we are not among them!") sentiment that is all-too-common among insulated middle America, people whose only exposure to large-scale tragedy tends to be via newsreel footage - a not-unfrequent target of Colin's gentle criticisms. |
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