So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Any news was good news
And the feeling was bad at home
I was out of mind and you
Were on the phone
Lonnie was the kingpin
Back in nineteen sixty-five
I was singing this song
When Lonnie came alive
[Chorus]
Bring back the Boston Rag
Tell all your buddies
That it ain't no drag
Bring back the Boston Rag
You were Lady Bayside
There was nothing that I could do
So I pointed my car down
Seventh Avenue
Lonnie swept the playroom
And he swallowed up all he found
It was forty-eight hours til
Lonnie came around
[Chorus]
And the feeling was bad at home
I was out of mind and you
Were on the phone
Lonnie was the kingpin
Back in nineteen sixty-five
I was singing this song
When Lonnie came alive
[Chorus]
Bring back the Boston Rag
Tell all your buddies
That it ain't no drag
Bring back the Boston Rag
You were Lady Bayside
There was nothing that I could do
So I pointed my car down
Seventh Avenue
Lonnie swept the playroom
And he swallowed up all he found
It was forty-eight hours til
Lonnie came around
[Chorus]
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If you don't listen to jazz or know the harmonies you don't always know what to listen for with their writing.
And the lyrics are just amazing.
"2. The Boston Rag Lonnie swept up the playroom And he swallowed up all he found It was forty-eight hours ‘til Lonnie came around One the most opaque songs Becker and Fagen ever wrote, “The Boston Rag” refers not to a song or a newspaper, but to the old days, when the narrator’s gang of college buddies used to have fun (“back in 1965”), when his old flame was “Lady Bayside,” and their mutual friend Lonnie was “the kingpin,” before they were old and bitter. Somehow (“there was nothing I could do”), things went sour, and the song ends with the narrator pointing his “car down Seventh Avenue,” presumably leaving town, while Lonnie downs all the pharmaceuticals from their drug den, knocking himself unconscious. What’s fascinating about this song is how absolutely specific the lyrics are but how absolutely obtuse they remain. There is no Seventh Avenue in Boston – what city are they in? Does Seventh Avenue end in a highway? Or a cliff? "
stylusmagazine.com/articles/staff_top_10/top-ten-obscure-steely-dan-lyrics.htm
Not trying to be a docuhe just saying.
What they really do is they have half step connectors but they don't resolve as often in steely dan songs. That's how they make it rock. <br /> <br /> So I've got one year of undergrad just buying Steely Dan albums and learning them. Probably the last chance I'll have to get better for a long time.