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A black eyed dog he called at my door
The black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.
I'm growing old and I wanna go home
I'm growing old and I don't wanna know
I'm growing old and I wanna go home.
A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.
The black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.
I'm growing old and I wanna go home
I'm growing old and I don't wanna know
I'm growing old and I wanna go home.
A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.
Lyrics submitted by ASimpleGirl
Track duration: 03:24
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The verses about the dog wanting more seem to indicate that something is being asked of the singer that he doesn't want to give or feel that he can no longer give, perhaps the black eyed dog is representative of the battle against depression and Drake is giving up as he can no longer feed the animal that has fed off of him for so long.
I almost want to take the song further and imagine that the black eyed dog seemed menacing or threatening to Drake but, in fact, was offering him peace in death, taking him home as a dog that was a friend would do. In some ways Drake and the black eyed dog are friends as they seem to know one another, the dog wanting more and Drake simply not having anything left to give. Perhaps their is a bizarre sort of friendship there in that they know each other so well.
Such a dark, beautiful song.
It could just be me but the guitar at the begining reminds me slightly of churchbells tolling out a death or a funeral. This fits the theme of the song, death, and seems to set the melacholy tone of the song. It is this beginning that makes me think that the dog definately symbolised depression and suicidal thoughts.
A black eyed dog he called at my door
The black eyed dog he called for more
The black eyed dog is depression (an idea Nick Drake took from Churchill's description of the illness) and it is coming for him.
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog he knew my name
A black eyed dog
A black eyed dog.
The black eyed dog knew his name because it wasn't the first time Drake had been depressed so the dog already knew Drake. It could also mean that Drake felt singled out by depression as the dog was purposely targeting him.
I'm growing old and I wanna go home
I'm growing old and I don't wanna know
I'm growing old and I wanna go home.
This could reference Drake's return to his home nearer the end of his short life, he could have been planning his return at the time, as it was "the only place he could stand to be". He doesn't want to know the dog, in other words, doesn't want to return in to the black pit of depression. These lines are poignant because he wasn't old at all, and he never did grow old.
A black eyed dog he called at my door
A black eyed dog he called for more.
The repeat of the first lines is almost reinforcing the fact the the dog wouldn't leave him alone, it kept coming back. The more could be a reference to suicide or simply to the fact that the dog kept subjecting him to more and more bouts of depression.
The relationship between the voice in the song and the black eyed dog is one of the central themes in the song.
‘A black eyed dog he called at my door
The black eyed dog he called for more
A black eyed dog he knew my name’
The change from the impersonal/unfamiliar ‘A’ to the known/familiar ‘The’, when referring to the black eyed dog, suggest it is a returning visit it this teamed with the fact that it is calling for more suggests a familiarity. These two positions are joined together in the third line with the use of the unfamiliar ‘A’ set alongside the knowing his name, this both reiterates the familiarity and suggests a desire to keep the black eyed dog at a distance.
The other central theme is the safety, comfort in certainty versus the idea of change and uncertainty. This is expressed through the lines,
‘I’m growing old and I wanna go home
I’m growing old and I don’t wanna know’
When you read growing old as, becoming an adult (or being a ‘grown up’) and home as a place of safety and comfort- returning to the bosom of his family, protecting him from the world. Within the line the dichotomy of childhood and adulthood is created. Growing old can be taken less literally as change this create the interesting juxtapositions of uncertainty certainty and change stability. In the next line there is the idea rejection to the responsibilities of adulthood and the change and potential instability of the world. This like could sound like the voice of a precocious child stamping it’s feet but the tone of the line is a resigned sadness and fear not a defiant refusal this created by minor fall in the melody at the end of the line.
Looking beyond just the words, the song has a general feeling sadness and longing to it, the way Drake’s voice previously strong, has become strained. There is a shake to some of the sustained notes, Drake’s voice begins to falter and cracks at points creating a sense of fragility to the whole piece.
I feel it is quite a balanced song lyrically it isn’t overtly negative or suggestive of death and suicide but I certainly wouldn’t say it was a happy, cheerful song either. The song is about depression the after affects the fear that it will return and the terror knowing what to expect when it does grip hold of you again. It is only hindsight that casts the spectra of death and suicide over the song.
The title is suggestive of BOTH Churchill's "black-eyed dog" (by which he referred to his depression) and the symbolic Black Dog of Death found in European folklore, a portent of death, often associated with the Devil or Grim Reaper.
The line "I'm growing old and I want to go home" reminds me of the old British folk song "Show Me the Way to Go Home" - wherein a weary homesick (and possibly very drunk) traveller sings of returning to a place of familiarity and comfort.
As Drake wasn't literally "old" when he recorded this song aged in his mid-twenties and was technically living with his parents in the family home at the time, the listener can be pretty sure the "home" he longs for in the song is a metaphorical place of spiritual comfort.
The black eyed dog is death; he's giving into death the same way he'd give into a stray dog.
or...
The black eyed dog is depression; depression keeps coming back to him to take his energy the same way a stray dog would keep coming back for food.
"I'm growing old and I wanna go home
I'm growing old and I don't wanna know
I'm growing old and I wanna go home."
A try to express my feeling it gives me: he's growing old, so many uncertainties in his life, so many familiar, well-known things and ideas and people, who are gone now, who left him alone. Alone with his fears, withs his questions, anxieties...
Life isn't anymore like when he was a little child and have a caring mother who comforts you and protects you...
So he wants to go home. And that home refers obviously (imho) to death. He longs to falls together with the origin of all... death, total emptiness, total nothing..
"A black eyed dog he knew my name"
Probably that black eyed dog is the "absoluteness", so he knows all, not only his name, but his thoughts, his fears, his past, what's in the little corners of his mind... So the man wants to go with the black eyed dog, because there (with that black eyed dog) he can find a shield...
Sorry, this might sound not very clear, but this song gets so direct to my feelings, and to put words on that, it's harder than I thougt. I wanted to give it a try because it is such a strong song..
That effect is not only because of the lyrics, but also a lot, because the way Nick Drake sings it, especially the sentence: "I'm growing old and I wanna go home, I'm growing old and I don't wanna know..."