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Almost home
When I missed the bottom stair
You were braiding your gray hair
It had grown so long
Since I'd been gone
And the perfect girls
By the pool, they would protest
The cross around their necks
But our sons were overseas
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees
Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a Persian rug
With your bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on a TV stand
And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk of Noah's clothes
Almost home
We got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep
So the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed
And the cops couldn't care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, "Please, before I go
May our only honored bone
Be the kinship of the kids and the riot squad"
When I missed the bottom stair
You were braiding your gray hair
It had grown so long
Since I'd been gone
And the perfect girls
By the pool, they would protest
The cross around their necks
But our sons were overseas
And we all know about the hive and the honey bees
Almost home
With an olive branch and a dove
You were beating on a Persian rug
With your bible and your wedding band
Both hidden on a TV stand
And the cruel wind blew
Every city father fell
Off the county carousel
While the dogs were eating snow
All our sons had sunk in a trunk of Noah's clothes
Almost home
We got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep
So the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed
And the cops couldn't care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, "Please, before I go
May our only honored bone
Be the kinship of the kids and the riot squad"
Lyrics submitted by Sussex
Track duration: 04:02
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That song sounds like a soldier coming home from war, planning on a dream of what everything will be like when he gets back. He, however, realizes that "no one is the savior they would like to be". He knows that he hasn't been a perfect person but has a dream of what his return will be like.
This song continues that narrative; however, this song is the reality of his return. It is so foreign to him that he doesn't even know the stairs as well as he thought he did.
As time is passing after he returns, this city that he knew so well is falling to pieces and the religious texts are what he know to describe the situation with. His wife has gotten older and is no longer the woman he left at home when he left. She has left her religion, and in a large part, she has left him. (Leaving the bible and wedding ring hidden.)
I think that the ending of the song has that same man becoming the crackhead and sailing off in a boat.
The next song in the album "House by the Sea" continues in the same vein as "Lovesong of the Buzzard". It sets up what is going on while the soldier is leaving or has been gone. The crackhead is no longer a hero and his name is being changed. The country no longer smells of roses but of smoke.
The last one in this arc, "Innocent Bones", continues with the pile of bones in this song. A great deal of time has based and while the garden wall is built with these bones nothing has changed. While Abel seeks peace and happiness, Cain prepares for war.
The reason I pool these songs together is that the songs continue into each other and none of the other songs on the album do that. I think it is the parallel that is always drawn between Vietnam and Iraq. The soldiers in Vietnam went to war and dreamed of what their return would be. They got back and it was not only different but foreign and impossible to deal with. All of these soldiers lost what they had cherished and their homes were in decline. These soldiers often turned to drugs and left if they couldn't deal with the loss of their home and the war, hence, the crackhead. However the crackhead wants the kinship between the police/military (Riotsquad) and the kids. He wants these issues to be kept sacred. He wants people to realize they are all one piece of the whole. The next song sets it up to where this soldier is no longer respected and they wait for his return but discredit him as a hero, which often happened. However, a war is slowly coming into play. Innocent Bones is both hopeful and pessimistic. On one hand the narrator recognizes that nothing is changing from what it was but that the garden wall is still built up from the innocent bones the people in "Carousel" dreamt of. The use of Cain and Abel is the same concept. Both ideas exist in the world. Both the peace seeking and the warmongering. This series leaves no real resolution but calls attention to the continuing trend shown in Carousel.
The main characters has been gone a long time, and his woman has maybe forgotten her vows to him because she took off her wedding band - the reference to the bible being hidden also makes reference to the wedding vows, and what she should have been up to when he was gone.
I have a feeling that the girls resenting the crosses has more to do with resenting the war that has taken the boys away, but they can't protest because that would hurt their men... that leaves only the children to protest, and the riot squad to stop them. I don't see this as anti-religion at all, but rather as using heavy religious metaphors to represent the emotional state of each group.
Definitely anti-politics though - referring to the modern Noah as a crackhead, and the cops not caring if the kids are up against the riot squads.
That seems to be the only thing I can decipher of this song. Meh...
“And the cops couldn't care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, "Please, before I go
May our only honored bone
Be the kinship of the kids and the riot squad"
To me the crackhead is just a protester who wants to get away from all this mess but the cops call him a crackhead because he is a rebel. I think it is the “crackhead” who says the quote, and I interpret it as him saying that he hopes the riot squad and the kids that protest the war will unite, and they are the ones that should be honored in the future for refusing to carry on the war.
The second stanza is about being comfortable over here by the pool while our sons are away at war. Then he throws in the line about the bees and the honey indicating that when the bees are away from the hive the honey is easy to get. We've sent half or our people across the sea and fractured our families and thats not helping our moral situations.
Next he moves to terrorists and the iraq war. We're beating up on these people of different faiths and in different societies claiming that were christians and we do things right over here, but in reality we dont live by our faith as is indicated by the fact that we took off our wedding rings and stopped reading our bibles long enough ago that they are buried somewhere on the TV stand and obviously no one is really looking to hard for them while they collect dust. (I dont think hes commenting so much on them over there as us over here though, i.e. I don't think hes supporting islamic extremism, just commenting about our hipocrisy)
I think the last three stanza are referring then to Katrina and the way it was poorly handled. The people were almost home but the city was such a wreck that they got lost just trying to get home, and this is after many drowned in the initial flooding. The crewl wind blew (the hurricane) and killed a lot more fathers and sons (and daughters to be sure, as they died in their sleep, remember the whole superdome fiasco?). Then what did the cops do about it? nothing. Well, maybe not the cops, but the people we put in power to take care of the situation didnt do squat. FEMA (riot squad) fell apart and all the help that was supposed to go to LA, and MS, didn't make it (well some did but you get the point). Finally, leaving all that behind and ignoring it, bush (the crackhead) tried to build a boat (tried to get out of the situation) by passing the no child left behind act (kids reference? that might be a stretch) as something to be remembered by. If thats not the meaning then maybe he is just saying all thats left after the dads died, the sisters died in their sleep, the sons are at war, are the kids alone in the city, just them and the riot squad
I think a very important reference is Noah's ark, because it symbolizes the belief that the world has gone bad and one man, an ordinary one, takes it upon himself to be the next Noah to save him from a flood. Calling him a crackhead is very important to the rest of the theme of this song because everyone seems to have lost their religion so they wouldn't believe him that the next great flood was upon them.
I think a very important reference is Noah's ark, because it symbolizes the belief that the world has gone bad and one man, an ordinary one, takes it upon himself to be the next Noah to save him from a flood. Calling him a crackhead is very important to the rest of the theme of this song because everyone seems to have lost their religion so they wouldn't believe him that the next great flood was upon them.
Second stanza I see as either pointing out the irony of the situation where “perfect” girls are behaving aberrantly to their parent’s and church’s expectations. Or (and the one I prefer) it seems to be saying that it’s a perfect thing for someone to define their own faith and what morals they are guided by. All of which is then tied into a statement that it doesn’t matter how they would behave for their possible loves are swept away in a war made by an apocalypse declaring “Noah,” where the son’s are then “sunk in a trunk of (a crackhead) Noah’s clothes” or rather, good men are dying for the illusioned global crisis of one crazed man. Considering the time period I’d agree it most likely indictes the current iraq war and our poltical figurehead.
Third stanza seems like a confused return where the “Noah” has declared that the apocalypse has been averted (“victory” banner anyone?) and so a soldier returns, where his wife has not entirely abandoned but mostly forgotten her religion, most likely because religion was twisted and its intentions lost when it was used to further ones own ends. In giving into the coming flood of noah’s, she also forsook her husband.
Fourth stanza seems to be sadly mocking the modern noah’s flood, despite the lunacy of the notion of the impending doom, actions still arose from the warning, and their tragic results. Yet, the people finally realized the fallacy that had been fed to them as truth, and so the “city fathers fell off the carousel” or, their public game was finally turned on them, yet as dogs, these people were still trying to be seen as eating snow, a pure substance generally associated with good. But the people had seen the tragic truth of their son’s deaths.
Fifth stanza I see as a wakeup, the “new street” could still be the same street, but it’s seen through new eyes. The grieving girls dying could not only be a direct statement of loss, but that of a nation that sees it’s wrong and so the political “dogs” are no longer fed off the consent and will of the people, for the people have seen their dreams become corpses and ash.
Sixt stanza I see as a portrayal of the “Noah” finally without his control, but still believing himself to be in power and as a rescuer of the people. Also, his final statements speak of those easily led and controlled and what society had temporarily allowed itself to become; children of a mob.
Oh shiz this is long, sorry >.>