Carousel

No interpretation of this song is complete with out factoring in "Lovesong of the Buzzard".

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.