The man returning home from Vietnam and clearly seeing what his society has become. Wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide I feel is the new role of Heroin in post Vietnam 1970's. Wolfman Fairies are the dealers, disguised but amongst society... for homicide, symbolizing... to disguise their true evil.
Hit and Run meaning deal and get out... all of this while people's faith and religion is put on the back burner. "Everybody drinkin unholy blood..." is how the community in "the Bronx" has become. We then see the gunner himself doing heroin when he breathes deep. The important part of the song is the perspective of the man who is alive to see drugs destroy gunner, and then slowly destroy society... symbolizing the rising waters of the flood this man has witnessed.
The line that puts the comparison of war to a drug ridden society is "Have you thrown your senses to the war, or did you lose them in the flood?" The Flood began, gunner drowned in the flood, and it escalated slowly throughout the song. Quicksand symbolizing a degeneration and sinking which will continue slowly... unlike mud which you can easily take care of.
Dull Eyed and empty faced we find Gunner living life and slowly sinking.... in the background of the U.S in the 1970's. Gunner then crashes his car horribly and the flood ultimately usurps him. Clearly, "nothing left that you could sell" means that Gunner has sold all of his items for drug money. "Junk all across the horizon" symbolizing his fatal downfall because of the drug.
What was he thinking when he hit the storm, or was he just lost in the flood, informs us that indeed the feeling on the drug is "the flood", that gunner most likely was slowly drowning the entire time and may not have even had time to realize his degeneration.
The song then shifts......
Eighth Avenue Sailors in satin shirts whispering are still drug dealers (satin!?), we see a drug community, bronx's best apostle holding his hardware (gun) when the cops come flooding into battle the gang (the flood is taking over, the pitch crescendo's......... you can almost feel a titanic like rise in the background keyboard........ everything is out of control.
We now see the society and the world that usurped Gunner..... and are forced to remember that he was a nationalistic person.... a person fighting for this country which is under the flood. Leading us to ask what are we really fighting for?
The Irony of Gunner's death being caused NOT by fighting in the war, but by the very society he was fighting for is the purpose of the song to me. A victim of his own freedom, which while willing to die for, took his own life.
Here goes my interpretation:
The man returning home from Vietnam and clearly seeing what his society has become. Wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide I feel is the new role of Heroin in post Vietnam 1970's. Wolfman Fairies are the dealers, disguised but amongst society... for homicide, symbolizing... to disguise their true evil.
Hit and Run meaning deal and get out... all of this while people's faith and religion is put on the back burner. "Everybody drinkin unholy blood..." is how the community in "the Bronx" has become. We then see the gunner himself doing heroin when he breathes deep. The important part of the song is the perspective of the man who is alive to see drugs destroy gunner, and then slowly destroy society... symbolizing the rising waters of the flood this man has witnessed.
The line that puts the comparison of war to a drug ridden society is "Have you thrown your senses to the war, or did you lose them in the flood?" The Flood began, gunner drowned in the flood, and it escalated slowly throughout the song. Quicksand symbolizing a degeneration and sinking which will continue slowly... unlike mud which you can easily take care of.
Dull Eyed and empty faced we find Gunner living life and slowly sinking.... in the background of the U.S in the 1970's. Gunner then crashes his car horribly and the flood ultimately usurps him. Clearly, "nothing left that you could sell" means that Gunner has sold all of his items for drug money. "Junk all across the horizon" symbolizing his fatal downfall because of the drug.
What was he thinking when he hit the storm, or was he just lost in the flood, informs us that indeed the feeling on the drug is "the flood", that gunner most likely was slowly drowning the entire time and may not have even had time to realize his degeneration.
The song then shifts......
Eighth Avenue Sailors in satin shirts whispering are still drug dealers (satin!?), we see a drug community, bronx's best apostle holding his hardware (gun) when the cops come flooding into battle the gang (the flood is taking over, the pitch crescendo's......... you can almost feel a titanic like rise in the background keyboard........ everything is out of control.
We now see the society and the world that usurped Gunner..... and are forced to remember that he was a nationalistic person.... a person fighting for this country which is under the flood. Leading us to ask what are we really fighting for?
The Irony of Gunner's death being caused NOT by fighting in the war, but by the very society he was fighting for is the purpose of the song to me. A victim of his own freedom, which while willing to die for, took his own life.
That's how I feel.