While I understand that the intentional meaning was about Jane Smiley's boyfriend, I believe that the beautiful thing about music is that it can mean whatever you want it to. I believe that the song is about a religiously rebellious boy who religion imposed upon. he is emotionally destroyed because his ideas of reality are undermined so terribly by his own father. It is almost as if he is lost his own life when his father does, because he is left in a turmoil. It is an endless cycle that causes him to die inside, hence the line, "One son is gone."
While I understand that the intentional meaning was about Jane Smiley's boyfriend, I believe that the beautiful thing about music is that it can mean whatever you want it to. I believe that the song is about a religiously rebellious boy who religion imposed upon. he is emotionally destroyed because his ideas of reality are undermined so terribly by his own father. It is almost as if he is lost his own life when his father does, because he is left in a turmoil. It is an endless cycle that causes him to die inside, hence the line, "One son is gone."
Maybe the son is gone but he's only gone in the eyes of the father. Now that the father is out of the picture the son is reborn to a new life.
Maybe the son is gone but he's only gone in the eyes of the father. Now that the father is out of the picture the son is reborn to a new life.