I'd put it down as wibblings about man-made environmental issues; toxic waste dumping and a mild confusion of ozone destruction and greenhouse effects.
Clearly the pixies are developing their themes in the context of a Spenglerian analysis of history, from within the fabric of a culture essentially protestant in semiotic code-system, combining the legacy of metaphysical comedy given to us by Dante, Milton, Joly, Goethe and others. This is a cunning choice, as the trajectory of these religious and pseudoreligious works from the the middle age devotional and into the modern cultural context in a role of satire, are now often regarded as fore-runners in post-ironic literature -- that is texts where anti-correlations in signification in various codes are not textual flaws, but are intended as the very atoms of meaning.
So this gives us the essential tone of the piece, anachronistic christian religious imagery, apparently heretical and signifying downfall, simple in paradigm but complex in syntagm, appropriate for a culture in a Spenglerian or Hegelian autumnal 'zeitgeist'. An ironic tone is added by the use of an essentially neopagan motif, of prominent references to earth, fire, water, and air and the recurring reference to their confluence in quintescence, and by the manner in which the philosophy of history chosen by the authors is closely allied to the seasonal motifs of that religion, and environmental surface-meaning perhaps being a deliberate reference to Mueller, to whose system of textual structure the work owes a debt.
Again, drawing closer, there appears to be a non-human primate identified as the first person. There are many ways this can be interpreted, for example as a diminutive, in a rather normalising manner akin to the late nineteenth century's approach to Darwinism.
Perhaps a more natural meaning, however, is to consider the correlaiton of the monkey against the cartesian dichotomy of subject and object, where the monkey is closely allied with the object, a speicies endowed with many of the objective charatesitics of mankind (again through an early darwinistic analysis) but without the ethical considerations closely allied to willful asceticism. Monkeys are cheeky, they are devils, they are humans with tails.
In identifying the human with the monkey, The Pixies identify the human with the object, with atoms and stones, and immediately juxtopose it against the entirely (presumably protestant nonsubstantiated) subject-form act of 'going to heaven'.
The underwater man, who controlled the sea, clearly correlates with the metaphysical negative -- the sea is deep, as is hell, and nothing is as watery as a grave. Here we have the diabolical represented in the element of water. But the Faustian pact into which the first-person of the text entered has clearly defated them in sludge, in dirt, in sin. One of the few observed metaphorical analogies observed in other primates is the correspondence of defication to deprecation, the dirty monkey. The city (New York) and its sins, and travel (New Jersey), (the twenty first centuries increasingly active definition of civilisation) were taken as responsible for the failure. The geographical identification being a farcical overemphasis of the objectification of will.
The sky is the second of our elemental scenes, and here the emphasis turns sexual and gender related issues. Whether the lyrical 'typo' "ahole" is authorial intent, the transcriber, at least, is clealy not immune to the connotations of "sucking", or of the Freudian connotations of cutting, of holes or, indeed, of the cutting of holes. Remember, here we question these things of God. This monkey, you will notice paradigmatically, does not go to heaven.
The third element is the earth, which is not cold. Curiously, cold is correlated with goodness in the traditional Christian code-systems, and heat to hell. The surface significaiton of the greenhouse effect can be seen as an invocaiton of a culturally pre-existing correltation with death, fire, and hell on earth. This monkey, too, does not go to heaven. Clearly the waste-disposal industry is being invoked here, the ironic counterpoint to consuming humanity, particularly the nuclear industry with their "hot" waste, representitive of the military-industrial complex, along with the military's "hot" (ie not-cold) wars. We see that the earth becomes hotter in a consumer society not held paralyed by fear in superpower tension, but fighting small wars in hot places abroad.
The fourth element, and the final earthly element of our short tale, is that of fire. The author predicts, in a more direct manner now, that the first person is deserving of punishment in a traditional christian sense, in the fires of hell. However, the author is resigned to this torment, and rather disregarding of it and, suggestive of purgatory, this monkey does eventually reach heaven.
Of our four earthly elements, then, those two representive of traditional sins, heresies within the aligned system of christianity, are seen as ultimately redemable and result in some kind of eventual redemption. The fire and water monkeys go to heaven. The air and earth monkeys, on the other hand, represent a rejection of the dominant dichotomies, not an anti-alignment, but a non-alignment and ambiguity in roles, in terms of sexuality, gender, and in a denial of the economic consumer/producer utilitarian and militaristic axes, these monkeys do not go to heaven.
Finally, the synthesis of these theses is produced, a parody of the normative ideas of pre-Kantian metaphysics by comparing them to a labelled diagram as one might find in a repair manual. The final line chillingly suggests that as long as the identificaiton with traditional morality is maintained then the object of man is ultimately redemable whatever the sense of that alignment, and that the hereseys are to deny such schemes. That monkey goes to heaven, too.
So the song is nothing more than a rather formulaic piece with many protestant and Germanic influences, steeped in those traditions, with a tale of four "fools" and their ship, earth.
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Date: 2004-01-27 02:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-27 03:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-27 04:39 am (UTC)Something like this...
Date: 2004-01-27 01:33 pm (UTC)1/2
Date: 2004-01-27 04:48 pm (UTC)So this gives us the essential tone of the piece, anachronistic christian religious imagery, apparently heretical and signifying downfall, simple in paradigm but complex in syntagm, appropriate for a culture in a Spenglerian or Hegelian autumnal 'zeitgeist'. An ironic tone is added by the use of an essentially neopagan motif, of prominent references to earth, fire, water, and air and the recurring reference to their confluence in quintescence, and by the manner in which the philosophy of history chosen by the authors is closely allied to the seasonal motifs of that religion, and environmental surface-meaning perhaps being a deliberate reference to Mueller, to whose system of textual structure the work owes a debt.
Again, drawing closer, there appears to be a non-human primate identified as the first person. There are many ways this can be interpreted, for example as a diminutive, in a rather normalising manner akin to the late nineteenth century's approach to Darwinism.
Perhaps a more natural meaning, however, is to consider the correlaiton of the monkey against the cartesian dichotomy of subject and object, where the monkey is closely allied with the object, a speicies endowed with many of the objective charatesitics of mankind (again through an early darwinistic analysis) but without the ethical considerations closely allied to willful asceticism. Monkeys are cheeky, they are devils, they are humans with tails.
In identifying the human with the monkey, The Pixies identify the human with the object, with atoms and stones, and immediately juxtopose it against the entirely (presumably protestant nonsubstantiated) subject-form act of 'going to heaven'.
2/2
Date: 2004-01-27 04:49 pm (UTC)The sky is the second of our elemental scenes, and here the emphasis turns sexual and gender related issues. Whether the lyrical 'typo' "ahole" is authorial intent, the transcriber, at least, is clealy not immune to the connotations of "sucking", or of the Freudian connotations of cutting, of holes or, indeed, of the cutting of holes. Remember, here we question these things of God. This monkey, you will notice paradigmatically, does not go to heaven.
The third element is the earth, which is not cold. Curiously, cold is correlated with goodness in the traditional Christian code-systems, and heat to hell. The surface significaiton of the greenhouse effect can be seen as an invocaiton of a culturally pre-existing correltation with death, fire, and hell on earth. This monkey, too, does not go to heaven. Clearly the waste-disposal industry is being invoked here, the ironic counterpoint to consuming humanity, particularly the nuclear industry with their "hot" waste, representitive of the military-industrial complex, along with the military's "hot" (ie not-cold) wars. We see that the earth becomes hotter in a consumer society not held paralyed by fear in superpower tension, but fighting small wars in hot places abroad.
The fourth element, and the final earthly element of our short tale, is that of fire. The author predicts, in a more direct manner now, that the first person is deserving of punishment in a traditional christian sense, in the fires of hell. However, the author is resigned to this torment, and rather disregarding of it and, suggestive of purgatory, this monkey does eventually reach heaven.
Of our four earthly elements, then, those two representive of traditional sins, heresies within the aligned system of christianity, are seen as ultimately redemable and result in some kind of eventual redemption. The fire and water monkeys go to heaven. The air and earth monkeys, on the other hand, represent a rejection of the dominant dichotomies, not an anti-alignment, but a non-alignment and ambiguity in roles, in terms of sexuality, gender, and in a denial of the economic consumer/producer utilitarian and militaristic axes, these monkeys do not go to heaven.
Finally, the synthesis of these theses is produced, a parody of the normative ideas of pre-Kantian metaphysics by comparing them to a labelled diagram as one might find in a repair manual. The final line chillingly suggests that as long as the identificaiton with traditional morality is maintained then the object of man is ultimately redemable whatever the sense of that alignment, and that the hereseys are to deny such schemes. That monkey goes to heaven, too.
So the song is nothing more than a rather formulaic piece with many protestant and Germanic influences, steeped in those traditions, with a tale of four "fools" and their ship, earth.
I think they were probably on crack.
Re: 2/2
Date: 2004-01-28 04:16 am (UTC)