So, I wanted to start a new blog with a specific purpose, to analyze and attempt to decipher songs that somehow achieve popularity despite the fact that it's impossible to know what they hell they are singing about. I mean, you'll get it when you read this first, and obviously, most important blog in the world, about a song that became a hit in the early 90's for the band Soul Asylum.
Remember Soul Asylum, when they released "Runaway Train" and had a video featuring kids from all those milk boxes? Runaway kids? Get it, like a runaway train. I still think that is the tenuous connection between those two things. I have no idea if that song is about runaway children, or just being out of control. I don't really pay attention to those things. But I'm sure it's just about something like one of those two things, unlike "Black Gold", which might as well be called, "Too Many Fucking Metaphors".
OK, now, here's where this blog gets cooler: embedded HTML!!!!
Anyway, you should watch the video for "Black Gold" before reading the rest of this. Because the video, like the song, makes no sense, despite what people in the comments section have to say. Just because you know the lead singer of Soul Asylum banged Winona Ryder (and honestly, what lead singer of any band from here to 1991 hasn't?) doesn't mean this song is about the war over oil.
OK, evidence #1: the lyrics--
Two boys on a playground
Tryin' to push each other down
See the crowd gather 'round
Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd
Black gold in a white flag
Won't you fill up the tank, let's go for a ride
I don't care 'bout no wheelchair
I've got so much left to do with my life
Moving backwards through time
Never learn, never mind
That side's yours, this side's mine
Brother you ain't my kind
You're a black soldier, white fight
Won't you fill up the tank, let's go for a ride
Sure like to feel some pride
But this place just makes me feel sad inside
Mother, do you know where your kids are tonight?
Keeps the kids off the streets
Gives 'em something to do, something to eat
This spot was a playground
This flat land used to be a town
Black gold in a white flag
Won't you fill up the tank, let's go for a ride
Sure like to feel some pride
But this place just makes me feel sad inside
Black gold in a white flag
Won't you fill up the tank, let's go for a ride
I don't care 'bout no wheelchair
I've got so much left to do with my life
Evidence # 2: the video.
Notice how there are no wheelchairs in the video? And a dove? And lots of angry rocking out, and they kick hay in the air (take that, hay!)? Yeah, this song will be iconic for this blog, a song that is 1) catchy, 2) at least somewhat of a hit, and 3) so meaningless that it has layers of indecipherability, which is a word I made up to mean like fourteen enigmas wrapped in seventy-two puzzles with a smattering of conundrums and mysteries, too.
What do I think? I like this song. I was listening to "Runaway Train" when I stole my friend's iPod, and I was like, "Hey, do you have 'Black Gold'?" and he's like, "Never heard it. It must not exist," and I had to explain that it is a lost wasteland of weird metaphors and indecipherable lyrics. So I got it and I like it. I think that the song has a compelling quality, because it is catchy and it has some neat phrases:
"Nothing attracts the crowd like a crowd"
"Moving backwards through time/Never learn, never mind"
"I don't care 'bout no wheelchair/I've got so much left to do with my life"
It is also fucking weird. I've broken down the three verses: the first verse is about how a fight between two kids can bring in attention, which brings in more attention, just to see what everyone is looking at. The second verse is not about that at all; it's about not learning how to see our similarities. The final verse is the song in microcosm: something unnamed keeps kids occupied, but at the same time, this former playground/small town is now "flat land".
From Wikipedia: "The meaning of the song has been the topic of many debates. Some fans state that it simply is about racism and/or black soldiers fighting in a war ("You're a black soldier, white fight"). Other disagree and claim it is about the greed for oil (Black Gold is another term for oil). One other theory maintains that it is about the Gulf War. Many lyrics from the song do match this idea. The lyrics "Two boys on a playground/trying to push each other down" could possibly mean the USA and Iraq fighting over "Black Gold". It has been theorized that the lines "Keeps the kids off the streets/gives 'em something to do, something to eat" could mean young men and women ("kids") joining the military. And there is the fact that at about 1:56 various noises are heard: ambulance sirens, screams, cries, and what appears to be a news cast, which could represent the war."
The Gulf War? Huh? I have a number of refutations for the people who think this is about the Gulf War--starting with that fucked up video. Where in that video do they do anything other than push a car and kick hay? (By the way, the part in the middle with the black woman crying or whatever? What is that?) I thought about this, because I did consider that"fill up the tank" could mean tank as in a tank, not a gas tank, but really, what is the whole wheelchair thing, I ask you? Are you expecting me to believe that this song is sung in the voice of a crippled veteran of the first Gulf War, when we suffered like two casualties? Not so much Gulf War.
I highly doubt that this song really means anything. I know that's a hypothesis that might anger all those people who are Soul Asylum fans and think that Dave Pirner has written a dynamite little rocker about black soldiers forced to fight for the white man, or whatever, but I really think that this is a collection of words, not a song. It creates interesting images, but in the end, I don't get anything out of this. Compare this to obscure songs that never say what they mean but you get it anyways. With this, he's probably said exactly what he means, and we're like, "Huh?"
Verdict: guilty of indecipherability.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
In Pirner's literal, actual words from an interview on spin dot com titled "Wrong Way on a One-Way Track: The Oral History of Soul Asylum’s ‘Runaway Train’" : "I mean, the second single, “Black Gold,” was about the “no blood for oil” thing."
ReplyDeleteYou're gonna have to take the L on this one.
Agree with second comment by Pompilid this song WAS much, much, much later clarified by Pirner to be about blood for oil. However, Pirner did have a knack for using metaphors for leaving song meanings ambiguous. A good artist knows in doing so, it leaves a song up for interpretation, cross-generational, cross-genre, and quite frankly timeless, mass appeal with a multitude of applicability. That's not to say that songs written with clear intended purpose or statement (dare I say in black and white within this discussion) are bad.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Pirner's final reveal detracts from this bloggers comments much. At our present political discourse I myself was returning to the lyrics of one of my favorite 90s songs/bands and reanalyzing them again. How relevant are they to TODAY's current political climate and protests over racism, bigotry, inequality and injustice? Like I said, clever writing can be taken numerous ways and withstands the test of time. It is no accident the simplicity of the music in this song compared to many of SA's heavier songs (though Grace Dancer's Union was mostly a cohesive album of their lighter fare save maybe Somebody To Shove which made it stand out all the more). Compare those tracks (The Sun Maid, Runaway Train, Homesick, etc.) to something like Caged Rat, but I digress.
As to the first post by "Unknown" the lyrical correction is correct but with misapplied malapropism (confusing a word for similar sounding word(s), not just by ear but in intended meaning). While the lyric is plight the poster it seems is thinking blight (something that spoils, detracts from, damages, or has some other kind of severely detrimental affect on) e.g. the abandoned rundown house on the unmaintained lot is a blight on the neighborhood. The plight of some subject is an unfortunate situation that can prove challenging and/or perilous.
Also related, Pirner has also clarified I believe in the same referenced interview that Runaway Train was NOT originally about runaway children at all but totally went with the idea given him by the video creator. Likely again for it's mass appeal not to mention for it's potential.
ReplyDeleteReplying to my own post here, sorry battery is dying, I don't doubt however, Pirner wrote Runaway Train again playing with metaphors to also leave it intentionally open to different interpretations including runaway children.
Delete