But it's not a song about environmental degradation, suburban sprawl, or even urban blight.
It's a song about the big yellow taxi that took his girl away.
Ahem, thanks. It's still an anthem among the hippier environmentalists, though.
I know. I still think it's odd. I mean, the song is set up so that you're supposed to think it's an environmentalist song... until the last line of the last verse.
Next question: Is Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" another song where the real subject--her broken heart--is masked until almost the end. I mean, whose is the voice she is thinking of? And why are the bells of the church ringing?
Yeah, that's interesting!
I once saw this cool photography-art thing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, back when it was still housed in the upper floors of the War Memorial Opera House. I don't remember the artist, but here's how it worked. You look at a series of boring photos -- the most banal of snapshots -- things like some kid next to a car, a convenience stoor with someone buying milk, a little-league baseball field. Then you read some text, and you learn that in this town (in Colorado?) there was some sort of chemical-waste scandal going on, invisible. You look at the photos again, and it's all got a very different feel. That piece -- which I have to say I thought was only okay -- made me think of this old question, what if you could hear the background music of your life's movie? You'd hear the ominous music that would presage some mortal threat lurking around the corner. It'd be like hindsight, but early enough for it to help you.
Songs like Tom's Diner, you're supposed to listen to twice. The second time it's a different experience, and you get to see how morning-diner aloneness can actually be morning-diner loneliness and how every ordinary thing can be infused with invisible poignancy.
I would also point out that freedom isn't actually another word for nothing left to lose.
And what exactly is "The Weight"--the "load" that Fanny has to take off?
And in the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled Up in Blue," when the narrator feels "uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe," are we supposed to conclude that the "she [who] was working in a topless place" and the "I [who] stopped in for a beer" are Miriam from Magdala and God-Saves the Anointed One, respectively?
Yes. Either that or they're Carrie and Big from SATC. Prefigured.
But Carrie Bradshaw is going to marry Mikhail Baryshnikov. I have foreseen it...
Oink oink...Robbie Robertson, who wrote "The Weight," says,
For me it was a combination of Catholocism and gospel music. The story told in the song is about the guilt of relationships, not being able to give what's being asked of you. Someone is stumbling through life, going from one situation to another, with different characters. In going through these catacombs of experience. you're trying to do what's right, but it seems that with all the places you have to go, it's just not possible. In the song, all this is 'the load.'