And this hair shirt is woven from your brown hair.
JasonParde
My new favorite (old) Barenaked Ladies song has become WHAT A GOOD BOY.
Although I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the song is complaining
about. I'd like to give a few theories, but if anyone has a clear idea please
share!
Here are my muddled thoughts on the matter...
My inital take on it was that the song is about a man and a woman (his sister?
maybe not?). They both were born to parents whose unreasonable expectations
left him feeling imprisoned. He finds his educational experience to be futile.
"If I pass, if I fail, if I drop out does anyone give a damn?" He wants
certain change in his life, but fears it.
There's some kind of tension between him and the woman. "This name is the hair
shirt I wear and this hair shirt is woven from, woven from your brown hair."
According to Merriam Webster's dictionary, a hair shirt is
1 : a shirt made of rough animal hair worn next to the skin as a penance
2 : one that irritates like a hair shirt
So maybe she irritates him? Maybe his penance is brought on by her? Who
knows?
The piece I can't fit into my theory is his plea, "be with me tonight. I know
it isn't right. Be with me tonight." Surely he means this in the most
innocent of meanings!
Any ideas? help!
JOBrien204
>My inital take on it was that the song is about a man and a woman (his
>sister?
About a year ago or so there was a debate on this board about whether it was
about incest or not. Most said no, but who knows?
JohnO
Lillemore
I've never though of Good Boy as a song about incest or the other take, a song
about homosexuality. I've always thought of it as a song about two
overacheiving young people finding strength in each other ... despite all the
restrictions and expectations others have of them.
The narrator isn't able to admit he's wrong or she's right because he's never
learned to communicate beyond tacitly agreeing with or ignoring his parents /
the establishment/ whatever. He'd rather sit in silence than have to deal with
his problems. And, I think, so would the girl in the song. It's a lot easier to
shut down emotionally than to open up.
However, he's trying. "Be with me tonight" I take to mean, "have patience with
me., we can do this. Just stay here for a while and just *be* with me tonight."
This song means a lot to me, so I may just be pinning a lot of my own
perceptions on it (the poor song!) but that's my two pence / cents/ lire/
whatever.
Lille
---------------------------------------------------------------
"In the age old battle between sweet and savory, savory always wins." --Steven
Page, July 1997
Reverend Coyote Moon
From the desk of the High Priest of Dionysus...
Okay. The line: "Bear it with me, bear it with me, be with me tonight...I
know it isn't right...just be with me tonight" is talking about a direct
line to the relationship problem in the song. He knows it's not right for
them to stay the night together at that stage, because of the emotional
problems between them, but he's saying that it's his need to hold on to
the relationship that's breaking him apart.
Reflect that with the lines, "I couldn't tell you I was wrong, chickened
out, took the pen and the paper, sat down and I wrote this song...I
couldn't tell you that you were right so instead I looked in the mirror
watched TV laid awake all night" the guy feeling like he can't share his
feelings with his girlfriend, can't admit he was wrong, yadda yadda.
Anyway, my interp.
The Good Reverend
Regal_...@webtv.net
relationship between a guy and girl who are pressured to succeed in the
world's eyes even though some people that don't even know them want to
see them fail. They don't want things to stay the same, but they're
afraid of change. When he says, "be with me tonight, I know that it
isn't right, just be with me tonight" he's saying he knows they
shouldn't be together that night, but he wants her to stay anyway. He
sings it (on RS) like he's frustrated with himself for wanting her to
stay, but he wants her to anyway, perhaps he's frustrated with himself
for being so weak. What A Good Boy is definitely my favorite old slow
song by BNL
GeoffCJ
Maybe I need to listen to it again, but it seems, at least in part, to be about
the different expectations that society has of people, especially with regards
to different genders...
hmmm...course I could be way off base...
Geoff
=> Geoff
geoffj...@yahoo.com
or Geo...@aol.com
---Always looking for climbing partners in Cal.....
JasonParde
Thanks for the explanations, everyone. I guess the song does all make sense...
except for that one line that still kind of trips me up, which is why I put it
in the title of the post: "This name is the hair shirt I wear, and this hair
shirt is woven from (woven from) your brown hair."
This line alone made through me off and I even wondered for a moment if she was
his sister. Does he feel burdened by his name? His parents/ancestors? And
why is his "irritating clothing worn for penance" woven from her brown hair?
(Of course this whole line of questioning is nutty. I should just shut up and
enjoy the music, but these are the things that make me play the song again and
again until I can figure it out.)
Lillemore
Okay, let's talk specifically about the hairshirt lines.
If you really want to keep the song "in the family way," you could perceive the
hairshirt as being made of his parents genetic material. Dad's name is the
hairshirt he wears (the source of all his burdens and what he wears to remind
himself of what's expected of him) and it's woven from (woven from) Mom's brown
hair.
If you want to perceive the song another way, think of the hairshirt as
society's expectations and the hairshirt being woven from the girl's brown hair
-- either she's not helping, and her own expectations are making things worse
OR (if you're an optimist, ha ha) then having this hairshirt woven from her
brown hair makes it easier, softer. A kinder, gentler burden, if you will.
Okay, this is all pre-caffeine on a Sunday morning, so if it made no sense, mea
culpa. That is all.
Lille
------------------------------------------------------------------
"the damage and the dying done, the clarity of light
gentle bows and glasses raised to the charity of night" --Bruce Cockburn
Bootlegs: http://members.aol.com/Lillemore/Bootlegs.html
Timothy O'Neill
I think that the guy in the song is a smart, wealthy guy that was born into
"proper scociety". This puts restrictions on him that he wants to shake
off...therefore the name that he has is his constant reminder of everything
he has but doesn't want. Perhaps his parents/friends/stuffy colleagues
don't approve of the girl he's with, and he knows that the other people in
his life don't think they should be together...so he feels like he can't be
with her (the name as the hairshirt) but can't leave her (woven of her brown
hair). The whole song is about him thinking that he's supposed to leave
her, but he loves her too much to.
Or maybe I have too much spare time. Anyways, my opinion
~Katie
Gymnas4855
Steven Page's view of a hair shirt:
It's an itchy, painful shirt made from Ox hair that Monks used to wear in the
Renaissance. It was their constant reminder of the
world's sins they pledged to pray for.
There u all go, right from the horse's mouth! :)
Artorius
actually is. Thank you for taking the Occam's Razor approach.
Barenaked in PDX,
Artorius
Gymnas4855
No problem:) I thought it'd be a better ide anyways. I mean, all of the ideas
were good, but since Steve wrote the song, he would know what a hair shirt was.
VanFan76
Ok, I'm going to attempt to take a stab at this one but I'm more than likely
way off track. In the song he talks about how society has these expectations
of us from the time we're born and we're sort of reluctant or afraid to break
away from them. He says his name is the hairshirt he wears meaning his
name/label is his burden or penance and the girl that he is speaking of in the
song is part of society (only holding him back) and he realizes this.
In the next line he says this song is the cross that I bear, bear it with me,
be with me tonight, I know that it isn't right. He seems to be ambivalent
towards her, knowing she's helping him with his burden but also that she's
adding to it and he knows it isn't right to continue with this relationship.
Melissa
FansMarie
a friend of mine met the ladies a few years ago, and the first question
she asked was, "what's a hair shirt?" and steven told her "a burden."
ann