{"id":723,"date":"2011-06-01T12:32:43","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T19:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=723"},"modified":"2015-01-12T09:31:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:31:53","slug":"the-annotated-decemberists-no-2-shiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2011\/06\/the-annotated-decemberists-no-2-shiny\/","title":{"rendered":"The Annotated Decemberists No. 2: “Shiny”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps no band’s lyrics better lend themselves to pseudo-academic analysis than those of The Decemberists. The Annotated Decemberists<\/a> is an attempt to puzzle through the Portland, Oregon, group’s entire catalog song by song\u2014examining all the obscure vocabulary, historical references and poetic subtext\u2014or go crazy trying.<\/em><\/p>\n

In his typical, understated fashion, The Decemberists<\/a>‘ songwriter Colin Meloy has said little about this ballad other than, “This is a song about a gypsy.” In it, a dejected narrator pines over a young carny<\/a> with tan skin, vintage footwear and strangely bewitching eyes.<\/p>\n

“Shiny”
\n<\/strong>From 5 Songs<\/a><\/em> (2003)<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

By the bumper cars
\nIn the pretty twining[1]<\/sup><\/a> light
\nI may have gone too far
\nI may have gone too much, too long
\nI\u2019m a dull and witless boy[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Killing jar. (via www.extension.umn.edu)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the after bars
\nThink I was sullied[3]<\/sup><\/a> by a dream
\nIn the killing jar[4]<\/sup><\/a>
\nYou and me at war, at arms
\nAll falling in embrace<\/em><\/p>\n

Tell me why you lied
\nAnd what it is you do to keep your eyes all shiny[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A tawny[6]<\/sup><\/a> gypsy girl
\nSleeping blanketed by stars
\nBeneath the Tilt-A-Whirl[7]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhere we were coyly caught alone
\nAll fumbling with your blouse<\/em><\/p>\n

Tell me why you lied
\nAnd what it is you do to keep your eyes all shiny<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Saddle shoe. (via shoes.about.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And in the rollercoaster din
\nBy the parachutes in saddle shoes
\nYou break your shins[8]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBut I have never seen two eyes so shiny<\/em><\/p>\n

And the sullen beery swine
\nWho try to tangle you
\nIn sullen beery balls of twine
\nHave they ever seen two eyes so shiny?<\/em><\/p>\n

Boys in denim vests
\nSmoking cigarettes between
\nThe bootblack[9]<\/sup><\/a> fingertips
\nSweetly tipsy by the half light
\nThe light and the half light[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Tell me why you lied
\n<\/em>And what it is you do to keep your eyes all shiny<\/em><\/p>\n

Exegesis Manifest<\/span>    (↑ returns to text)<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. “vt.<\/strong> to twist together; intertwine; interlace.” The narrator seems to be describing twilight as the sunset and night being woven together, a theme that is revisited in the final verse. (See note 10<\/a>.)↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. “A Dull and Witless Boy” is also the name of Meloy’s Tumblr blog<\/a>.↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. “vt.<\/strong> to soil, stain, tarnish, or besmirch, now esp. by disgracing.”↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Entomologists use these devices to kill insects without smashing their specimens. The simplest version is just a sealable glass container with a thin layer of plaster of Paris, which can absorb and slowly release insecticide. In this stanza, the narrator appears to be describing how he was unable to enjoy himself because he was troubled by a dream of being trapped with the song’s love interest in a killing jar, where they died in each other’s arms, although there is confusion about whether they were fighting or embracing.”↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. The good folks over at songmeanings.net<\/a> have all kinds of theories about the song’s key image. Some wrote that it implies the subject often has tears in her eyes. One poster assumed the narrator was describing the effects of certain drugs. Several others insist that the line refers to an involuntary, biological reaction that causes your eyes to “secret a fluid” whenever you’re attracted to someone. (“This is true,” one writes. “Look it up.” (Um, we did, and all we could find was evidence<\/a> that the rush of adrenaline tends to cause the eyes to dilate, which might help explain why we find things with big pupils cute.)) At any rate, it’s this blogger’s opinion that she simply has pretty eyes.↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  6. “adj.<\/strong> brownish-yellow; tan.”↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  7. According to Wikipedia,\u00a0Sellner Manufacturing<\/a> of Faribault, Minnesota, has produced more than 1,000 of these nausea-inducing carnival rides since 1927. Since unpredictability and chaos theory govern the rider’s experience, it makes an especially apropos metaphor for the whirl of romance, dontchathink?↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  8. This probably doesn’t mean she literally gets her tibias<\/a> broken. More likely, Meloy is utilizing an old slang term<\/a> for borrowing money.↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  9. We’ll go ahead and infer that the narrator is describing carnival workers with fingers so dirty they’re as black as shoe polish.↑<\/a><\/li>\n
  10. A reference to William Butler Yeats’ 1899 poem “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”:\n

    Had I the heavens\u2019 embroidered cloths,
    \nEnwrought with golden and silver light,
    \nThe blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    \nOf night and light and the half light,
    \nI would spread the cloths under your feet:
    \nBut I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    \nI have spread my dreams under your feet;
    \nTread softly because you tread on my dreams.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Aedh is one of three archetypal personae (Yeats described them as “principles of the mind”) in the Irish poet’s\u00a0The Wind Among the Reeds. <\/em>Adeh\u00a0is\u00a0a lovesick figure obsessed with a beautiful woman. He is often compared to the knight-at-arms in John Keats’ “La Bella Dame Sans Merci<\/a>,” who becomes sick and pale after being abandoned by a mysterious, bewitching lady. The song’s narrator seems to be casting his lot with these pitiful romantics, remaining fixated on the unobtainable beauty of this gypsy with the shiny eyes.↑<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\"Share\"<\/a>\n