Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad
The Carpenter is a normal guy who "Shows up" which I interpreted as sudden fame, "claiming he is hip to who made heaven and earth" represents his trying to fit in and display his knowledge of the business and the story about his dad represents to me him trying to fabricate his past to fit in. In the next stanza he makes a reference to a tree which I thought to have two meanings, one being the layout of the poem itself resembling a tree and the the other meaning being a metaphor for a pedestal that he has been put on by his fans. "You're hot they tell him and they cool him, they stretch him on the tree to cool and everybody after that is always making models of this tree with him hung up and always crooning his name and calling him to come down and sit in on their combo as if he is the king cat who's got to blow, or quite can't make it, only he don't come down from his tree, him just hang there on his tree" He is on a pedestal and he does not come down from his "high horse" he is now too good to even have a conversation with the same people who put him on his pedestal.
The Carpenter is a normal guy who "Shows up" which I interpreted as sudden fame, "claiming he is hip to who made heaven and earth" represents his trying to fit in and display his knowledge of the business and the story about his dad represents to me him trying to fabricate his past to fit in. In the next stanza he makes a reference to a tree which I thought to have two meanings, one being the layout of the poem itself resembling a tree and the the other meaning being a metaphor for a pedestal that he has been put on by his fans. "You're hot they tell him and they cool him, they stretch him on the tree to cool and everybody after that is always making models of this tree with him hung up and always crooning his name and calling him to come down and sit in on their combo as if he is the king cat who's got to blow, or quite can't make it, only he don't come down from his tree, him just hang there on his tree" He is on a pedestal and he does not come down from his "high horse" he is now too good to even have a conversation with the same people who put him on his pedestal.
I read this poem to and find it inteseting to. I like the points you make specially when you said the tree is like a pedestal. I didnt view it to that extent or picture it that way you made a good point by saying the tree is a pedestal that he has been put on by his fans. Also on a side not do you think that how society is now once you make it up top their do you forget the ones that made you and support you to reach onto the pedestal?
ReplyDeleteThe first thing to realize, is that this is a commentary on Judeo-Christian mythology--reinscribing Christ in the present (the poem written in the late 1950s)as a jazz singer/idol, come from working class background, as many jazzmen did---you'd want to keep the exetended metaphor in mind as you consider the imagery....
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