J. David wrote:
> I was surprised to see No Apologies show up on
> least favorites lists.
--- Mark or Travis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> replied:
> I agree with this assessment & I've tried to say the
> same thing
> before. The song does have an underlying theme &
> although it may
> contain some personal references that the rest of us
> can only guess
> at, it is not 'disjointed'. I happen to like it
> too.
Make that me three. I do like the song. It's not my
most favourite (what is? that depends on the day, the
mood I'm in and so on), but I think it's a good song
that makes some excellent points.
Joni is musing aloud about injustice in the world -
how a young Japanese girl could be so brutally raped
by these soldiers, and then the case shrugged off by
their general with a "boys-will-be-boys" kind of
response ("They should have hired a hooker.")
She then goes on to talk about friends (or former
friends) repeating back to her a story someone else
has told - to me, it doesn't matter if it's Jackson
Brown or anyone else. It's slightly humourous, in a
black-humour kind of way - "Freddie says that Juan
says I think he's the devil." (Kind of a
he-says/she-says thing). She dismisses this: calling
this little creep "the devil" would be paying him too
great a compliment ("What a lofty title for such a
petty little tyrant!")
(Aside: I just noticed the lyrics section of the jmdl
says:
"Freddie said that once, I think/ He's the devil/
What a lofty time/ For such a petty little tyrant"
What's up with that?)
I agree with Mark when he says the song deals with
what it means to be *a man* ("what makes a man a man
in these tough times?" The place is falling apart and
being taken over by criminals (warlords and drug
lords, lawyers and loansharks - poor lawyers get
rapped again!); the earth is being raped; a young girl
is raped; the ecology is being destroyed; the moon has
been trampled. And no one apologizes for any of it.
I don't find it disjointed at all, although it isn't
as tight as some of Joni's lyrics can be. It's a bit
more stream-of-consciousness, but it ends up at the
same place - there's the same refrain: "Tireskids and
teethmarks/ What happened to this place?/ Lawyers and
loan sharks/ Are laying America to waste."
And she ends up where she started: "The general
offered no apologies..."
Get your free @yahoo.ca address at http://mail.yahoo.ca
