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Song meaning: Long Time Running - Printable Version

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Song meaning: Long Time Running - crazylegs - 06-06-2005

I've searched the forums and haven't found an answer so if this has been covered before, forgive me.

I'm trying to find out what the meaning of "Long Time Running" is? Any ideas?

Thanks.

- chives - 06-06-2005

I would bet something to do with a relationship, between a guy and a girl. "Does your mother tell you things, long after I'm gone...." But it is the Hip, it is Mr. Downie, therefore, it can be anything you want it to be.....

- crazylegs - 06-06-2005

Yeah I think you are right. It sounds like something to do with a couple, maybe a child and a breakup. I just wish I had somethine more definitive but that's pretty tough.

Thanks

- Killer Whale Tank - 06-06-2005

That's a song about a young man reluctant to commit. 'Is she tellin' you I'm the one? It's a great mistake...' Now, I don't think the narrator is denying that he MIGHT be 'the one,' but he's definitely insisting that the relationship be allowed to take its own course. The mistake is to rush things. 'It's been a long time coming, it's well worth the wait.' The 'it' here is, I think, his eventual willingness to commit.

I always felt that this was one of the least ambiguous Hip lyrics, and a real young man's tune.

There are other complications---e.g., she's trying to 'work me against my friends'---a nice comment about the kind of dynamic that love affairs sometimes take on (especially if you're a travelling rock and roll singer Smile)---and there's the symbol of the confused weatherman trying to see how the wind is blowing, probably a metaphor for indecision. But I don't see anything in the tune that contradicts this basic reading of the lyric.

- crazylegs - 06-07-2005

That sounds like a very good interpretation of the song. I've never been good at deciphering lyrics but you have me convinced. Thanks for your help!

- Coneycat - 06-07-2005

I felt very clever, and yet quite stupid, when I finally figured out that cryptic "drop a caribou" line. (It's the same as "dropping a dime," only pay phones now take quartrs, not dimes, adn the Canadian coin has a caribou on it. Duh!)

- Chris Tanz - 06-07-2005

Coneycat Wrote:and the Canadian coin has a caribou on it.

now, now, that's no way to refer to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

ct

- emperor penguin - 06-07-2005

Chris Tanz Wrote:
Coneycat Wrote:and the Canadian coin has a caribou on it.

now, now, that's no way to refer to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

ct
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

- Stephen Dame - 06-07-2005

Coneycat Wrote:I felt very clever, and yet quite stupid, when I finally figured out that cryptic "drop a caribou" line. (It's the same as "dropping a dime," only pay phones now take quartrs, not dimes, adn the Canadian coin has a caribou on it. Duh!)

You're not alone. Of all the crap on my site, that little nugget of info still lands me the most e-mail.

I've actually given people quarters in the States after telling them about the lyric.

On an unrelated note, when Casey and I were in line with a couple who were seeing the Hip in Boston for the first time, they were interested in the loonie and twonie I had in my wallet.

There's just something about Canadian coins I guess.

As for what the song is about; it comes from an era when Gord was more likely to sing about fictional events with obvious/literal references mixed in, today the opposite is true.

I think KWT's assessment is closest to what I've always heard, perhaps with a condemnation of the girl for being selfish or self centred by either 'mom' or 'him,' hence the "dead to rights and wide awake."

I think 'he' is saying that a watershed moment has come in their relationship, maybe he's finally telling her it's over, despite the fact that she's run away to be with him, and threatening to call her mom and tell her where she is.

- lord brazle - 06-09-2005

Actually, this song is pretty easy to figure out; it's about the man who killed Ogopogo and was so consumed with guilt that he drifted the corpse back into the murky waters and never told a soul. He also killed the two guys he was with when they threatened to go public.

The three of them were hunting Ogopogo in the rain (RE: the lyrics).

And his mother-in-law stumbled across a photo of him smiling next to the giant head of the beast and, after a lengthy bit of denying that it was actually him in the photo, he had to kill her too. He suspected his wife found out but didn't want to kill her.

Gord found the photo in a shoebox buried at the foot of an old Oak tree.

After a little bit of research, he wrote the legend.

(I'm not serious... but the ambiguity leaves the above as a possibility) 8)

- skippy the wonder dog - 06-09-2005

I always thought it was about a guy who used to post on the Hipbase all the time, disappeared, and then returned. :wink:

- Lizard King - 06-09-2005

skippy the wonder dog Wrote:I always thought it was about a guy who used to post on the Hipbase all the time, disappeared, and then returned. :wink:
:lol: :lol:

Now, now..lets go easy on the guy, he's been busy. :wink: