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Our Shovels Meeting in Some Crisis - Printable Version

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Our Shovels Meeting in Some Crisis - Chris Tanz - 12-20-2006

This line from The Drop Off ... anyone have any guesses on what's going on here? It comes after the Bob Dylan name-drop -- does it have anything to do with Dylan or a Dylan song.

To me it evokes a "dumping the body" kind of motif as in Locked. You know, it's summer time, everything's going well, nobody has their prices, nobody's in a crisis. It's a regular All Canadian Surf Club -- then something "I Know What You Did Last Summer" happens and you end up killing somebody and you have to dump their body ... so you go out to a dark field somewhere in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and you start digging a hole.

In the midst of all this hole-diggin', you hear a metallic clank as your shovel makes contact with the shovel of some other guy digging a hole to bury HIS homicide victim.

You both realize that you've gone swimming past the Drop Off ... and the summer is done.

any other interpretations.

ct

- laliber - 12-20-2006

There is a shovel reference in the Gates of Eden
Gates of Eden = The drop Off (depending on which side of the fence you are on)….

however when I think of that line our shovels meeting in some crisis it is more of an image of the crisis management mode after a disaster – you know groups of people digging together to get to the boy out of the well or everyone tossing sandbags in unison to keep the flood waters out ect...

just one take of many I am sure
buffalo Buffalo

- skippy the wonder dog - 12-20-2006

That's a good question. I can't think of a shovel reference that makes sense, but I'd nominate Down in the Flood as a possible reference:
If you go down in the flood,
It's gonna be your own fault.
Oh mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow.

Down in the Flood has to do with a flood, water, and the holy-shit moment when you realize you're up the creek without your waterwings, so it's a good bet. And Dylan's friends are often not friends. The best known example is probably Positively Fourth Street:
You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning

A similar sentiment pops up in I Shall Be Free No. 10:
Now I gotta friend who spends his life
Stabbing my picture with a bowie-knife
Dreams of strangling me with a scarf
When my name comes up he pretends to barf.
I've got a million friends!

The word "shovel" appears in three Dylan songs: From a Buick Six ("you know I need a steam shovel mama to keep away the dead"), North Country Blues ("The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming"), and (as previously mentioned) Gates of Eden ("At dawn my lover comes to me / And tells me of her dreams / With no attempts to shovel the glimpse / Into the ditch of what each one means"). None of those shovels seems to be related to The Drop Off.

But one uses shovels to fill sandbags and to shore up levees, which takes me back to Down in the Flood:
Well, that high tide's risin',
Mama, don't you let me down.
Pack up your suitcase,
Mama, don't you make a sound.
Now, it's king for king,
Queen for queen,
It's gonna be the meanest flood
That anybody's seen.

Well, there's the kind of crisis where your shovel might cross paths with Dylan's, which reminds me that Gord's mix CD for Maxim magazine included another Dylan song about a flood, High Water (for Charley Patton):
High water risin', six inches 'bove my head
Coffins droppin' in the street
Like balloons made out of lead
Water pourin' into Vicksburg, don't know what I'm going to do
"Don't reach out for me," she said
"Can't you see I'm drownin' too?"
It's rough out there
High water everywhere

That, too has something to say about friends. Oh, baby, aren't you gonna miss your best friend now?

You're gonna have to find yourself another best friend, somehow.

p.s. Laliber has the perfect avatar for the occasion.... Smile

- Chris Tanz - 12-20-2006

Skippy and laliber -- thanks for both of those. I had always made the mental association with "shovels meeting in some crisis" as something negative, but the positive image (no doubt vivid to a Winnipegger) of shovels filling sandbacks or digging trenches to *hold back* the crisis, I had not thought of.

The Dylan "friends" stuff was illuminating too -- explains how we go from "like a friend of Dylan's" to "you're no friend of Dylan's".

Thanks,
ct

- cochise - 12-25-2006

skippy the wonder dog Wrote:That's a good question. I can't think of a shovel reference that makes sense, but I'd nominate Down in the Flood as a possible reference:
If you go down in the flood,
It's gonna be your own fault.
Oh mama, ain't you gonna miss your best friend now?
You're gonna have to find yourself
Another best friend, somehow.


Down In The Flood was my first thought after hearing the "friend of Dylan" line also..............

- Ballgame - 12-25-2006

I never get into the lyrics, its the music and the flow of the words together that do it for me

- Chris Tanz - 12-28-2006

Ballgame Wrote:I never get into the lyrics, its the music and the flow of the words together that do it for me

my cat's breath smells like catfood.

if you decide to do a topic about music and flow, I'll be sure to give you my thoughts on the meaning of the lyrics to 700 ft. Ceiling.

merci,
ct

Re: Our Shovels Meeting in Some Crisis - Chris Tanz - 02-13-2018

This is what I was thinking off ... please excuse my snotty comment that killed the thread. And also my initial "night fields" imagery was a little Queen of the Furrowsy, three years before the drop of WATS.

ct

(I think I lead the league in thread-kills. Do any of the mods keep stats on that?)