02-21-2005, 05:07 PM
Well, I think my opinion is in a minority, but for my money the song concerns the costs of a relationship (whether that relationship be parenthood, as seems likely from the whimsy in the second verse, or a lover, I'm not sure).
The key is the chorus:
I'm discovering uses for you I thought I'd never find
I coulda made chancellor without you on my mind
'Uses for you' adds a cynical edge to what might otherwise be sentimental (e.g., imagine the alternative, 'I'm discovering beauty in you...'). This is the type of claim a person might make if he were interested in power, manipulation---using others. So a hard edge seems to be involved here. He approaches relationships with a degree of selfishness or cynicism, with an eye to what HE gets out of them.
That's reinforced with the 'chancellor' reference. 'I coulda been in a position of power, prestige, etc..' ('Chancellor' wasn't a randomly chosen position---it has Germanic overtones and all that they evoke). These are good things, implies the narrator. But the relationship ('you') has preoccupied him, directed his energies elsewhere.
I love the song partly because it can turn either way. There's no question that the chorus takes note of what he has lost as a result of the relationship ('I coulda been...'), but at the same time, the relationship preoccupies him, and with reason, because it yields up treasures ('I'm discovering uses for you,' etc., plus, and importantly, the gentle tone of the song as a whole and the whimsical bits). There seems to be love in there, but it's a love informed by a sense of lost possibilities and costs, and also, perhaps, by a darker tint in the narrator's soul.
I think this song tells the truth, or a truth. A talented person who nurtures familial and other serious, demanding relationships does so at some cost to other ambitions. If I were given to autobiographical readings, I might say that this song gives us Downie contemplating his own ego and ambitions as a performer and the sacrifices that his family has imposed on those. In any case: one of his very finest moments.
The key is the chorus:
I'm discovering uses for you I thought I'd never find
I coulda made chancellor without you on my mind
'Uses for you' adds a cynical edge to what might otherwise be sentimental (e.g., imagine the alternative, 'I'm discovering beauty in you...'). This is the type of claim a person might make if he were interested in power, manipulation---using others. So a hard edge seems to be involved here. He approaches relationships with a degree of selfishness or cynicism, with an eye to what HE gets out of them.
That's reinforced with the 'chancellor' reference. 'I coulda been in a position of power, prestige, etc..' ('Chancellor' wasn't a randomly chosen position---it has Germanic overtones and all that they evoke). These are good things, implies the narrator. But the relationship ('you') has preoccupied him, directed his energies elsewhere.
I love the song partly because it can turn either way. There's no question that the chorus takes note of what he has lost as a result of the relationship ('I coulda been...'), but at the same time, the relationship preoccupies him, and with reason, because it yields up treasures ('I'm discovering uses for you,' etc., plus, and importantly, the gentle tone of the song as a whole and the whimsical bits). There seems to be love in there, but it's a love informed by a sense of lost possibilities and costs, and also, perhaps, by a darker tint in the narrator's soul.
I think this song tells the truth, or a truth. A talented person who nurtures familial and other serious, demanding relationships does so at some cost to other ambitions. If I were given to autobiographical readings, I might say that this song gives us Downie contemplating his own ego and ambitions as a performer and the sacrifices that his family has imposed on those. In any case: one of his very finest moments.