What's that song about? (3)

Today's song:"The Beast And Dragon, Adored." By Spoon.

What I Thought It Was About: From the title, I assumed it would be one of those Led Zeppelin-y songs about the middle ages and/or swords and sorcery. Why is it that heavy metal adopted all the Tolkien/D&D references, when clearly the nerds like me who were into that stuff were not into heavy metal in high school? Heavy metal fans were in shop class and smoked outside the commons and had names like "Troy." D&D fans like me brought lunch in brown bags and listened to Duran Duran and The Cure and tried. Shouldn't emo bands be the ones with all the mythological references, while metal bands sing about cars?

Then I listened to the song and thought, no, wait, it's about Rock & Roll. There's a line, the only line I picked up real clearly: I got to believe it come from rock & roll.

So: The Beast & Dragon, Adored, is about how cool rock & roll is. Here's the song:




What it's actually about: The lyrics are no help at all. Here's some excerpts:

The beast and dragon, adored/You been gone so long/Where you been for so long/I went to places unknown/Rented a room/And I forgot my pen/Shook my twin/And I had to find the feelin again

So it's about love, or loss, right? Well, then, what's this mean?

I'm going back to the water/Been landlocked too long.

And then this:

And I went down by the seawall/That's when I knew, knew They Never Got You/Great dominions they don't come cheap/Great dominions they just want you to leave

And then this?

I got a feelin it didn't come free/I got a feelin and then it got to me When you don't feel it it shows they tear out your soul And when you believe they call it rock and roll/And when you believe they call it rock and roll

No help whatsoever. So I went to Song Meanings, and found that most people think it's about songwriting. But one person mentioned a tapestry called "'Apocalypse: The Beast and Dragon Adored."

So I googled Tapestry The Beast And Dragon Adored and found an interview with Spoon's lead singer, Britt Hume, who said this about the song:

I think that was the last song that I wrote for Gimme Fiction. I was just looking through this art book that my grandmother had from the ‘50s and there were these museum displays of French tapestries and one of them was called Apocalypse: The Beast and Dragon Are Adored. At that time, that was when the Iraq war was starting, and I was watching way too much (CNN) Headline News. It was basically on all the time in my shitty little apartment, and the world was feeling a little bit apocalyptic. This is a very interesting way to go about it because it’s very colorful language – The Beast and Dragon Are Adored.

Which doesn't, at all, explain what the song is about. It's about a tapestry and the Iraq war?

Okay. I guess we'll go with that. Officially, The Beast and Dragon, adored, is about a tapestry depicting CNNHLNAFSCME's coverage of the Iraq war.

(But secretly, I think it's about a woman who remembers when she was young and had an affair with the Loch Ness monster and now wants to write a book about it but doesn't know how to begin.)