Red Rover, Exposed!

[CarneVaca]

Hearing Red Rover performed live last night preceded by Lindsey's speech finally gelled in my mind the meaning of the song. Lindsey said the song was written from the perspective of gods, not God, sitting up there and looking down on us. He said, "gods, like Zeus." The whole idea is that these Greek gods are looking down on this experiment we call the human race, kind of furrowing their brows and wondering just how it all went so wrong. The gods start to wonder if they should pull the plug.

He then said apologetically that it's a very dark thought.

In listening to his introductory speech, it finally dawned on me: "Red Rover, we've come to take you over." That's the "pulling the plug" part. "What of the quiet ones" is clearly a reference to the folks who think the way Lindsey does and have concluded this experiment has gone terribly wrong.

It really is very political, but he dances around the politics of it by writing it somewhat cryptically.

And I also understand the relationship to "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind" now. As you might recall, Lindsey has also said that song was written form the Greek gods' perspective. In both songs, the gods are in their rightful paternal role, manipulating or wondering whether to manipulate their creation, these children called humans. You might recall from your Greek Mythology classes that the gods amused themselves by thinking up challenges and tasks for the humans. Occasionally a human, like Prometheus, would outsmart the gods, but never without retribution.

"Red Rover," I believe, is about hubris. And as such, the gods are figuring out just what to do about it.

"Red Rover" is a very clever, chilling song. As is "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind."