Kudos to 6Music for playing my favourite Midlake song Roscoe on my drive in to work this am.
Very melodic but strange strange lyrics that I can’t easily make sense off.
The line that almost acts as a chorus in a song without a chorus is ‘Whenever I was a child I wondered
what if my name had changed into something more productive like Roscoe’.
Makes little sense to me either stand alone or in the context of the rest of the song.
We know songs like I am the Walrus are difficult to make sense of but this is a seemingly serious song
which I assume is supposed to refer to something.
Any other examples out there that you would like to post?
It’s a beauty. And as you say, very strange.
Tim Smith recalled the story of the song to Uncut in 2016:
“The lyrics simply started with their first word ‘stonecutters.’ From that word everything else formed. The scene was set in my mind and the words came very quickly over a few days, which is pretty fast for me. My actual life has never been too exciting, so it made more sense to make things up from the world in my head. The lyrics comfy what I was feeling at the time, and still am, really, elements of the countryside, a simpler life, honest work, working for others, the excitement of embarking on a new adventure, and loneliness.”
I love this remix by Beyond The Wizards Sleeve
@Lemonhope thanks for posting that – dont recall ever reading it even though I subscribe to Uncut. I gleaned a nostalgia for a simpler life from the lyrics but still no idea who Roscoe is, the only Roscoe I know being a tennis player.
I always felt that Tim Smith was bemoaning his modern life and in keeping with the themes running through the album of nature and ‘the past’ he wishes that he lived in a time when people made things and lived in harmony with the land instead of just consuming. He suggests that Roscoe is the name of a productive man.
My favourite song on the album is the title track. Another rumination on similar themes –
I must be careful now in my steps
Years of calculations and the stress
My science is waiting, nearly complete
One glass will last for nearly a week
Let me not get down from walking with no-one
And if I stumble from exhaustion
These buckets are heavy, I fill them with water
I could ask these people, but I shouldn’t bother
Oh no, I’ve stumbled, was I going too fast?
Some get angry, some of them laugh
They told me I wouldn’t, but I found an answer
I’m Van Occupanther, I’m Van Occupanther!
Let me not be too consumed with this world
Sometimes I want to go home
And stay out of sight for a long time
Yes I really love that album and the following one The courage of others but couldn’t get on with Antiphon. I might be doing it a disservice, might try and listen to it over the weekend and see if my opinion has changed.
Saw them live and they were great.
In fairness to Lennon, ‘I Am the Walrus’ was written deliberately as a nonsense song.