Says my ten year old son, as we are driving home from school this afternoon.
I have a couple of CDs in the changer with music from my childhood, and “Wildfire” just happened to be playing. My ten year old has an uncanny ability to pay attention to the words of songs. I say uncanny because paying attention to things that don’t matter is my son’s X-men style superpower.
“So, why was she running and calling “Wildfire”? The horse just broke the door of his stall.”
“Yes, he broke down the stall door, but listen…see! ‘In a blizzard he was lost’”
“Oh. So she went looking for her horse.”
“Yes”
“Then what happened?”
“She and the horse die in the blizzard.”
“Well that’s stupid.” :: long pause :: “And you liked this depressing music when you were little?”
I guess there are worse songs I could have had to explain. I could have liked Starland Vocal Band.
Something I’ve always wondered (but never cared to think about until now) is what stupid antic the guy in song has pulled that’s going to result in his death.
“She’s coming for me…” Why? You planted your garden in the dark? You’re deathly allergic to owls? What?
“By the dark of the moon I planted” sounds like an old folk superstition about people’s crops not growing if they are planted in the wrong phase of the moon. So maybe the guy starves to death when his crops fail. And owls hooting outside windows were once said to foretell death.
Well, see there! That makes sense (sort of). I wasn’t even thinking superstition-wise. I had imagined he’d been out too late and caught a chill after dark, got the ague, and had to lie in bed slowly declining in health over many days as he listened to that damn owl hooting, until he finally died. I think I may have read too much into it.
Oh, they say she died one winter
When there came a killing frost
And the pony she named Wildfire
Busted down its stall.
I read this in Dave Barry, and am now stealing it.
It is from THE WORST SONGS EVER RECORDED
by Dave Barry
Bad Song Survey, PART ONE
"Many readers are still very hostile toward the song “Wildfire,” in which singer Michael Murphy wails for what seems like 97 minutes about a lost pony. (As one voter put it: “Break a leg, Wildfire.”) Voter Steele Hinton particularly criticized the verse wherein there came a killing frost, which causes Wildfire to get lost. As Hinton points out: “… ‘killing’ in ‘killing frost’ refers to your flowers and your garden vegetables, and when one is forecast you should cover your tomatoes… Nobody ever got lost in a killing frost who wouldn’t get lost in July as well.”
“By the dark of the moon I planted,
but there came an early snow.”
I think that covers it. His crop failed because of the unseasonable weather and he’s starving to death. So she’s coming for him now and the poor pony will have to carry them both. But I guess ghost ponies might be up to that.
It is my firm belief that there are some songs out there that everyone likes, but no one will admit to liking, and “Afternoon Delight” tops the list. Go ahead, deny that you love it. I, for one, do not believe you!
Sorry, I’ve never really cared for Afternoon Delight, even when it was popular (although I think one of the members of the Starland Vocal Band was kinda hot). The “Weemaway” song, however, rocks.
Afternoon Delight makes me wanna leave work in the middle of the day and hump my hubby. Wildfire makes me wanna kill animals. The Lion Sleeps Tonight makes me wanna feed my hubby to the animals. To save the kids who are sleeping.
You’re safe tonight kids, but tomorrow that lion is gonna be mighty hungry!
