|
||||
Title: "Swung out the holy gold..." Post by hannibalmcnee on Today at 21:07 "We hit the secret trails towards thin air Aware we'd never live to tell the story And at the last deep lake before the snow We rigged the slings, chipped out the water-stair Swung out the holy gold and let it go It sank so far it didn't even glow And if the priest died too to share our glory I just don't know." So the other night I happened to be listening to 'No Dice' for perhaps the thousandth time and this verse finally got the better of me. I've had the rest of them figured out for years (or so I like to think) but this one means nothing. What's it about? Anyone? I had a brief rummage around the old threads to see if there had been much discussion of the song but couldn't find an explanation of these lyrics. |
||||
Title: Re: "Swung out the holy gold..." Post by dr_john on Today at 23:15 I've always assumed that this was a reference to the legend that when the conquistadors reached Cuzco in 1533 the Inca priests took the gold chain of Inca Huascar from the temple at Koricancha and threw it into Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world, fed by the snows of the Andes) to keep it out of their hands. Since the holy gold supposedly weighed two tons, they would probably have needed some form of lifting mechanism (a water stair?) and slings to swing it out into the depths. |
||||
Title: Re: "Swung out the holy gold..." Post by S J Birkill on 27.05.11 at 00:25 In MV386 (Nov '97), Pete Smith comments on Edmund Chattoe's reply to John Ramsey's query: Quote:
In MV1714 (Oct '98), John Harris quotes the Sunday Times: Quote:
- which seems to support Dr John's version. I'm not sure whether Clive subsequently revealed to us the exact source which inspired the verse. The first and second year MV text archives are here (http://www.peteatkin.com/mv/mvdigyr1.php) and here (http://www.peteatkin.com/mv/mvdigyr2.php) respectively. The first of these is also available in HTML (browsable) format, indexed here (http://www.peteatkin.com/mvindex.htm). |
||||
Title: Re: "Swung out the holy gold..." Post by hannibalmcnee on 27.05.11 at 20:08 Well that makes sense. I think the line "secret trail towards thin air" always knocked me off course. I always immediately pictured airplane rather than mountain. |
||||
Midnight Voices » Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1! YaBB © 2000-2003. All Rights Reserved. |