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Dr. Banana

Jonathan Chaffer

Wayne Farmer

E."Elmo" G.

GoodOmenz@aol.com

Benjamin Hauck

Ben Houck

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Mark Pickett

Matthew L. Schwartz

Drew Seibert

Eric Webber

The Johns may indeed be talking about cows here, but the talk about "beneath the sea" leads one to believe that They are speaking of sea cows (manatees).

The beginning of the first verse has an interesting piece of wordplay. They juxtapose here three clichés to make one phrase. From "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Roosevelt Avenue," and "turn over a new leaf," we get "The Yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned." "The ardor of arboreality" is the love of trees, basically. Spurning this could indicate evolution (coming down from the trees) or leaving the land for the water.

The second verse has many possible interpretations, but most are gloomy. The sleepless egg seems to allude to frightened children, and the bone is most likely a symbol for death if it symbolizes anything at all. One reading is that the verse is about the inevitability of progress from birth to death (from egg to bone). If you subscribe to the evolution theory above, you might think of the bone as hinting at fossils as "proof" of evolution. Or, this verse could allude to sperm swimming toward an egg.

With all of the wordplay in the song, it could very well have no deep meaning, but rather just be an interesting series of language tricks. If you want a deep moral sentiment, you can read the lyrics as a message about the futility of life, and the desire to live with simple animals (cows) away from humans (beneath the sea).

And lastly, a little gem on the song by the respected Dr. Banana:

Long ago Rynie requested an analysis for "Cowtown". I fooled around so long and now he has left the digest! But I still wanted to post it and I will be sure to send him a copy when he gets a new account. So, without further ado, may I present:

What "Cowtown" really means, a heifer of an analysis by Dr. Banana.

This was very hard. At first I couldn't make any sense out of the thing. So I made up something that sounded good. But then I felt really guilty. Then one day when I was looking at naked people in National Geographic, it hit me. This whole song is about the world-famous oceanographer and co-inventor of the aqualung, Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Observe:

The scene opens on the deck of Jacques' world-famous research ship Calypso...

[Music plays]

Jacques and his crew dance up on the deck wearing jaunty red and white striped wet suits and flippers. Jacques is wearing his jaunty little stocking cap and steps forward, waving sticks of French Bread, and jauntily sings:

Iam gooing dune tu Cowtown
Cow's a frind tu me
Lives beneath de ocean an dat's vhere I vill be!
An dat's vhere I vill be
Iam gooing tu see de cow beneath de sea

With that, Jacques and his crew do graceful somersaults, one by one, over the side of the ship, into the ocean. Obviously he is refering to going to see manatees, the large, water mammals often called Sea Cows. He is in the process of making one of his many award-winning films and the song serves as narrative.

Ok, now we're beneath the sea with the Sea Cows and they swim up and sing their chorus:

The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned
The ardor of arboreality is an adventure we have spurned
We've spurned

The first line is complete gibberish as far as Jacques and I can tell. Sea Cows seem to have an odd sense of humor and in the Sea Cow community this line is obscenely funny. We can't seem to make any sense of it though. Now the second line is perfectly coherent. First you need two definitions:

ardor

burning heat

arboreality

a reality which consists of living in trees

So all they are saying is that they have spurned living in the heat and dry of the tree world (or just say land). This makes perfect sense. Not only would they have great difficulty in climbing trees but they would most assuredly be clubbed to death by large neaderthal-like men and turned into wallets and beef jerky.

Ok, so now Jacques and the Sea Cows twirl around in the water and bump their butts at the camera and the Sea Cows sing about the dangers in their lives. Mainly men who hunt them.

We yearn to swim for home, but our only home is bone
How sleepless is the egg knowing that which throws the stone
Forsees the bone, the bone
Our only home is bone
Our only home is bone

When the Sea Cows refer to "home" they are using it to represent total freedom. They yearn for freedom but know that death (bone) is their only real freedom because man is constantly hunting them to the verge of extinction. Then they cleverly slip in a metaphor. Picture yourself as an egg sitting in a nest. You know that there is a bunch of ratty little kids, who like to torture small animals, hanging around your nest. These kids love to pitch stones at you and it's very hard to get any rest when you know "that which throws the stone" is standing down below your tiny nest with pockets full of rocks. You can't get away because you're an egg and so all you can forsee is death (bone). Bummer huh? Those Sea Cows sure are philosophical.

The really sad part about Jacques' musical on Sea Cows is that it was never finished because he got sidetracked by a giant lawsuit with the rock group Jethro Tull over their use of "Aqualung" as a title for their album.

Well there you have it. Any questions our comments can be sent to the usual place!

DR. BANANA of the Gullible Research Institute (sdc116@psu.edu)

New submittal process. No need for dirty limericks. Just send a small story of something funny that happened to you, or that you did, or that you heard about. :)