Contributors:

The Big Steamy Thing

Jonathan Chaffer

Dwayne Stange

Josh Ward

tmanson@mccarthy.ca

The surface interpretation, and the one endorsed by the Johns: The song was inspired by a "guidebook to buried treasure in coastal Maine." The point of the song is that it is pointless to have a good time on the beach in normal ways-- volleyball, looking at the gulls-- when you can be spending your time finding buried treasure. The "inspector over the mine" is the narrator's grand imagined title. He thinks he is the official caretaker of the gold mine under the beach.

With a little reaching, this song can also be read as an allusion to "Apocalypse Now." Because of the Vietnam war effort, the beaches are not very nice places to vacation, unless you are Kilgore, surfing. The wild represents Col. Kurtz, and his insanity. The call is the force drawing Willard there. The thing waiting underneath the sand is the hidden, dark view of life in the movie. In summary, the interp says that once you look below the surface of how things work in the world, all the things people do start to seem futile.

At least one aspect of this song pays homage to the repressed and unacknowledged affection that most of us have for at least some examples of heavy-metal rock. (Further support for this can be found in the references elsewhere in the TMBG oeuvre to such metal accoutrements as stomp boxes and Marshall stacks.) The metal lurks beneath the surface, so you need a metal detector to find it; but once you do, it emerges in all its glory, as symbolized here by the triumphant statement of the chords to "More Than a Feeling" at the end of the chorus!