Hi Joshua1,
The following is my interpretation. . .
The lyrics you question are to 10 DEGREES &
GETTING COLDER, from the album SUMMER SIDE OF LIFE.
The "young musician" is hitchhiking home,in the dead of winter. Home,which is never stated geographically, is where his mother is.[so putting "Mother" on the sign can be a place unique to any listener's mind - very effective, it you ask me!] It's a song about a brief love affair that failed. The reference to temperature is the most significant part of the song, & it is genius the way Gordon uses it both literally & symbolically. The vehicle in the 3rd verse is just another vehicle passing through just like the truck in the first verse. Again, the word mother is used as a powerful emotional appeal for empathy for subject's
dilemma - "pulling off onto the shoulder" is
what a driver does to pick up hitchhikers.
The best part I like about this song is when
he first is with the woman and the temperature is 98.6, the average body temperature for a human being. It says everything about what
happened to subject & the attentive female
he met that night & the attraction they felt
for each other in the heat of which they made
promises, but everything turned into kind of a one night stand The musician
was hard hit & depressed by the lost love [something we can all identify with]hoping
it would be something more. "Trading off his Martin [his guitar] dynamically expresses the sacrifice he made over the relationship - afterall, "the world fell on his shoulders" And
now he is on the roadside with not much left
& freezing & just wanting to go home...leaving you, the listener where you
started at the beginning of the song...in the
freezing cold with this muscian.
[This message has been edited by Dorothea (edited February 25, 2001).]
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