What do you think A Cautionary Song means?

The Decemberists: A Cautionary Song Meaning

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Album cover for A Cautionary Song album cover

A Cautionary Song Lyrics

There's a place your mother goes
When everybody else is soundly sleeping
Through the lights of Beacon Street
And if you listen you can hear her weeping
She's weeping because the gentlemen are calling
And the snow is softly falling on her...

  1. anonymous
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    Jul 29th 2018 !⃝

    The other interpretations are correct. Here is what your mother goes through to feed you. So don’t disobey her because her sacrifice is for you. ‘Remember what she does when you’re asleep!’ I think Colin uses this line as a very dark comic relief to the horrific scene he has just described.

  2. anonymous
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    Feb 22nd 2011 !⃝

    This song is a warning against children to eat whatever their mother gives them because the way she gets enough money to buy the food is by whoring herself out to pirates, or just sailors.

  3. anonymous
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    Feb 10th 2011 !⃝

    Not too tough here- prostitute going out to service sailors.


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