What do you think Eli, the Barrow Boy means?

The Decemberists: Eli, the Barrow Boy Meaning

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Album cover for Eli, the Barrow Boy album cover

Eli, the Barrow Boy Lyrics

Eli, the barrow boy of the old town
Sells coal and marigolds and he cries out
All down the day
Below the tamaracks he is crying
"Corn cobs and candlewax for the buying!"
All down the day

"Would I could afford to buy my love a fine...

  1. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Aug 10th 2011 !⃝

    Eli was a poor man obsessed with a woman who refused to be with him on account of his poverty.

    Driven mad by her cold-hearted practicality of not wanting to marry a barrow boy salesman he kills and buries her in a pine grove.

    After the madness fades he realizes what he has done and decides to kill himself so that he will have a second chance to be with her in the afterlife.

    Alas for poor Eli, he has committed both murder and suicide. He may be buried in a churchyard but now he is pushing his wheelbarrow in hell, forever separated from his love who is presumably in heavan.


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