Song Meaning
The lyrics open with a stark, almost journalistic observation: a veteran's testimony of senseless violence, a "running down for no reason" of an old woman by a U.S. Army truck in South Vietnam. This specific, brutal image immediately grounds the piece in a historical context of war and its random cruelties. The subsequent description of a "lifeless, sunny" East Side, resting under awnings as a "heat-wave is over," creates a jarring contrast between the lingering, internal "burn" and the superficial calm of the present.
The central tension arises from the way this external, historical trauma settles into the "mind." The "dull heat" that "permeates the ground of the mind" suggests a deep, pervasive, and almost inevitable suffering. This "burn has settled in," no longer questioning its "right to go on devouring the rest of a lifetime, the rest of history." It implies that the weight of past atrocities, even those indirectly witnessed or learned about, becomes an inescapable part of one's consciousness, feeding a perpetual cycle of pain.
The craft here lies in the persistent imagery of heat and burning, juxtaposed with quiet suffering. The "flames go on feeding" and the "heap" of "pieces of information like this one" are kept "fed, whether we will it or not." This suggests that the act of bearing witness, or even just existing in a world where such events have occurred, contributes to an ongoing, internal conflagration. The repeated phrase "another summer" emphasizes the cyclical nature of this enduring pain, which persists regardless of the season.
What makes these lyrics so potent is their refusal to offer easy catharsis or resolution. The final lines, "However we may scream we are / Suffering quietly," encapsulate the profound disconnect between internal anguish and external presentation. The lyrics suggest that the "burn" isn't just a personal affliction but a collective, historical wound that we carry, often silently, through the passage of time and seasons, making the quiet suffering an inescapable consequence of remembering or even just knowing.
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