Nanook Rubs It (Session Outtake)

Song Meaning

This outtake paints a bizarre, almost mythic scene centered on a fur trapper's quest for a peculiar cure. The narrator sets a stage with Saint Alfonzo, patron saint of Portuguese smelt fishermen in the Columbia River delta, a locale described as "really funky." This establishes an off-kilter, almost folk-tale atmosphere from the outset, hinting at something beyond the ordinary. The core of the narrative involves a "fur trapper" needing to access a "pantry" to find a "mysterious elixir." This elixir is humorously disguised as "a box of mar-juh-rene," a mundane item juxtaposed with its supposed magical properties. The trapper's mission is to "whip out a stick of it" and apply it to his "deflected eyes" for a "miraculous cure." The most striking element is the sheer absurdity of the remedy and the ritual. The idea of using margarine to heal eyes, especially in the context of a saint and a specific, gritty geographical setting, creates a potent sense of surreal humor. It plays with the listener's expectations of a spiritual or medicinal cure, grounding it in the comically mundane. Ultimately, the effectiveness of these lyrics lies in their unique blend of the sacred and the profane, the epic and the ridiculous. The narrator crafts a mini-adventure that feels both ancient and utterly silly, leaving the listener with a sense of amused wonder at the trapper's strange predicament and his even stranger solution.