Song Meaning

The poem opens with a stark, almost bleak image: a leaning, flowerless marker as day ends, framing a visit to a father's grave. The narrator's immediate emotion is rage, a powerful and unexpected response to a filial duty. This isn't a quiet moment of remembrance; it's an "awful pilgrimage" fueled by a desperate need for something the deceased father, who "tore his page out," can no longer provide. The repetition of "often, often before" underscores a recurring, unresolved conflict. The rage intensifies as the narrator confronts the "dreadful banker's grave," explicitly linking the father to a violent, self-inflicted death. The interjection "O ho alas alas" feels less like sorrow and more like a performative lament, a desperate plea for "indifference" that never comes. The narrator's desire to "scrabble" and dig down to the casket reveals a raw, almost primal urge to confront the father's final state, to see "just how he's taking it." The poem's most striking aspect is this violent, almost theatrical fantasy of desecration. The narrator imagines not just opening the casket but actively attacking it with an ax, a "final card" to be played. This isn't about finding peace or understanding; it's about imposing a final, destructive act upon the memory of the father, a desperate attempt to exert control over a relationship that ended abruptly and traumatically. The "ha" interjections add a disturbing, almost manic edge to this imagined confrontation. This visceral imagery makes the lyrics so potent because it bypasses conventional grief. Instead of mourning, the narrator enacts a fantasy of rage and destruction, a raw expression of the pain caused by abandonment and unresolved anger. The poem captures a specific, brutal kind of anguish, where the desire to connect with a lost parent manifests as a violent urge to confront their finality, to "fell it on the start."