Song Meaning
The lyrics paint a picture of a narrator desperately trying to fend off a persistent, aggressive figure labeled "Saw Woman." This "Saw Woman" is characterized as "evil" and "not my wife anymore," yet she was "so close yesterday." The narrator dismisses her threats of legal action, boasting about the abundance of "luxurious ladies" who are unkissed, implying he alone can offer them attention. This sets up a dynamic of rejection and perhaps a past intimacy now soured.
The central tension revolves around the narrator's desire for freedom and variety, encapsulated in the repeated, almost chanted refrain: "Oh, how good it is to be married / And sometimes to be single!" This isn't a simple celebration of marital bliss or bachelorhood, but a yearning for the perceived advantages of both states, suggesting dissatisfaction with his current, or perhaps any, singular status. He claims to be a "simple natural scientist," not a follower of "promiscuous sin," a justification for his wandering eye or behavior.
The most striking aspect is the narrator's repeated assertion that the "Saw Woman" is "not the only one." This suggests a pattern of infidelity or serial relationships, where the current antagonist is just one of many women he's involved with or trying to escape. He uses the "Saw Woman" as a foil, a symbol of the complications and aggression that come with entanglement, while he simultaneously craves the freedom of being single and the perceived stability of being married, a contradictory desire that fuels his narrative.
This lyrical construction is effective because it captures a specific, albeit self-serving, male perspective on relationships and freedom. The "Saw Woman" serves as a vivid, menacing antagonist, making the narrator's plea for a dual existence – married and single – feel like a desperate, almost comical, attempt to justify his own perceived victimhood and desires. The bluntness of the chorus, repeated with slight variations, hammers home this core, conflicted wish, leaving the listener with a sense of the narrator's self-deception and his inability to commit to a single reality.