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Interpretations:Dead

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I go to the shelf, take out a bag of groceries and when I see the expiration date I think "oh, there is enough time to eat that until it is expired. so i'll put it back in the shelf! I don't think the dead guy is really reincarnated, no: now I#M also like that bag of groceries, I always think "Why should I do things NOW, because I still have enough time till the date stamped on myself" ->procrastinate! but then he is really taken off the shelf before he was expected to be! Then, "I will never say the word procrastinate again"! I always procrastinate until i'm dead and then it is too late to do important things that i wanted to do, e.g. apologize for making his brother a slave in his childhood. But now i recognized that it was wrong to procrastinate, but it is too late! You just don't see yourself in the mirror (Here: recognize what you really are -->that you are lazy) when your eyes are closed (maybe because you're always asleep, but also because you don't want to see). and i won't sit at home anymore, or look out of the window because this is what he used to do the whole day long. So stop procrastinating and do the things you have to do before it's too late!



A deliberately melodramatic surreal take on death. The character of dead is full of regrets for not living his life to the full and ends up being reincarnated as shopping left on the shelf. Ironic! A very simple piano song, this arrangement anticipates the clean intimate production Linnell favours these days. Free of clutter, this is one of Floods highpoints. (mr Tuck)


I once read that a person's head would actually stay alive several seconds after it was removed from their body; and so my theory is that this song is sung from the perspective of a man whose head is now sitting "in the basket" reflecting on his life and also thinking about his posthumous future.

Also, this is a bit random, but I always thought that the "Or I'm still alive" part was "I'm skinned alive", and so I had no idea what the song was trying to say.

I came back as a bag of groceries Accidentally taken off the shelf Before the date stamped on myself

This line makes me think the narrator died young, like a food item thrown away before it's expired.

Interesting connection between this and a couple of No! (or No! reject) songs:

From Dead: I came back as a bag of groceries Accidentally taken off the shelf Before the date stamped on myself

In other words, the dead guy gets reincarnated as a grocery bag. You could even say he is a grocery bag.

From Dead yet again: Did a large procession wave their (did a) Torches as my head fell in the basket, (large procession)

The narrator's head has been separated from his body, then. Now why is this sounding familiar?

No has a song called I Am A Grocery Bag, it it was going to have a song called I Am A Human Head before it was decided a song about severed heads was not appropriate for a children's album.

I blame the Masons.

From Dead: "Now it's over, I'm dead, and I haven't (now it's) Done anything that I want (over)Or, I'm still alive And there's nothing I want to do."

When someones dies, a quote often heard is something along the line of that they had so many things left undone that they wanted to do in thier lifetime. Whenever you are bored, you can be achieving your goals. But when you look back, you feel that so much more could be done within your life. Basic message being: do what you can now, and think about anything you would regret not doing at an older age.

I interpret this differently. I don't know what the "bag of groceries" means, as I'm not such a philosopher, but obviously, him putting it back has something to do with him "returning" as it. I think perhaps it refers to him being inanimate, because "you won't see my" (living) "head in the window anymore", rather, "I'll be up there on the wall at the store".

I can't seem to connect this with the rest of the lyrics. A mob of people apparently are happy to see him dead, and also, there is no distinction between being alive and with nothing left to do and being physically dead and unable to do anything. Is he really dead? --ThirdAnonymous

Me, I don't concentrate on the reincarnation part, but how he seemingly died. To me, is seems like he died a while ago, killed at a chopping block, you know, a public execution.

Possibly a man died and he 'came back' like a ghost or a vision like "A Christmas Carol" and he sees what his life was and what people thought of him. A grocery bag is maybe a metaphor for something nobody minds, nobody notices a bag

This song's still confusing me more than it is making sense, but this is what I've got. I see it as an ambiguous song, that could be interpreted either way.

On one hand, the narrator was executed a long while ago, when they publicly cut heads off-- either with a guillotine or an axe, as illustrated by "Did a large procession wave their torches/As my head fell in the basket". He was, as I see it, wrongly executed, as "I came back as a bag of groceries/Accidentally taken off the shelf/Before the date stamped on myself" demonstrates-- he was taken off the "shelf" of life before he should have been. He's apparently somewhat familiar with modern culture, so he was possibly lurking around as a ghost for hundreds or thousands of years. The song is him reminiscing of his life and perhaps almost trying to bargain with himself to get himself back to life.

On the other hand, this song is narrated by a living, breathing human being who's apparently so disgusted or irked or just bored with his life that he's not even sure if he really is alive. He's weaving a tale in his mind, thinking of how he was bumped off Planet Earth a little bit too early. Maybe he was publicly executed. Through thinking this, he realizes he really hasn't done anything remarkable in his life, and he is actually sitting at home brooding.

It's an interesting song, and I'm sure I'm nowhere near the original intent of the lyrics, but that's how I see it.

My own interpretation of Dead seems to be different than most others'. Everyone keeps interpreting the second line as being about reincarnation, but the way I see it is like this:

The first line, "I returned a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date": The bag of groceries represents another person's life, one that is about to be killed before it's his time ("accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date"). Unfortunately, as the second line states, in the act of saving the guy, he himself got put in the same situation, 'coming back' from the situation as someone who is being killed before it's his time. In other words, I interpret these first lines as being the equivalent of, for example, someone pushing another person out of the way of a car, only to get hit and killed by the car themself.

In this case, the section after it has a different meaning altogether. "Did a large procession wave their torches as my head fell in the basket, and was everybody dancing on the casket?" Maybe he's not referring to people wanting him dead and happy that he's dead, but rather, he's talking about whether or not he's praised or honored for his heroic sacrifice. It's quite possible, he's saying, that his sacrifice didn't mean anything to anybody, which is why he's asking, "Where's the thanks? Where's the appreciation? Did I die for nothing?"

"Now it's over, I'm dead and I haven't done anything that I want, or I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do.": Well, I always just thought that it was a clever interpretation of the state of death, although coupled with the previous part, it begins to sound like he didn't really WANT to make a sacrifice, that he didn't want to die in the process of saving the other.

The next section, he just goes over his regrets. Nothing much to really interpret there. Same goes for the other remaining section about not being around anymore.

-- AgentParsec

This song exemplifies the basic problem with TMBG's basic pop persona, and in particular John Linnell's -- which can be summed up in the words of Untitled: "Intellectuals meet with other intellectuals, speak another language". Language is all about cavemen grunting and pointing at things. This song is about the classic literary motif known as "death-in-life". Linnell, who knows at least enough Wallace Stevens to be dangerous (cf. Pencil Rain), also knows the rest of twentieth century Weltschmerz well enough to transmogrify it all into an ironic, nearly-monosyllabic pop vocabulary. Of course, it's brilliant and funny: the angry eastern-European folk mob hunting down that popular living-dead icon, the vampire ("I'll never see myself in the mirror..."), the Hamlet-like worries about what judgement awaits the sins of this life ("I didn't apologize..."), and the final couplet which crystalizes the motif's central paradox in the plainest possible phrasing.

So why do I say it's a problem? Because no matter how plainly spoken, no matter how many footnotes are provided, whatever public explanations are graciously granted, TMBG's auditors remain perpetually unprepared to meet the language of such works. --Nehushtan 23:05, 15 Feb 2006 (CST)

Hmm. I believe this guy was young and died unexpectedly. Nobody seemed to miss him, or anything, and this is his narration about the reflection he has on his life. Near the top on my Saddest TMBG Songs list. --Lemita 17:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it means that the guy died young and that he was a jerk and a slacker. People didn't like him and they thought he was a waste of space so they were happy to see him dead. After he died, he felt sad about some things he did and some things he didn't do.

To me, this song is about procrastination, the key lines being: Now it's over, I'm dead, and I haven't Done anything that I want Or, I'm still alive and there's nothing I want to do

Essentially, it sums up knowing that you have to go out and do something with your life, but not taking that opportunity because the motivation to do it right now is not there.

To commence, it is deeply prudent to realize that this song's plot is actually out of order. Like many movies, the beginning illuminates the final, and almost eternal, cycle of a man, hopelessly bound to a vicious cycle of unachieved potential. It should be realized that the timeline actually begins with the man being sentenced to death by the gluten (Such A death is executed by a man's head being chopped off by a large blade. Said head is then deposited in a basket).

To begin, the "story," if you will, is narrated by a man who lives his life sitting around and accomplishing nothing. This man, however, is actually deeply content with this, and deep in his mind finds no need to correct this.

After the man is killed for the first time, he has an epiphany before he is reincarnated. He realizes that everything he did in life was not worthy of this man's full potential, and he vows to correct his life and never idly waste it again. This can clearly be illuminated by his realizations of his wrongdoing ("I didn't apologize for when I was eight and I made my younger Brother have to be my personal slave") and his vow to "never say the word ‘Procrastinate' again." The line, "I'll never See myself in the mirror with my eyes closed," means that he, in fact, appreciates that he must consciously participate in life in order to gain true meaning.

All of this is further illuminated by the next lines (the choppy self-promises). It is here, however where intensively close analyzing must be executed, for the last two lines contain a contradiction and a statement that seals his eternal fate. The lines "And I won't/ Be around/ Ever anymore/ And I'll be up there on the wall at the store," is actually him self-consciously admitting that there is no eradicating his problem of not living up to his true potential. Despite his epiphany, he never really accomplishes anything. The "store," in this case, is actually his home (or wherever he spends all his time) where he wastes all his time at. By him not "being around anymore," he is saying that he will spend no time with his loved ones, or even execute a social life.

Finally, he is reincarnated. It is so deeply prudent, and in fact necessary, to not consider the bad of groceries as a literal bag of groceries. Rather, this is simply a metaphor for a person. The beauty of this metaphor is, however, that by making it a bag of groceries, there is an additional concept of eternal idleness. You see, a bag of groceries never moves from the store. Instead, it remains there until it is taken away or bought. It can be assumed very clearly that when this bag is "taken," the man is actually either sentenced to death, or just simply dies. This is supported by the fact that he dies the first time. It would be logical that the plot would somehow parallel itself throughout the story.

To sum this entire story up, a man, hereby considered "Lad," is a lazy bum, if you will. Lad never accomplishes anything, and has no desire to do so. Eventually, Lad is sentenced to death. After dying, he has an epiphany and vows to change his life for the better. All this is moot, however, as he never actually accomplishes anything in his next life. Rather, he simply becomes another idle man who eventually repeats his death sentence, and dies leaving another unfulfilled life. This cycle is repeated endlessly, resulting in him over and over again being reincarnated and living a meaningless life.

--D3arTragedy


The phase "Did a large procession wave their torches as my head fell in the basket" shows that he clearly feels that society is attempting to destroy him or turn him into someone that he's not. Society is clearly attempting to increase the speed of his life, and causes the narrator to die quickly. He is thus nearing his death and regretting what he has not done, while lamenting societies attack on him for what he percieves as a natural personality.


The speaker was not actually reincarnated as a bag of groceries. The bag of groceries serves as a metaphor for the speaker's life. He has died young (been accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date), and expresses his regret at having procrastinated throughout his life. The opening verse is an expression of his desire to be not the man returning the groceries, but the groceries themselves who, unlike him, can be given a second chance to live (be up there on the wall at the store).

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