Interpretations:Canajoharie

• Song
• Lyrics
• Interpretations
• Credits
• Guitar Tab
• Bass Tab
• Chronology

Louisiana

Does this song remind anyone else of Louisiana (and to a lesser extent, Montana)? The elongated one word chorus, and someone trying to kill the narrator? -- Jason DeLima - ♥! - 16:16, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

This could definitely pass for a state song... it has a similar sound and energy to it. Just replace 'Canajoharie' with any five-syllable state name. Perspixx 15:37, 22 August 2011 (EDT)

I think That This Might Be The Weird Flashes Of Memory You Had Before That Gives You The Feels/Memories,But I Will Just Seem Weird Or Boring To Everyone Else,And The When The Said "That Is Where We Started,I Mean That And The Start Of TMBG. -Josh

I may have it.

I don't know why, but I got the idea today that the song was about childhood memories of summer camp told in an askew and abstract manner. (fake fin = prank, rocket ship = model rocket, etc.) --Propman 14:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

---

In response to above: I think sort of. I think the narrator is revisiting somewhere significant he's been. The place changed his life, moved him in some way, but now it's changed completely. He finds remnants of what was there (the "fossil tooth"). The narrator believes that if you have an exact image of the special place, you didn't really experience it ("If you can draw it in the air/Or write it down, then you weren't there"); what truth there is, or false-truth actually, exists solely in the mental image. My interpretation's a bit half-formed at the moment though, since we're missing some lyrics and I heard it on the webcast (and went back to listen a few times), and then live on Saturday the 16th. I'll get back to this in a couple of months, I assure you. --Lemita 22:28, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I had thought that it was about a giant monster being created in some freak experiment and nearly killing the narrator and no one else surviving. Kind of. -Apollo (Phoebus!) 22:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Going into it that's what I thought to, (sort of) but then I thought...Nahh. that'd be to easy. --Propman 21:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I feel like what you're saying leaves way too many chunks unaccounted for. What evidence do you have besides the two things you mentioned? How exactly would talking about camp make the narrator have to make a point of being "not insane?" How do you explain the fossil tooth or the proof-swapping? --Self Called Nowhere 22:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe the camp (or whatever place this is) is now either defunct or completely gone whith no record of it having been there. The "right through those trees" line is him trying to explain the events that occured to people who have no intention of believing him. Or another possible interpretation this could have (since the subject has come up before) is it's about a dream somebody had that seemed so real that he thought it happened when it didn't, and the rest being the same. Him trying to convince people. That is unlikely though being as that the tooth is actually in place and he's much older. I also think the tooth is the later mentioned baby tooth that he lost at the location, not the tooth of a monster. On another note, I feel like this is getting a bit hostile and I don't like that. It's just a song. --Propman 05:55, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see where wanting to have more evidence for what you're saying is "hostile," but ok then.--Self Called Nowhere 09:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, techically an interpretation doesn't need evidence being that it's one person's impression. Just know that text has no emotion and can be misread. I'm sorry. --Propman 15:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Linnell

Is saying "Look at us, we're fuckin' amazing. We had all this potential, but we spent so much time in one spot! But now we're moving on! The past is done, we're hella awesome!" Canajoharie is FLOOD. Linnell wants to make another platinum-masterpiece like Flood. Trying to progress the band's sound. About their squabbles.

---

It works as a seriously great, sentimental and bitter look at evolution and the past and progress for humankind. That said, I don't think the instrumentation choices are coincidental. -magbatz

Time vortex

Seems to me that the narrator was walking through the village of Canajoharie (near where both Johns have summer homes, by the way) in New York when he stumbled upon a fossil tooth.   This seemingly insignificant event sparked an awareness/remembrance of the entire history of life in this place, and his connectedness to it.   First, he claims the tooth as his own, saying that he dropped the tooth himself (acknowledging his own connectedness to those who came before) and then he explicitly states "Which reminded me how we wound up where we are now" in reference to the entire history of life.   This awareness seems very specific, as he seems to know (or at least conjecture) the exact spot where people (or mammals or living things) entered this area-- or further still the spot where organisms first developed the ability to crawl on land, which he reckons happens to be in Canajoharie.   The later verse about the fin is a metaphor for how the remembrance/awareness episode began. The fin grabbed him into this vortex of time, but as he regained his senses he realized that it was "an inaccurately reconstructed fake" or that the awareness he had was merely conjecture on his part.   In a weird way, the lyrics of this song remind me of My Brother The Ape, referencing the interconnectedness of all organisms.

You Can't Go Home Again

I think the person discussing camp attended as a child is on the right track, but I took it more to to be about the mixed emotions that are stirred up when revisiting the place where you grew up. I saw the fossil tooth at the beginning as being the baby tooth mentioned near the end. But, metaphorically, it represents childhood. Though returning to the simpler times of childhood might be appealing in some ways, you wouldn't fit back in that place. You've evolved beyond your youth like a mudskipper dragging itself away. The "I'm not insane" bits, to me, described that feeling when you take someone from your current life to the sites of your childhood, and they aren't as impressed as you once were. Like taking your wife back to the town where you grew up (but where she's never been). The conflicting emotions about the past are so powerfully real in this song. The narrator is sentimental and wants to honor the place (with a historical plaque), but while he feels the pull of nostalgia, he realizes that things can never be the same again. The unevolved fin of the past is actually an inaccurately reconstructed fake and his old friends are gone.

I think you and time vortex are both spot on. Linnell's lyrics tend to be over-the-top in terms of layered meanings, and I think the song uses the surface meaning (the urge to return to the place where a mudskipper first crawled on land) to tell a more personal (and universal?) story of the urge to know and remember where we came from.

Time Travler

Well, what the first lines say to me is that the narrator finds a tooth in modern day Canajoharie that is his own. He dropped it in his time travels, when he witnessed the first evolution of the front fin and the Mudskipper's debut. The song hints that there was a rocket inccident where, possibly, the narrator first traveled in time as a young boy, explaining the fossilized baby tooth. He's saying all this with no thought of people believing him, but just for sentimental reasons.

Evolution

I think this is about an evolutionist trying to convince creationists that science is real.

Three threads

I think there are three separate but connected threads here. 1. Memories of the narrator's past/"you can't go home again". 2. An implied analogy between the narrator's personal history and the evolution of land-based vertebrate life on Earth. Canajoharie is, he says, where fish first crawled out onto the land. 3. Cheesy Fifties sci-fi/horror-movie imagery: the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the crashed rocket.

The threads are connected by individual elements of the song. The tooth is either a fossil tooth or his own baby tooth (threads 1 and 2); the fin pulling him back into the water is his nostalgia for his own past/humanity's forebears, or else it's a fake rubbery fish-man (1, 2, 3); the rocket is his own inability to completely separate from Canajoharie, but it's also a characteristic setup for "it came from outer space" horror scenarios (1, 3). --Matt McIrvin

Just a dig

I'm sure John & John visited Canajoharie and went for a simple hike between shows (check their tour schedule!)in the geographic wonder world that is New York State. Find a fossil and it inspires. Quite simple.

You're saying he is a paleontologist, that's what he is, that's what he is, that's what he is?

Mute or Moot?

Just curious - in the last part of the song, the lyrics include "...what's gone is mute...", but I'm wondering if it's supposed to be "...what's gone is moot...".

"Moot" fits with the rest of the lyrics in that section, which seem to be the narrator ending his story by basically saying "oh, well. It doesn't matter anyway. That time is passed." Then again, "mute" might fit, too. Perhaps the creature/proto-creature that's mentioned earlier in the song lacked the anatomy to vocalize, and obviously the creature doesn't exist anymore.

I'm just wondering what most other people think about this line. Moot vs. mute doesn't seem like a mistake that either of the John's would make by accident. Is it intentional, or am I over-thinking this?

In the live versions, I'd always thought it was sung more like "moot" than "mute", but I never really thought anything of it, I thought it was just a Linnellism on "mute". But now the album has come out, I think it's sung much more like "mute", and that is what is written in the lyrics sheet that came with the album too, so I'm more inclined to think it should be "mute" --༺𝄞𝄆Ⓠⓤⓔⓛ⎈Ⓓⓞⓜⓜⓐⓖⓔ𝄇༻ 16:14, 17 August 2011 (EDT)

I think it's the old double meaning, as in moot (what's gone doesn't matter) AND mute (what's gone no longer has a voice). -NorthsideJonny 08:24, 10 August 2013 (CDT)

OBVIOUS meaning is OBVIOUS

John Linnell witnessed an alien rocket ship crash. The aliens gave him his incredible songwriting talents as well as the knowledge that they had actually manipulated Earth creatures to evolve into mankind. It was this knowledge that he was given in return for his silence. Noone would beieve him anyway, but the aliens stressed that if he were to recount the story they would erase his memory and he too, would have no recollection of anything except that horrid "mink car" album. JL's hands are tied. He wants to tell his story but alas he cannot and his frustration at the entire situation is beautifully expressed in this song.

Well maybe not, but I like to have fun with it. JL once said something along the lines of lyrics being another instrument and that "logic shouldnt necessarily get in the way." I think thats part of what makes the band so charming.

CHeers!

Looking back on the band's history.

Flans has said many times that they tried to get a sound/feel similar to their old albums, this seems like it's them getting at that. The synth bass in the verses, the chopped up guitar in the choruses, and the accordion solo. These are all old tmbg techniques. Just my thoughts.

Lovecraft Parody

Many of Lovecraft's horror stories, such as the Lurking Fear, took place in the Catskill Mountains and other rural New England locales, and featured inhuman monsters that couldn't be fully described in words, but which often shared an evolutionary chain with humans (Lovecraft liked to use evolution as a plot device). Canajoharie appears to parody many of those elements, and Lovecraft was the first thing that came to mind when I heard it. --Tzion 00:51, 23 April 2012 (EDT)

A Eureka Moment of Questionable Quality

I think elements of "Time vortex" and "OBVIOUS meaning is OBVIOUS" are both strongly in the right direction... The narrator finds a fossilized tooth that causes him to have [what he thinks is] an epiphany about (1) his own evolutionary history ("this baby tooth no longer fits in my skull" is the narrator marveling at how different he is from his distant ancestor) and (2) life emerging from the ocean in the modern location of Canajoharie. He is desperately trying to convince the incredulous audience that it was aliens that accidentally did it by altering existing waterborne life. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.242.177.248 (talk • contribs) 01:45, 7 December 2012

Loss of a friend/loved one?

Bear with me here.

The song has always had a very melancholy tone to my mind. Not just one of reminiscence, but one of actual loss--specifically, the loss of a person rather than an idea or place.

We know it happened "very long ago," possibly even when the narrator was but a child. (This could imply that the loved one the narrator lost was a parent, but I've always viewed the narrator and the subject as being friends or lovers. That's just me, though.) Either way, it's clear that it had a profound impact on the narrator ("I'm not insane").

It also seems quite likely that the narrator witnessed the event ("If you can draw it in the air or write it down, then you weren't there), causing him to feel even more awful about it, like he could've somehow saved the victim from their fate. There also seems to be an element of survivor's guilt--the second verse implies that something happened to the narrator as well, but they made it out alive.

Several of the quotes, to me, seem largely metaphorical (although being TMBG, this isn't particularly surprising, is it?)--the "historical plaque" could very well be a roadside memorial or a gravestone, and the "rocket ship experiment" that "went awry" could be a horrific, deadly accident, claiming the life of the narrator's friend/lover/family member/whatever.

Note also that Linnell's tone throughout the song seems almost...pained, for lack of a better word--as if he were singing from the point of view of someone who had been bereaved and never really gotten over it. It's a brilliant song, IMO--I've always felt a lot of emotion listening to it. --Warhammer Of Zillyhoo 00:41, 5 March 2013 (EST)

---

I get a similar vibe from this one, except to me it sounds like the singer might have experienced some kind of mistreatment/abuse in his childhood ("What's gone is mute, someone changed the truth, they smoked the proof and there's nothing left"). I get the same impression from some of their other songs, e.g. Mr Me. The backdrop to their 2010 Kennedy Center performance could be seen as substantiating this.--Tyranny Sue (talk) 04:17, 9 December 2015 (EST)

Science isn't real

For a long time, I've actually taken pretty much the opposite tack on this song from that of "an evolutionist trying to convince creationists that science is real". In my view -- actually -- the narrator of "Canajoharie" is a pseudoscientist. ... He knows, maybe in the back of his mind, that the conclusions about ancient life that he's drawn from his wacky experience lie somewhere in the range of unsupported to plain irresponsible. He's decided, however, that the normal logical ways of knowing things aren't to be trusted: you can only see the real truth, that is, "if you squint your brain". If you "close your eyes, see what I see". In other words, that is: if you decide to ignore all the evidence, and just go with what *feels* right!

I think the same interpretation goes nicely with the lines "Someone changed the truth / They smoked the proof", too. Here, it seems to me, the narrator's thought process goes something like this: According to the scientific view of the world, truth is immutable -- but, we know better, don't we? In fact, the truth *changed*. Now it's not what it used to be -- although, I admit the proof may have gone up in smoke. But: that's actually okay, because the truth is of a nature that only the stoned can *really* comprehend! ... And that's the reason, too, why "if you can draw it in the air / or write it down, then you weren't there." You're thinking too verbally, too logically. This is the kind of thing that can *never* be pinned down in words!!

Sure, the narrator speaks in scientific terms, talking about evolution and fossils. But really, I'd say (and I think Linnell would say, too), nothing draws the pseudoscientists in more than science itself. The more their ideas can appear to have a scientific backing (or maybe, according to the pseudoscientist, the more they actually *do* have a scientific backing), the more valid everyone will think they are. But then, but then, you have to go ahead and couple that scientific sheen with a series of claims staking out just *exactly* why all the science that came before is wrong or insufficient, oh, no....

Now, I don't think Linnell is parodizing viciously here. But, I do think that in the wake of Here Comes Science, he wanted to at least toy around with other interpretations of the world besides "science is real". I think "Canajoharie" is the result of that exploration (even if it was originally written for The Else; I doubt that the Here Comes Science ideas were totally absent from TMBG's minds at that time). Linnell's pseudoscientist is a messed-up goofball, sure; but hey, he's still a creepily interesting messed-up goofball -- just like all the man's other characters, I mean!

And, you know: I really commend Linnell for putting that perspective into a song, too. Because, even if ultimately TMBG line up behind the Science Is Real wagon, I mean, I still love that Linnell's playing outside the range of what he personally seems to believe. (And, I really do think he's playing, I mean! I don't think he's making a mockery of his narrator, whatsoever -- at least, no more than he always does!) ... And, also, because I wouldn't say *all* their fans line up right alongside them, either....

- The Silver Chauffeur

Dewitt Clinton Reference a Clue?

I haven't thought too hard about this song yet, but does anyone else think that the instrumental is a subtle nod to Linnell's Dewitt Clinton, particularly since it seems like Dewitt Clinton had some history with the Erie Canal?

--Mishuga (talk) 13:43, 23 September 2016 (EDT)

Nostalgic Longing And Reminiscing

It seems to me like this is from a person who grew up well, but didn’t end up in the best of positions in life, be it bad job, bad boss, bad neighborhood, bad spouse, or even just general depression, they feel their adulthood isn’t going anywhere, and they really want to go back to the times when they were a kid and everything was good. They’re pointing out specific things about their childhood (the fossil tooth they must have dropped very long ago), and although those memories are fond, they can never truly go back to those times, as every attempt just leads to “An inaccurately reconstructed fake”. That’s my take on it, anyway. ---LonelyAssassin96 (talk) 10:13, 28 July 2019 (EDT)

An old SF story

This song reminds me of the short story Adam and No Eve by Alfred Bester from 1941 (summary). A scientist invents an catalyst process which powers an experimental rocket ship. He takes the first ride on the ship, but the process induces a chain reaction as it takes off that destroys all life on earth. He falls back to earth as the last surviving human being. The last line of the story has a Twilight Zone style twist. --Nehushtan (talk) 11:31, 5 August 2019 (EDT)

Does anyone else hear him saying Canadahari?

I assume this is a place John Linnell (and maybe JF too) took little vacation visits to (maybe during trips to Cooperstown, etc) But can you try this experiment? Play the refrain for anyone who doesn’t know the song: but don’t tell them the name or any lyrics... and ask them what they hear him saying. You could say “what is the name of the town he’s saying?” Or no prompt at all: I’ll bet you anything they hear a “D” in there, for “Canadahari”. He says a D clear as day, each and every time, I’m sure! Just not sure why... the Upstate Pronunciation Guide says just what you’d think “can a joe Harry” but that’s not what john sings... https://www.newyorkupstate.com/road-trips/2016/10/say_what_20_hard-to-pronounce_upstate_ny_towns.html

Because I have WAY too much time on my hands in this pandemic, here are my leading theories why he's pronouncing it in this funny idiosyncratic way: 1) It was an inside joke on their family trip (someone said is this Canada? or someone mispronounced it (maybe a child) and it stuck. 2) It is a deliberate choice to "mispronounce something in a song" as an intellectual excercise, and to tease people who pay attention to such silly things 3) It is an artistic choice ("I'll just pronounce this strangely, for no reason, cause it feels cool and rock'n'rolly to do so" Thezef (talk) 06:41, 30 July 2020 (EDT)

Possible contradiction/paradox?

Has anyone noticed how the narrator says that he'll try to paint Canajoharie, but later states that "If you can draw it in the air, or write it down, then you weren't there"? Assuming "draw it in the air or write it out" refers to accurately depicting Canajoharie in any way, that sounds like a pretty blatant contradiction/unreliable narrator, in classic TMBG fashion.

I'm not sure what this could entail for the actual meaning of the song. Either the narrator was not actually "there", they will not succeed at painting Canajoharie, or they're just a little bit crazy. Any ideas?

Rose-tinted Spectacles, Trauma, Memories (Line-by-Line)

This is, lyrically, one of my favourite ever TMBG efforts, so naturally I've spent a lot of time mulling it over. I'll provide a line-by-line interpretation because it's hard to condense all of my thoughts into a coherent paragraph. I'd like to preface this with the fact that I am massively indebted to all of the interpretations on here preceding my own that I have read and absorbed over time, but there were some new dimensions I wanted to tack on. TLDR is that, for me, Canajoharie is ultimately a song about nostalgia for a time you know you can never go back to. It perfectly captures the oddly empty feeling one often gets when returning to their hometown as an adult, and having all these memories rush back whilst simultaneously feeling a little numb. You know you've outgrown it all, that adult-you no longer fits in, in a place where kid-you once fitted so seamlessly in with the scenery. You know every street and can recall something that happened on every corner, but you now feel like a stranger. You also start to recall all of the bad memories, and realise how much you romanticise your youth when you're apart from it. Also perceptible are themes of trauma and denial, and how these can warp how we perceive ourselves and our memories.

In the overgrowth of the underbrush

Shone a fossil tooth which I must have dropped

The first of these two lines simply sets the nostalgic, rural scene for us. The introduction of the fossil tooth metaphor is much more interesting to me as I really feel like it's part of the emotional core of the whole song. Like so many inferences can be made about the life of a prehistoric creature from a fossil tooth by someone well-schooled enough to do so (perhaps a Paleontologist...), humans often find their memories wrapped up in little objects, mementos, and perhaps most poignantly in this song, places. Linnell conflates nostalgia for past years within a single lifetime with calls back to literal prehistory multiple times throughout this song and I think it's so wonderful and wistful.

Very long ago

Which reminded me how we wound up where we are now

Again, I love the way Linnell plays with time here. The equation of the protagonist's recollections of youth with fossils, prehistory, natural history etc. creates a rather warped sense of time in which the haze of childhood feels so far out of reach that it could just as well have been a million years ago. At surface level, the second line here is about evolution: a fossil tooth of a long-dead creature would surely invoke a pondrance upon the relative newness of human existence in the grand scheme of things. The fact that he dropped the tooth, however, warps things again and makes this pondrance a clear metaphor for reflection upon one's own life and all of the eperiences and decisions that have made us all who we are today.

Right through those trees, I'm not insane

That's where we came into this place

As i just mentioned, our individual worldviews and current selves are all ultimately shaped by our past experiences and decisions. The protagonist here must convince others he is not insane for seeing so much life in his surroundings, or a single memento, because his memories breathe life into these things that would perhaps otherwise appear pretty pedestrian. There is an almost childlike enthusiasm that comes accross in lines like this that warms and breaks by heart in equal measures. Also, setting all of this against a lush, forested scene only bolsters the feelings of childlike wonder/adventure that inevitably entangle themselves with the singer's now-jaded adult perspective. He also recognises that this place irrevocably shaped him as a person - though it is left rather open-ended whether this was for better or for worse.

And if you squint, if you squint your brain

I'll get my paints and I'll try to paint

Another conceit that's introduced here is the complete and utter inability to conjure accurate images of all these wistful memories. The protagonist tries desparately to conjure, and therefore cling onto, the very visceral memories and emotions he has tied to the scene around him, but it's ultimately a futile effort. We all inevitably have to let little parts of our memories, even of ourselves, go in order to mature.

Canajoharie

Canajoharie

Okay, so, Linnell could absolutely have just chosen this refrain because it's a 4-syllable town that he is familiar with and that sounded good phonetically. However, I will say that the imagery it conjures (as a pretty knee-jerk reaction - I have not been to Canajoharie, so feel free to absolutely shatter the illusion for me in the replies...) fits the atmosphere of the lyrics so incredibly well. The juxtaposition between downtown Canajoharie, a pretty standard-looking town centre from what I can glean, and the beauty of the more rural parts kind of acts as a metaphor for the constant conflict between the desire to return to the idyll of childhood play and the way adult life necessitates some degree of conformity. Even just the sound of the word seems to capture the wistful, nostalgic feeling that pervades the song. Lovely. Or maybe I'm just insane, and imagining all of this. Sound off in the comments.

Where a front flipper first evolved on the day

When a daring mudskipper dragged itself away

The front flipper here functions as another metaphor for the move towards independence and adulthood and the leaving behind of youth and, to an extent, innocence. If we position the singer himself as the daring mudskipper, we perhaps begin to wonder why it is that he wished to drag [him]self away in the first place, if his childhood was as idyllic as we have been led to believe thus far. The conflicting emotions surrounding his youth and the mementos, places, etc. he associates with it really begin to amp up from here on out. Things begin to unravel; to utilise an obscenely over-used turn of phrase, the rose-tinted spectacles are lowered here, but they don't ever come off entirely.

Call me sentimental but I want to go back

And commemorate the place with a historical plaque

Interestingly, the singer is well aware of his own tendency to over-romanticise his youth, yet he pushes on. Once again, we have the life experiences of one individual being conflated with significant historical events and wonders of nature. In the same way that the course of history is shaped by people and places commemorated with historical plaques and monuments, our protagonist's life has been moulded from the ground up by his childhood experiences in ‘’Canajoharie’’ (though I will note here that I don't actually think this refers to one specific place, or to the real Canajoharie, but more to a feeling of general nostalgia and wistfulness when recalling one's youth).

It's as if a fin, reaching from the swamp

Grabbed me by my arm, tried to pull me in

As with the mudskipper lines, I think there’s an implication here that the protagonist’s childhood memories are perhaps less idyllic than he first had us believe. Sure, the sentimentality is still there, but the more haunting, empty feelings that pervade the reminiscence start to make a little more sense from here on out. This seems to go beyond the general feelings of wistfulness that most of us feel upon returning to our hometowns. The ‘fin’ is a stand-in for anything slightly more sinister that could at once tether someone to and cause them to want to escape from their childhood home. The singer is at once ‘pull[ed] in’ and making efforts to ‘drag [him]self away’. The rose-tinted spectacles are lowered, yet again, and perhaps to the greatest extent yet.

But my arm was strong

I love the defiance in this line. If we run with the idea that our protagonist’s childhood is marred by some sort of adverse experience, the simple yet utterly damning rejection of whatever this may have been is chillingly brilliant.

And the fin was an inaccurately reconstructed fake

Another instance, perhaps, of the wool being lifted from the protagonist’s eyes. He suddenly comes to terms with the fact that he had ‘reconstructed’ a lot of his past ‘inaccurately,’ framing a lot of his memories more positively than they first occurred. Now he realises this, the ‘fin’ holds no power over him and can no linger ‘drag [him] in’ (i.e., keep him tethered to his traumatic past). This sets him free, allows him to finally leave, perhaps for good. This is not to say there are no positive memories associated with this place/time in his life, but the phony nature of the complete idyll of the first verse comes to light here.

It was right through those trees, I'm not insane

That's where the fin tried to drag me in

On our metaphorical tour of ‘Canajoharie,’ we are now privy to both the positive and negative memories it contains for our singer. The ‘painting’ is more complete now he has come to terms with the fact that his previous depictions had been dishonest. Again, the mention of insanity serves to illustrate the intensity of emotion that the protagonist is attempting (futilely, as he himself points out) to convey.

Don't look at me, look at where I'm pointing

Close your eyes, see what I see

Desperation creeps in here. The protagonist is so incredibly eager for someone – anyone – to understand the intensity of his feelings towards this place, and therefore to understand the pieces of his past that still shape him today. He does not wish for a superficial acknowledgement that he is speaking, but for a deeper understanding of the feeling behind his words. Simply looking could never conjure such emotions, and is such another exercise in futility.

I get the creeping feeling all my old friends are gone

And that this baby tooth no longer fits in my skull

These lines are my favourites in the whole song, so buckle in. I’ve a lot to say. Ultimately, we have here an uncomplicated expression of fear and grief at the (sometimes natural) loss of friends/circumstances that comes with maturing, especially when we leave our hometowns. Going back and visiting can make you feel like you’ve ‘outgrown’ it and, while sentimental and comforting in part, can make you feel empty when you start to realise it feels like a ghost town in the absence of everything that once made it so special to you. Memories echo about the place, both good and bad, but they’ve reached a point of complete intangibility. You feel like you’re LARPing as a younger, happier version of yourself. When coupled with the aforementioned implications of adverse childhood experiences, these lines become so, so much more cutting. The baby-tooth-in-adult-skull metaphor tells of the constant desire within the narrator to return to a childhood idyll (that never even truly existed), but there is a simultaneous acknowledgement that we all inevitably outgrow what we are nostalgic for. This visceral image also, of course, circles back thematically to the ‘fossil tooth’ referenced in the first few lines. Both of these are one and the same; where a fossil tooth gives us information about a long-extinct species, a baby tooth is symbolic of specific and immortalised stage of development in a singular human’s life. Also, much like a fossil, there is no longer any immediate practical use for a baby tooth – and, try as he (figuratively) might, our protagonist can never reinstate this purpose. It is, by its nature, a memento, a symbol. We simply cannot go back.

If you can draw it in the air

Or write it down, then you weren't there

Another nod to the impossibility of accurately capturing the feelings/memories contained within a location, memento, or experience. When stripped of a deeply personal context, the image one tries to ‘paint’ of these memories becomes empty, a poor imitation.

What's gone is mute

Someone changed the truth

The ‘mute’/’moot’ soundalike has already been discussed here, and I do find it particularly interesting. If we run with ‘mute’, as per the official lyrics, then we can infer that parts of the singer’s memories are somewhat foggy or missing entirely, as if they are tapes being played back on mute. This could be some sort of defence mechanism, as the brain can block out partial or entire memories in order to defend against the psychological fallout from traumatic experiences. If this is the case, this line falls perfectly into place with the adverse childhood experience interpretation I discussed earlier. You may consider this a reach, and that’s fine, but there are undoubtedly darker implications lurking here one way or another. On the other hand, if we instead hear “moot,” this line comes off as much more dismissive, even spiteful or frustrated. Despite the incessant reminiscing, the protagonist acknowledges that what he once had is gone, and now that he no longer desires to get it back.

They smoked the proof

And there's nothing left of

Canajoharie

His nostalgia starts to unravel itself when the ‘proof’ of a supposedly joyful youth is nowhere to be found amidst the trees. These lines function as a kind conclusion to the journey of acceptance that our protagonist has been travelling on throughout the song.

Also – side note, as this is not strictly to do with lyrics – Linnell’s vocal delivery on these final choruses really captures the song’s pervading senses of despair, grief, and desperation. As the realisation dawns on the narrator that there is ‘nothing left’ of his innocence, his willingness to delude himself into believing that the past is a place of complete idyll, Linnell’s delivery gets more and more frantic. It puts a lump in my throat almost every time.

Where a rocket ship experiment went awry

When the prototype exploded on the launching site

Ah, Linnell. You and your corporeal space-travel-vehicle-crashes-and-explosions horror. Seriously, though, this is the emotional climax of the song. The only thing that could make sense happens: utter destruction and chaos. The protagonist’s once rose-tinted view of his past is in ruins, and his mental state is probably much the same. Also, I always seem to associate rocket ships and space travel with childhood games and imagination, which makes these lines all the more viscerally heartbreaking. It is also of note that the figurative ship here is a ‘prototype’ that never even got the chance to leave the ‘launching site’ before its destruction – it had not yet reached its final incarnation, just as our protagonist was nowhere near maturity when his life was (perhaps! It’s just a theory… a game theory…..) upended by some traumatic event(s).

So, there. A somewhat jumbled mess of an interpretation, but one that I hope conveys at least some of my deep appreciation for Linnell’s insane lyricism. Unsuspectingprey (talk) 14:34, 11 February 2024 (EST)