Interpretations:Metal Detector
I got one. I usually think scrutinizing songs like this is stupid, but I'll give it a shot. The beach is a metaphor for some place. And the lyrics tell you to look past its stereotypes and such to really understand what that place is all about. Use your metal detector to look beyond the sand.
It's about tresure hunting unless you want to read ALL that- Dr Worm 181
I think this song is about materialism and capitalism. It keeps describing a cheerful, enjoyable beach scene, but tells the listener to look past the happiness of the seagulls and volleyball games, stop enjoying the scene, and see it as pure profit: there are precious metals underneath the beach, and the narrator is telling the listener that that is what's really important. The chorus reassures this: "My metal detector is with me all of the time" informs the listener that the narrator is constantly seeking money, or metal, as the song would have it. Then, the narrator refers to this wonderful beach scene as a mine: it's not an enjoyable beach to him, but an oppurtunity for making money. -- Chuckie
This is one of my favorite TMBG songs. I see it as part of the series of Linnell (?) songs concerning people with intense obsessions/compulsions, escapist fantasies, or delusions, possibly elderly people (in this case, the song brings up for me the image of an old man in baggy shorts walking along the beach with his metal detector), and often these obsessions come in the form of technological devices. Some other songs I see in this group are Destination Moon, Dirt Bike, The Bells Are Ringing, Spiraling Shape, I Should Be Allowed To Think, and of course the excellent No One Knows My Plan. Hopeless Bleak Despair gives me the same kind of feeling.
I love the people in these songs. They're confined in a very small corner of human experience, but they've developed a whole rat's nest of associations and emotions around something most people wouldn't see anything special about, and ways to make their experience rich and deep and for it to make sense and have perspective, despite what we might consider a very distorted view of things. --Crankysysadmin
I also see Till My Head Falls Off and the recent Renew My Subscription in this category. Hey! Maybe this is a good "song theme"... --anonymous man
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i beleive this to be a song about male and female relations and how easy it is to dismiss something or someone because of its appearence, for instance the line "ive got something to help you understand, something waiting there, beneath the sand" where the sand means skin or appearance or "look past the volley balls, look past the squaking gulls," might mean to look past what everyone else see's
sligmasta
I found a Real Audio version of this, located here,
and they say "it's actually about... it's based on a book uh... about finding buried treasure in Casco Bay in Maine, uh... written by a complete crackpot and he uses a metal detector, so this song is based on that."
.:Mavhunter:.
Even though I accept that the song is meant to be interpreted literally, I do love the interpretation you get of this song when you change the lyric to "I'm the inspector over the mind."
What that interpretation is shall be left as an exercise for the reader.
To above - I thought it WAS "mind"! -Vixus
Wow a song of the tenacity of hermits
Seems to me to be another jaunty "memento mori!", like Turn Around. --Nehushtan 01:17, 16 Feb 2006 (CST)
I have this thing for World War II and this is what I like to think it means:
Down at the shore there's a place where there's no one vacationing
because it's a war
There's just the sound of the call of the wild overcoming the fear of the unknown
The soldiers are getting off the boats and not knowing what is waiting for them
I'm the inspector over the mine
He looks for landmines
Look past the volleyball (look past the ball) Look past the squawking gull (look past the gull) Ignore the mountain of discarded folderol
The singer is an veteran who came back to the beach now since it is now a vacation site and he is telling how it was when he invaded.
'Cause I've got something to make you understand Something hidden there underneath the land
You shouldn't walk there because of the landmines.
My metal detector Is with me all of the time
It will show the right path to walk
Every seashell has a story to tell if you're listening But underneath every shell there's a story as well if you've heard enough of the sea
There might be landmines under the shells
Then everything on the top will just suddenly stop seeming interesting So listen now to the sound of the things that are found underground
He can't pay attention to the fighting because he is listening to the metal detector.
Also, around; "I'm the inspector over the mine", the keyboard could sound like explosions
Alright, this is my initial interp and I know TMBG sort of said otherwise but I might post it anyway. Where I live there is A LOT of drama. My friend from a variety of sources seems to know A TON of stuff about everybody. This person seems to know that too. It uses the beach as a metaphor for the world I think, but this is about a guy who finds stuff out about people. The line "I'm the inspector, open the mind" seems to suggest that he is kinda going around and finding people's secrets. The line "My metal detector is with me all of the time" seems to be about the guy when he's talking to people he's reading between the lines and finding out info. Then he finds that the hidden stories are much more interesting than their expression above. So that's my interp, I hope I'm close. ~AgentChronon
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