Expert: Anne Dalmadge - 7/21/2004

Question
I pay real close attention to Dave's lyrics - probably more than anyone I know - and write some of my own interpretations.  I was listening to bartender the other day and suddenly I had a revelation about what is it about.  Of course I cannot be sure but the words fall into place nicely when you think of it this way.  Is it about the speaker, the one who is drinking, contemplating suicide?

(If go before I'm old/if I die before my time) the lines about his mother, brother, and sister seem to me to be him asking his family not to look shamefully on him after he kills himself.  This makes sense as those who are suicidal often feel as if they are letting those around them down by ending their lives.  

He asks his brother not to 'forget' him.  This is important because people in this situation often feel insignificant, their lives don't mean anything:  they are forgettable.  

He asks his mother to redirect him if he loses direction in his life (if this gold should steal my soul away).  I believe mother means mother both in the parental sense as well as Mother Mary.  He is looking for forgiveness and salvation.

As for the bartender, it is clearly god, but in this interpretation it seems the speaker is communicating with the drink server/god 1) because he is telling god how badly he is suffering and 2) literally asking for rebirth. “On bended knees, I pray, bartender please On bended knees, God please” I do not say rebirth in the coming back a baby sense, but, like Jesus, who was dead, and came back to life as himself.  He wants to feel alive again and not depressed, not like life is not worth living.  He wants to live a good life.

The last part is the part I am not sure about.  Here he talks of the wine drinking him came from the vine that strung Judas from the devil's tree.  I am no Christian history scholar but I know enough to know Judas sold Jesus out.  I also believe Judas is a saint, that he made up for his sins by establishing the church. It is not hard to see these lines are about evil overtaking the human spirit and people making bad decisions.  “The wine that is drinking me…”  The wine is evil consuming his soul.  I think this is the same deal the mother stanza talks about; the speaker is losing direction in his life and is making bad decisions.  But like Judas, the speaker wants to change and make things better.  Unfortunately he is weak, suicide/death is always on his thoughts (when I was young I never think about it now I can't get it out of my mind) and he doesn't know if he has the strength.  This is why he is asking, pleading with God for help – or at least another drink.

Let me know what you think,

Ben


Answer
It's good, but it kinda sounds like a psychiatrist is trying to analize a patiant, a lot of the times Dave's songs aren't that deeply involved, like One Sweet World is about camping, and Remember Two Things is about peace, simple as that. It's what I've always thought, you just put it more to an extent.