DBT SOTW #55 - Cartoon Gold

[GuitarManUpstairs]

Morning all.I had hoped to be able to put together a more in depth post on this song but unfortunately I had to travel everyday with work last week and then we left on Sunday for vacation so the weekend left little time for me to work with it either however i did manage to devote a few minutes towards deconstructing some of the (IMO) most cryptic lyrics in the Cooley catalogue.

I'm not good with numbers
I just count on knowing when I'm high enough
A mule with only two legs counting steps toward dangling carrots don't add up
I think about you when I can and even sometimes when I can't I do
Once the driver knows you got good sense he takes away the carrots too

Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before
Is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
Jesus made the flowers but it took a dog to make the story good
I think about you when I can and sometime when I don't I probably should

Tending bar in LA after dark must be like mining cartoon gold
Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old
I think about you when I can and sometimes when I do I still get caught
sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on


The song begins out front with the narrator admitting that he's a person that tends to lead with his heart rather than his head. Simply counting on knowing when you're high enough can come back to bite you as it has me on more than one occasion...but that's another story. Here i think he's referring to the relationship he has with his significant other who by all the "the numbers" is leading him on, but he continues to allow himself to be dupped. I think underneath it all he realizes this but doesn't let on because he knows if he lets on that he's hip to her game even the illusion of what he wants will be taken away. (First verse in a nutshell.)

The second verse is tougher for me. (Ya'll are gonna have to help me out - back me up or blow me down.) Something about that first line with the double negative followed by Jesus and dog shit gets confusing, but basically I think what he's saying is that getting all excited about token sentiments is countered by the emotional mess that is actually made. But even in knowing that he still feels guilty when he doesn’t take her into account or does his own thing. (That may be complete BS but that’s the best I can come up with.)

the third verse he is comparing himself to “Rocks that don’t cooperate (big dudes with big egos) and tools that drive you crazy (douches who show out with money and/or attitude) by admitting that through all this he still gets caught trying to look too cool for her.

There. That’s my take. Discuss and dissect.

[Smarty Jones]

Alsum analysis, GMU! I think you're way ahead of all the rest of us when it comes to piecing together this song. I'm still hung up on "Jesus made the flowers but it took a dog to make the story good," and have been ever since they leaked that line of the song. It's metaphorical as hell, but I think I understand what he was trying to say better after reading your thoughts.

It's interesting to note that Cooley laid down a banjo track on this song, which is one of only three songs out of The Big To-Do/Go-Go Boots sessions that features him on the instrument (the other two being Assholes and the Flying Wallendas). It's rare that we ever get to hear Cooley on banjo. He's so damn good in the studio, it's a shame we hardly ever get to hear him play it live. One more thing - Cartoon Gold, itself, is fucking alsum live.

[Clams]

I don't have a friggin' clue what this song's about, but I like it.

[Duke Silver]

As always, nice analysis, GMU.

My snap judgment when I first heard the song was that it was about being on the road, chasing those dangling carrots (stardom, money, etc), missing the one(s) you left at home. So I guess I'm reading it similar to GMU, except I see the "significant other" as fame.

But now that I read the lyrics more closely, I'm not even sure if the narrator is a bar patron, or the bartender. Hmm.

Either way, I second the call for more banjo.

[Smitty]

I really can't explain exactly why how I come up with this, and it's far from a concrete interpretation, but I get the feeling that it's about a guy whose in LA, far away from home, for one reason or another (could be work ala touring, could be that he's in Hollywood trying to "make it" but it's not what it was cracked up to be, or from the first verse even could possibly be rehab/an attempt to dry out). The person he thinks about could be a woman, the more obvious answer, or even could be his son/daughter, with whom he's separated from their mother. The last verse is the most straightforward to me, talking about all the difficult characters a bartender in LA would encounter, people who have a big egos like GMU said & those who "never made it", the cartoon gold line saying it's like a comedy, watching them come in with their problems/unrealized dreams, but sometimes he gets caught right along with the rest of 'em, he's just as foolish as they are, sitting in a bar with his sunglasses on. The two sure feelings I get from the song are disappointment & longing - no matter how you look at it, it's not a happy song. Reminds me of old country songs like "Sidewalks of Chicago" (Merle Haggard) & "Detroit City" (Bobby Bare).

I dig Rick Bass's description of the song from the essay on drivebytruckers.com:

You hear the bona fide country in Cooley’s Cartoon Gold, complete with rambling banjo run, and the undefinable ache and wonder at life, in the vocals - and you hear the I’ve-been-done-wrong-by-life-bit-am-still-here, still-hurting, hurting-so-good slowing- down soul sound.

[Tequila Cowboy]

The overall message of the song eludes me but this line:

Tending bar in LA after dark must be like mining cartoon gold
Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old

makes me think about Hollywood jackasses, and for some reason Charlie Sheen in particular, every time.

[beantownbubba]

Like a lot of people, i like this song a lot w/out really understanding it. And that makes me fear that understanding it too well might actually not be a good thing, lol. Nonetheless:

My guess is that the key to the song is the repeated theme of "thinking about you" but each time w/ a twist. The first time it's sort of the true love or infatuation stage where he thinks about her even when he "can't;" i.e. she's always on his mind, or forcing her way into his thoughts. But there's a warning there, right from the start: the driver taking away the carrots = something like she's taking away the "incentives" once he's hooked.

In the 2d verse, he ought to think about her sometimes when he doesn't, presumably meaning whoops, he fucked up again. Cheating w/ another woman? I dunno but something that's not likely to endear him to her.

In the 3d verse, daggumit! even when he does think about her he still ... something? Acts in ways he knows are stupid? Faux cool? Not likely to appeal to her? Is still trapped playing the LA cool or stardom game even when thinking about her ought to make him do something else?

I'm pretty sure that getting caught sitting in a bar in LA after dark w/ his sunglasses on is the key line, the payoff, the punchline, but danged if i know what the joke is.

[Rocky]

I don't have a friggin' clue what this song's about, but I like it.

Yup. Me too.

Cooley's lyrics alway say so much in such a small window of words, are so multi-layered and open to different interpretations....It reminds me of what I like about music and its powers to move people even if every single point is not expressly stated.

[RevMatt]

Certainly not the first cryptic Cooley composition but possibly the most challenging. I'll take a stab at it but I don't have any more of a handle on the song than the rest of ya'll.

Title -- "Cartoon Gold" Interesting choice. Could have used fools gold. What is "cartoon gold"? Well, it shines real bright, enough to illuminate things like a dark mine shaft or a cave. Always comes in giant chunks. It is not real. Actual gold comes in tiny pebbles. A prospector only comes up with a pebble or two at a time if he is lucky. But in a cartoon the prospector takes a pick ax to the side of a mountain and comes up with a big ass boulder.

My interpretation? The song might be a cryptic look at the music biz. Reminds me of the Joe Strummer line "Every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock and roll grabs the mike to tell us all he'll die before he's sold" which is a verse about the music biz that makes a gold mining reference. What Cooley may be getting at is success in the music -- and he certainly qualifies as a successful musician -- is not really like you imagine. Just like actual gold prospecting is not like they show it on the cartoons. It is back breaking work where you only get a few pebbles at a time.

Verse 1:
I'm not good with numbers
I just count on knowing when I'm high enough
A mule with only two legs counting steps toward dangling carrots don't add up
I think about you when I can and even sometimes when I can't I do
Once the driver knows you got good sense he takes away the carrots too

As a musician he doesn't really know much about the business end -- money, etc... He just knows what seems fair and what doesn't. The music business makes promises which are like dangling carrots (Rock and roll means well but can't help telling young boys lies), something that is really unattainable. It is just a dream that keeps you going. But like a mule, once the musician has good sense (good work habits, a decent track record) the unattainable dream goes away. You are just another working musician out there making a living. No more dreams of rock stardom -- the dangling carrot -- just the realities of being in a band. It is a job -- maybe a satisfying one at times -- and he is doing it to provide for his family -- who he thinks about even when he ought to be focusing 100 percent on his work. He no longer needs the dangling carrot to go out and do what he needs to do.

Verse 2
Getting all excited finding nothing that was never there before
Is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor
Jesus made the flowers but it took a dog to make the story good
I think about you when I can and sometime when I don't I probably should

To me, the first line is kind of about the hype and smoke everyone blows towards a new band or a great album. They act like it is the next great thing, something brand new. Reality is that it has all been done before. Getting all excited about it -- believing your own press, becoming convinced you are someone special, the next Dylan -- "Is like bringing flowers to your Mama and tracking dog shit all over the floor." You are oblivious to what you are really doing which is turning into an asshole. "Jesus made the flowers but it took a dog to make the story good" to me means that all of the elements of a great song -- the riffs, the words, the melody, etc... -- already exist. But the dog -- meaning the musician -- puts those elements together in a way that makes the song fresh and good. The last line? Maybe directed towards the narrator's wife or muse. What he knows about life, love and the reason why he does what he does is, in large part, because of her. An acknowledgment of this, I think.

Verse 3
Tending bar in LA after dark must be like mining cartoon gold
Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old
I think about you when I can and sometimes when I do I still get caught
sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on

References to LA in a country song usually mean that the artist does not quite understand the city and would never want to live there. Nashville is weird enough, but a country boy from the south really feels out of place in "Hollyweird" and no amount of fame can remedy this. It is fake. Cooley's line -- "Tending bar in LA after dark" I think refers to the musician who goes to LA to chase the dream of stardom and ends up tending bar. "Rocks that won't cooperate and tools that drive you crazy must get old." Chasing the dream is frustrating. The final line I like. "I think about you when I can and sometimes when I do I still get caught sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on." Despite his awareness of the bullshit surrounding fame -- "cartoon gold" -- the narrator isn't above pretending that he has it all, that he is something special, especially when he is away from his significant other (who lets him know he ain't nothing special) "sitting in a bar in LA after dark with my sunglasses on." Why would somebody wear sunglasses indoors at night? Just to look cool, or put on a front.

I don't know if this is what the song means. Only Cooley knows. And he ain't talking.

[PeterJ]

After reading everyone's analysis, I am starting to wonder if this is another story about the girl in Pulaski. Wanting to be an actress is the dangling carrot. 2nd verse is the whole exploring acting angle, and the last verse is her realizing it isn't all it's cracked up to be, and is embarrassed to be there, hence the sunglasses in the bar, she doesn't want to be seen. Yes, I know most of this is stolen from Rev's analysis. The person she keeps thinking about could be her parents, or one of the boys from back home that are better than the ones in L.A.

[dime in the gutter]

[Smitty]

Title -- "Cartoon Gold" Interesting choice. Could have used fools gold. What is "cartoon gold"? Well, it shines real bright, enough to illuminate things like a dark mine shaft or a cave. Always comes in giant chunks. It is not real. Actual gold comes in tiny pebbles. A prospector only comes up with a pebble or two at a time if he is lucky. But in a cartoon the prospector takes a pick ax to the side of a mountain and comes up with a big ass boulder.

I thought "cartoon gold" was another way of saying "comic gold" - something so funny/ridiculous it's classic. I wasn't aware of that definition...never heard fool's gold referred to as "cartoon gold". (I'm not saying it's not so, I just never heard it)

Edit: Another reason I always interpreted it that way is the fact that the song is filled with humorous visuals, the mule/dangling carrot, flowers/dogshit etc.

[Smitty]

[Clams]

I'm not good with lyrics, I just count on knowing when a song is good...

[beantownbubba]

I'm not good with lyrics, I just count on knowing when a song is good...

Not bad, Clamsie, not bad.

[cortez the killer]

I'm not good with lyrics, I just count on knowing when a song is good...

I noticed.