A Mark In Time
Mark Knopfler Discussion => Mark Knopfler Discussion Forum => Topic started by: LoveExpresso on January 23, 2014, 12:45:26 PM
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I'm going into tow law
To have my fun
Don't get me wrong
You were the only one
Behind my back lord
You made a fool of me
Don't do jack
And don't wait up for me
"Behind my back lord you made a fool of me" - is this line adressed to "her", or is it adressed to the "lord" actually?? Sorry, might sound stupid, but I never got that line... when he is so angry about her making him a fool, why is he then saying "don't get me wrong you were the only one" I always thought "to have my fun" intended some visit to another wife/hooker/etc...
That "don't do jack" could be the last line and some sort of goodbye to her then?
My interpration was always that a farmer wants to run away, maybe even THINKS about leaving it all and doing something stupid like committing suicide, maybe because of foot-and-mouth AND his wife cheating at him and seeing it all going down the drain?
When the solo starts however, I really can HEAR a big land diesel machine, let it be a truck or a jeep, rev up the engine and going onto the trip.. to Tow Law..
How do you think and how is your understanding of especially this paragraph of the lyrics? Happy to hear your input!
LE
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Hi LE
My thinking is that its addressed to his wife/partner who had a relationship with someone else, so he's going to Tow Law to 'have some fun' probably to get drunk, try and forget his sorrow somehow. She was the only woman in his life.
'Don't do jack' don't do anything, don't wait up, he's probably thinking of leaving. Open to interpretation really, you could put quite a lot into it.
Hillfarmers had/have a really tough job, work hard very little money.
I think MK is weaving a story, maybe some based on real life experience and some crafting into a tale.
Any other ideas?
Sally
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I'm going into tow law
To have my fun
Don't get me wrong
You were the only one
Behind my back lord
You made a fool of me
Don't do jack
And don't wait up for me
"Behind my back lord you made a fool of me" - is this line adressed to "her", or is it adressed to the "lord" actually?? Sorry, might sound stupid, but I never got that line... when he is so angry about her making him a fool, why is he then saying "don't get me wrong you were the only one" I always thought "to have my fun" intended some visit to another wife/hooker/etc...
That "don't do jack" could be the last line and some sort of goodbye to her then?
My interpration was always that a farmer wants to run away, maybe even THINKS about leaving it all and doing something stupid like committing suicide, maybe because of foot-and-mouth AND his wife cheating at him and seeing it all going down the drain?
When the solo starts however, I really can HEAR a big land diesel machine, let it be a truck or a jeep, rev up the engine and going onto the trip.. to Tow Law..
How do you think and how is your understanding of especially this paragraph of the lyrics? Happy to hear your input!
LE
'Dont do jack' is a used for a person who 'Doesn't want to do anything'
'Jack' is interesting because if you say 'you're allright Jack' that means someone is thinking/doing something for themselves without thinking of others. (Ie) Making a pot of tea amongst a group and then just pouring themself a cup!
Interesting....
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I agree with sak4 and think she has near enough 'nailed it'! :wave
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Yeah - think sak4 has it right. "Jack" is just short for the lovely English colloquialism "Jack S***" ie "nothing" as in "you never do Jack S*** around the house". So he's saying "don't bother waiting up or doing anything, I'm not planning on coming back". She's cheated on him and he's out for pay back.
"Lord" is just an expression as in "oh lord, what's she done now!"
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Hey, thanks all for your fast reply! :thumbsup
LE
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Hey English-spekers, I have a question regarding Jack just as well.
Mark said in one of his interview: "I've got a mongrel's technique" and "I'm Jack of few trades, master of none". What the hell did it means?
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Hey English-spekers, I have a question regarding Jack just as well.
Mark said in one of his interview: "I've got a mongrel's technique" and "I'm Jack of few trades, master of none". What the hell did it means?
Hi Foma! A mongrel is a dog of mixed breed, so MK's uses this analogy to describe his guitar technique as not the official way of playing - just things he learned from here and there.
"Jack of few trades, master of none" means that he can do a few things moderately well, but doesn't excel at any of them. The usual phrase is "jack of all trades, master of none".
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It is an expression that is usually stated as "A Jack of all trades, master of none." I think "Jack" is just referring to a man by the name of Jack. Since Jack is common English name, it is used as stand in for anyone.
Basically the expression means someone who has a variety of skills but is not an expert at any of them, like a handyman who can do some carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, etc, but does not qualify as a master at any of those skills. You might hire him to do a simple job when you don't want to pay the price for an expert, but you would seek out the expert for a big job requiring a lot of skill. Mark uses this phrase to refer to himself in his usual humble, self-deprecating way, because he is of course an expert at the guitar
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Thanks Val and Lestroid for precise info, it's all clear now! I'll try to find an analogue in Russian for this... :)
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I have a rather dark interpretation of this song.
The Hill Farmer is going to Tow Law to get some rather threatening items:
"Chain for the ripsaw
Killer for the weed"
...
"Going into tow law
To fuel my fire
Shells for the twelve
And razor wire"
The Hill Farmer is in pain, and appears to want revenge. However, I am not sure who he is threatening; his unfaithful wife or the man she is having an affair with, but I do wonder if there is another play on words...
Is there really a dog, or is Jack the name of the man (and it is the man who is a "dog" for sleeping with his wife):
example 1: "The dog
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Oh for me it was always clear that the stuff he wants to buy at Tow Law are the things he needs for fighting against foot and mouth disease...
shells, to shoot the animals, barb wire to close his farm in quarantine, diesel to fuel his fire to burn the dead cadavers...
the dog is is only friend, the only one on his farm he feels a relationship to obviously after the marriage/relationship with HER is also bitter now...
LE
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Had forgotten about foot and mouth, the song probably would have been written around the time we had a big outbreak here.
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I seem to recall that Mark has said in an interview that's on MK News that the song was indeed inspired by foot and mouth disease.
Having said that, however, I think that the dark undercurrents of the lyrics could well be taken to hint at violence. It is an extremely powerful piece of work both musically and lyrically, and the hints at infidelity, etc., make this a song that is not only about a hillfarmer having problems with his animals.
I cannot say precisely what it means but it sounds very menacing. I am not sure that the lyrics about the dog are meant to imply that the dog is now his only friend - why leave him be? It is possible that the dog is to be taken metaphorically.
The lyrics are difficult to get a good grasp of partly because, as others have mentioned, the narrator seems to address different people at various points. Also, he says that "you", his wife one supposes, "were the only one", which would imply that they are no longer together. Yet, he also tells someone not to wait up for him, in the present, as if she is still around. These are thought-provoking lyrics.
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It is a fantastic song.
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We had an outbreak of foot and mouth here in the UK back in the 1960s too so perhaps Mark was reflecting on that. Didn't he have a job on a farm at one time? Of course prior to the album was 2001 so... :think
Just checked and the outbreak was in 1967 and that would make Mark 17/18 years old. It is not unimaginable that he had a summer job before going to university and it's quite possible he was working at a farm, possibly in Tow Law when the outbreak occurred. The 2001 outbreak then brought back some memories for him hence the song we have today. Suspend your disbelief for a moment and you have a very credible theory right there!
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As I mentioned above, he talks about foot and mouth in the interview on MK News so the origin has to some extent been known for a long time. Still, the lyrics are open to interpretation.
"Recently it was the time of foot and mouth, and it was on my mind a lot, how hard it was. " - MK
Full talk here: http://www.mark-knopfler-news.co.uk/trdint.html (http://www.mark-knopfler-news.co.uk/trdint.html). Guess this is from the press kit.
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"Jack" appears in literally dozens of phrases in the English language and has all manner of uses. Let me give a few examples: "Every man Jack of them" (= everyone of them); "Jack-in-the-box" (a toy in which a small male figure, on a spring, pops out of the box when the lid is opened); a "Jack" in card games (the servant of the King and Queen); Jack the Ripper (the name attributed to the unknown perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders of 1888); and a jack is a type of flag (smaller than an ensign and one flown from the jackstaff). There are many more..
Jack, as most of you will know, is regarded as the dimunitive of "John" and perhaps derived from the French "Jacques", given that the Normans came to Britain in 1066 and Norman French was the language used by the upper classes in Britain for several centuries. "Jacques", in the past, was apparently used to refer in general to a French peasant.
Jack is used as a generic name for any man and, for a long time, was a familiar term of address between workmen, sailors and the like. So, for example, "Jack Tar" is another word for a sailor (an ordinary seaman who, in the days of sail, got his hands blackened by the tar on the ropes). There was a nautical phrase, "Pull up the ladder, Jack, I'm aboard", which is clearly related to "I'm alright Jack". In both cases, it refers to being concerned with one's own self-interest without regard for the interests of others. Indeed, there is an Australian phrase, the Jack system, that means exactly that - pursuing one's own interests and welfare at the expense of others - and a master of the Jack system was sometimes called the President of the Jack Club.
"Jack of all trades" is interesting in that it can be used in praise of someone who can turn his hand to anything and everything (that is, someone who is versatile and willing to have a go at anything) but is often used disparagingly (someone who can never quite master any one thing).
Jack can also denote someone who is young or small (in the latter case, either actually small or small relative to something or soemone else). In the nursey rhyme "Jack and Jill", Jack is a young lad and, in "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer", Jack faces a giant. A "Jack the Lad" is a young man who is cocksure and a probably a bit flash. "Jack Sprat" is generally someone who is quite short, though a sprat is also something small, in this case a herring-like fish, so you get the double effect. In a similar usage, it can refer to someone who is inexperienced. The apprentice sheep farmer in Australia, for example, usually a young man but I think it can be anybody learning that trade, is called a jackaroo
As indicated above, a jack can also be a servant, so a boot-jack is a device for removing one's own boots, a task that, for rich people, would have been done by a servant in the past. As well as someone inferior, jack can refer to some thing that is small. Thus, the small target ball used in bowls, the small white ball to which you try to get closest, is called the jack. I don't know if there is an equivalent word in boules, bocce or petanque.
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As ever TWM very insightful and informative. There's also the jack used to prop up a car (or other vehicle) when repairing it e.g. changing a wheel. Seemingly the word is always associated with the monkey and not the organ grinder!
I have always assumed the phrase in the song to mean simply "Jack sh*t" though. "Don't feed him jack, don't wait up for me..." If you notice the lack of capital letters meaning it can't be anyone's name. Also, for our non native English speakers, the phrase "jack sh*t" means "absolutely nothing" and it's quite commonplace to shorten it to just "jack." Later in the song it goes "don't do jack and don't wait up for me..." Again without capitals and it would also fit in with the meaning of it being absolutely nothing.