hapless ant (info)   [lyrics]

Before you start thinking this song contains all kinds of symbolism, there are a few things you should know about me.  For starters, I live in a basement.  Because of this, I cohabitate with all kinds of bugs.  There are spiders, millipedes, and ants down here, and though I've yet to see a Praying Mantis, they are native to this part of the country.

When I first moved down here, I went all Sid Vicious on every bug I happened to see, especially silverfish (thousand-leggers.) Eventually, my hatred and general creeped-outedness at seeing silverfish led me to stop killing spiders so that they might eat those little bastards.  As of now, the spiders are winning.  So I like them.  I like them so much I even wrote a story about them.

Aside from killing bugs, this song is about isolation and wars against imaginary enemies.  These bugs don't give a damn about me.  To them I might be a god, some crazed boot-wielding deity.  I can kill them whenever I want, but that doesn't inspire them to build any shrines to me or even to scurry away when I come a-charging with a fly swatter.

I played this song for my host family when I was in Japan and Tim, a homestay student who stayed there a few years before me was visiting.  They asked me what the song was about and I told them it was about killing bugs, but Tim was like, 'No, it's deeper than that...'

If I had to assign some arbitrary meaning to this song, it would be that as insignificant as these bugs are to you, there are other beings to which you will appear as ants and there is NOTHING you can do to fight them, no cosmic court you can appeal to for fairness.

(c) 2005 jordan baugher