From: mdbarb@whale.st.usm.edu (Melissa Dawn Barberree)
Subject: Re: Geek USA meanings?

Mon, 9 Dec 1996 16:23:32 -0600 (CST), keylime@txdirect.net wrote:
>Subject: Geek USA meanings?
>
>Hi Listessa!  If any of you read my last post, I talked a little 
>about BwBW and the Job reference.  This sort of got me to think about 
>Geek USA, especially the line "...cast into the world with apple eyes"  
>In my English assignment, we had to read Psalm 17.  It's a "Prayer with 
>Confidence in Final Slavation." In one of the verses, the speaker is 
>asking the lord to keep him the apple of his eye. I'm not really sure 
>as to the exact meaning of the idiom "apple of the eye", but I'm pretty 
>sure it orginated from The Bible.  This one reference may not convey 
>the entire meaning of the song, though, because I think the pumpkins 
>songs are not like poetry.  Poetry has one central meaning expressed 
>throughout the whole body of work.  Some Pumpkins songs have several 
>different underlined meanings that were put there on purpose by the 
>author, Billy. (this is just my opinnion, of course.)
 
Good observation regarding sp's non-poetic-like lyrics in the traditional
sense (of course, there are poets who deviate from the "one-subject" format).
I couldn't agree more.  When I first got into the Pumpkins a few yrs back,
I'd be like, "Oh, I get it... no, wait a minute, it means this... no, no..."
Until I finally realized what you have.

Anyway, about Geek:  I've come to the conclusion over the past few months
that it has two main underlying themes.

1.  "Falling from grace" insofar as our cultural norms are concerned
(possibly encompassing Christianity), esp. the subgroup of "alternative
scene" norms.  We all know at this point in bc's career he was
disillusioned and pissed off about alternative culture snubbing him and
labelling him a sell-out.

2.  In drug culture, to "geek" means to trip on crack.  Listen to the
song, and many of the lyrics will make sense in this context (i.e., "Shot
full of diamonds" = crack rocks; "the disappointments disappear like they
were never herre..." = the feeling you get while on crack -- I've never
done the stuff and never would, but a guy friend of mine did some once
without knowing it was in his joint and explained how it feels to me... ).
There are many more eg's, but i don't have time to go into all of them.


just my quick .02, 

mel