ShawnPhillips-song-meaning

Subject: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: GUEST,Dagmar
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 06:46 AM

Could anyone explain to me what the song "Whaz Zat" from Shawn Phillips album "second contribution" is all about ?
I do understand the words, but I cannot guess what he is singing about ...its so much fun singing along with it and I think i would like to know what i am actually singing there-.. so any background information welcome or info on links where i might get that.

Thank you !
from Dagmar

Subject: RE: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: open mike
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 11:21 AM

dwhy don't yo post the words so that we can see them,
maybe then someone can comment on the meaning of it all!

Subject: RE: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: Dagmar
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 05:01 AM

How stupid of me !

of course you are right ! here they are :


Whaz' Zat

Lightning slaying shadows    In the tremors of the night
While he creeps among the alleys    Bringing fear before the fright
She sleeps in tattered trousers    In the ballroom's decadence
Moaning gently of her dreaming   By escorted precedence
Antiquated babblings    From a constant stream of thought   
Sensitively wringing out The rags that he has caught   
Patting yet her bulging belly She so slowly cries a smile   
In anticipated suffering Of her slowly growing child   
He is speeding in a vacuum Going nowhere, but, of course   
He might believe in discipline Of a bloody kind of sort    Naturally a state of race,
A never-changing spate of hate    While everything in some weird way
Does manage to relate    To her it doesn't matter more
Its chasms have been leapt And she leans upon the skepticism
Of her chosen fate   Stand tall, you spittle-smattered son of man
Stand up, you hear them say   To slap you down and kick your teeth
And smile across the bay   Irrelevant eloquent pleading
Wasn't what she did this year   She passed it by and told a lie
And shed a crystal tear   For him to see, from valley's edge
From plateaus in the sand   And yet he has beshit himself
For being just a man   A bragging crowing sort of twit
A cast-off shade of pink   Who's brought himself and all the rest
Unto the very brink   Yet that magic urge
Continues on and plays continuum   A song of pleasure and of pain
Until that will ... be done

Subject: RE: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: GLoux
Date: 27 Apr 04 - 10:11 AM

I think it is something that after you listen to it you say, WHAZ' ZAT ??

Subject: RE: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: Dagmar
Date: 29 Apr 04 - 03:56 AM

Yeah, well....right...

still ..does someone has some idea whats it all about ?

Dagmar

Subject: RE: ShawnPhillips-song-meaning
From: Michael S
Date: 29 Apr 04 - 08:36 PM

Shawn has a web site here. That site hosts the Shawn e-mail discussion list. Click on "Mail List" on the horizontal menu bar, for instructions on joining.

I spent some time there a while back. I didn't stay because I found too little going on. The members are Shawn fans. While they may not know what those lyrics mean to Shawn, someone will probably be willing to opine.

Have fun,
Michael