Heather1983 wrote:Hello Everyone,
What I would like to know is, what inspired David Pirnir to write that song? Does anyone know?
Heather, Welcome to the site and our little community of dedicated fans of the band and Dave's particular brand of brilliant and insightful songwriting.
In response to your question, I don't know if my interpretation and understanding of the Grave Dancers songs and their inspirations are at all correct, or just a personal theory built on my cloudy memories and thought about so often that it has become fact to me, I believe in it so strongly, but here is what I think:
I recall reading a magazine article back then (and, of course, I have no clue how accurate or truthful it was in the first place, and have never found it again to re-read it or confirm my memory of what it said) that stated that Dave was depressed at the time he was writing the songs that would become Grave Dancers, and had even spent some time in therapy. He was depressed because the Horse CD hadn't sold well, and the future of Soul Asylum was very questionable at that time, and Dave was upset that the band might not be able to continue, which would have been devastating to him.
If that article actually stated facts Dave told the interviewer, and I'm remembering it accurately, I think that Grave Dancers Union is such good therapy for so many of us because the songs on it reflect very clearly Dave's own therapeutic progression through that chaotic and scary period in his career.
Here is what some key Grave Dancers songs mean to me, and my interpretations are based on how they effected me, and how they corresponded to how I was thinking and feeling at the time, not nec how Dave intended them when he wrote them.
Runaway Train: I never thought this was about runaways, even though the video implied it. To me, it's about any situation where one is feeling like they're in a situation that they have no power over, and feeling like their life is careening out of control and feeling powerless to regain that control.
Somebody To Shove: Dave is talking about needing someone to basically give him a swift kick in the ass, or a slap to the face (a "shove") to snap him out of that feeling of being out of control & to help get him out of that helpless feeling and get some motivation. (Dave actually said something that seems to support my interpretation in that 120 minutes clip that Little Too Clean recently posted)
Keep It Up and Get On Out seem like very literal pep talks to himself and listeners to think positively and make forward progress out of the chaos, instead of wallowing in self-pity and despair.
Like I said, I don't know if my theories & GDU song interpretations are accurate to Dave's mindset while writing them, but they work for me. I doubt if we will ever know for certain what his inspirations were(nor should we be, since they are likely to be personal to him), as most songwriters and poets hate to explain their own inspirations and interpretations of their art, because they want the song or poem to mean whatever the listeners/readers want them to mean for themselves.
dells