Love Vigilantes-Dead or Alive?

OK, so is the singer a ghost, or did his wife receive an erroneous death notice?? Just wondering...

i always thought it was an incorrect death notice..... ive also had it in my head that this is based on a true story. not a clue though :p

a mistaken death notice. not unheard of those days. could be something like 'the others,' but i doubt it.

Thanks. Maybe the idea of a ghost got in my head from seeing The Sixth Sense. It seems more poignant and more anti-war to me, as well. Oh well. It is what it is.

It's a ghost who didn't reliase he was dead until he saw his wife with the telegram.

That's why she doesn't see him walk into the house.

Let's face it, if he was alive it would't be much of an anti war song - more of an anti-clerical error song.

i always thought of it being a ghost, or a soldier dieing remembering his wife.

I'd always thought that the narrator was alive and that the death notice was a mistake, until I read in True Faith that he was a ghost. I guess it's one of those things that could go either way! I prefer to think he was alive, though.

Incorrect death notice-- think about the movie "Big Fish" for reference.

A ghost...

Epinions sums it up quite well:

"I've heard many conflicting theories on this song, so let's clear them up now. It's a subtle anti-war song (which still doesn't make it "folk") -- so subtle that the more optimistic reviewers believe it's about nothing more than a telegram mix-up. Not so. Let's look closely at the lyrics.

The song opens with a soldier who has come "from the land of the sun," after fighting in a war that was won with "rifles and grenades, and some help from God." He wants to see his wife and child again in the chorus, a bit panicked and yearning, because he has been "so alone, you see." Keep in mind those bits of phrases.

The next verse details that he "finally got (his) leave," that he "flew through the sky -- my convictions could not lie" and this telling insight: "For my country I would die and I will see it soon."

The final verse, he comes home to find his wife "lay(ing) upon the floor, and with tears her eyes were sore -- I did not know why." We are then told that he looks in her hand and spies a telegram that reads Your husband was a "brave, brave man" but that he "was dead."

Once you absorb that, you'll understand the second meaning of "land of the sun," of "finally got my leave," of why the soldier has to remind himself that his "convictions could not lie" while "flying home." He's a ghost. The compact, bright surface of this song has been hiding a hopeless emotional payoff. "

Barney wrote a song that complicated and included a lyric with 2 meanings

Who is Joe Gill? wrote: Barney wrote a song that complicated and included a lyric with 2 meanings

Maybe he wrote it in 1963?

Maybe Bernard was high...?

I vote ghost:dead:

Who is Joe Gill? wrote: Barney wrote a song that complicated and included a lyric with 2 meanings

NO's songs contain many lyrics that can be interpreted in multiple meanings. So ambiguous and perplex ... and I like it.:D

i always thought a ghost-but isn't that giving barney too much credit.

fly through the sky, for my country I would die..

ghost.

how often would soldier's wives get death notices erroneously? I would think they'd check that out 100% before sending those.

nmc wrote: fly through the sky, for my country I would die..

ghost.

how often would soldier's wives get death notices erroneously? I would think they'd check that out 100% before sending those.

well strange things have happend and do happen. just recently the australian armey managed to send back the wrong body to australia. a non-australian as well. So, a wrong death notice is not out of the question.

I always thought it was an incorrect wrong death notice... "When I finally got my leave"...

SHEDi xxx

I like to think he's a ghost or, indeed, it's not much of an anti-war song, though I know incorrect death notices have happened.

Dear or Alive, eh? Now, would Pete Burns play the soldier or the wife in that video?

I'd always heard it as being narrated by a ghost.

definitely dead as a freakin doorknob.

and it aint rocket science, and it aint complex writing

The extra stanza in the long version (hidden track on RETRO) explains everything, I think...

No Ben no shed wrote: The extra stanza in the long version (hidden track on RETRO) explains everything, I think...

I always imagine that LV is a tribute to Bob Dylan's "John Brown"?

In that song, a boy goes off to war and comes back crippled and blind, much to the disgust of his Mother. New Order take it that bit further and actually kill our hero.

They went one better on Waiting for the Siren's Call, which as we all know is actually a reworking of Homer's Odyssey