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Jul. 5th, 2007 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
finefoxyladiesSo this is why I think the narrator of "Hazard," as penned by Richard Marx, is unreliable:
My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven
Even then the folks in town said with prejudiced eyes
That boy's not right
We enter the story with the narrator establishing his history, which will come to define later events: he and his mother moved to Hazard, Nebraska, years ago, and the narrator--though, notably, not his mother--was ostracized due to perceived dangers. The "not right" is not defined; is the offending defect physical, socioeconomic, or perhaps something more sinister? The narrator leads us to believe that his ostracism is unjust through the use of the loaded word "prejudiced," but beyond that, we are given no further explanation of the injustice.
Three years ago when I came to know Mary
First time that someone looked beyond the rumors and the lies
And saw the man inside
Though the narrator defines his age of arrival in Hazard, we are not allowed to know how old the narrator is now, nor the age difference between the narrator and Mary. This information would, one assumes, paint a further picture of the appropriateness of said relationship and place the narrator's voice as juvenile or adult. Though the narrator uses the words "man inside," we are never to know if this is a man of 17 or a man of 45. We are simply moved forward through time for the purpose of establishing the present events, e.g. Mary's alleged murder in the following verses.
The chorus then begins in its first manifestation:
We used to walk down by the river
She loved to watch the sun go down
We used to walk along the river
And dream our way out of this town
The narrator claims a mutual friendship based on a foundation of wistful dreams of escape. The first and third line uses the pronoun "we," which assumes agreement and amity. However the second line is notably a singular; only Mary "loved to watch the sun go down." The listener may later come to interpret this line as a sign of Mary's looming mortality and of the narrator's unconscious admission that he controlled her mortality, Mary's love of the sunset signaling a fatalistic attitude or willingness to sacrifice her life, as a martyr to the homicidal rage of the narrator (not unlike Desdemona in "Othello").
No one understood what I felt for Mary
No one cared until the night she went out walking alone
And never came home
The narrator now intertwines Mary's fate with a reiteration of his ostracism within the community. The idea that "no one understood" the narrator's feelings seem to be mutually exclusive from concern for Mary or about her friendship with the narrator("no one cared"). This paints a picture of a community that will make its negative perception of a young boy understood, but will not step in to protect a girl (or woman) from a close relationship with the offending narrator. We are not given evidence that Mary is an outcast like the narrator, nor are we told that she is a valued member of the community. Mary's innocence, position, or safety seems to matter less to the narrator than further establishment of the unjust perception of the narrator and the villainous narrow-mindedness of his surroundings.
Man with a badge came knocking next morning
Here was I surrounded by a thousand fingers suddenly
Pointed right at me
The words and perceptions now take on an almost exaggerated paranoia: a policeman visits and, almost instantaneously, the accusation of foul play is thrown upon the narrator as "a thousand fingers" point at him.
I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
Here is the one instance where the narrator contradicts himself: earlier in the narrative, he claims Mary "went walking alone." But here, the narrator places himself with Mary at some point in the evening. If the narrator is innocent, as he seems to imply, he should be able to provide the authorities with a time he last saw Mary, as well as some sort of alibi as the narrator made his way back from the river alone and without Mary. Is the portrait of the community true: is public opinion so soured on the narrator that no one believes him from the outset and would fail to provide him an alibi? Or is the narrator's repetition of "I swear" the overemphatic proclamation of innocence meant to conceal bloody hands?
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town
The narrator's first instinct appears to be to return to the last place he "saw" Mary "safe and sound" and flee. Or does "leave" imply self-harm brought on by overwhelming guilt?
A different musical theme plays as the narrator reflects:
I think about my life gone by
And how it's done me wrong
There's no escape for me this time
All of my rescues are gone, long gone
This could be the narrator's sad, honest assertion that Mary was his only champion in the town of Hazard and the culmination of years of unfounded discrimination. But again, the paranoia and repeated solicitation of pity is present, as well as the possibility that "no escape" could imply the narrator's culpability in Mary's disappearance or other crimes of person in the town. The figure of pursuit by the law, only recently raised by Mary's disappearance, seems to have a backstory we are not allowed to examine.
The narrator repeats, one last time:
I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town
This proclamation is followed by a haunting, ghostlike refrain that includes an "oooooo" vocalization, chimes, and a low bass note. The narrative thread lost to us, we can only conclude that these ethereal noises, combined with the ominous sound of the guitar, mean our narrator has succeeded in making it to the river to prepare his own watery grave or has been remanded, after an unsuccessful flight, to face trial for Mary's alleged murder.
If the time-frame of "Hazard" is set in the time of the song's publication, the late 1980s/early 1990s, one is skeptical that charges of second-degree murder would pass an impartial grand jury with no physical evidence, especially with so little time elapsing from the alleged victim's original missing-person's report. One can only assume that, unless the case presented in "Hazard" occurred some time earlier in Nebraska's statehood, that our narrator, if innocent, would not be found guilty with the facts as presented by the narrator within the story.
My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven
Even then the folks in town said with prejudiced eyes
That boy's not right
We enter the story with the narrator establishing his history, which will come to define later events: he and his mother moved to Hazard, Nebraska, years ago, and the narrator--though, notably, not his mother--was ostracized due to perceived dangers. The "not right" is not defined; is the offending defect physical, socioeconomic, or perhaps something more sinister? The narrator leads us to believe that his ostracism is unjust through the use of the loaded word "prejudiced," but beyond that, we are given no further explanation of the injustice.
Three years ago when I came to know Mary
First time that someone looked beyond the rumors and the lies
And saw the man inside
Though the narrator defines his age of arrival in Hazard, we are not allowed to know how old the narrator is now, nor the age difference between the narrator and Mary. This information would, one assumes, paint a further picture of the appropriateness of said relationship and place the narrator's voice as juvenile or adult. Though the narrator uses the words "man inside," we are never to know if this is a man of 17 or a man of 45. We are simply moved forward through time for the purpose of establishing the present events, e.g. Mary's alleged murder in the following verses.
The chorus then begins in its first manifestation:
We used to walk down by the river
She loved to watch the sun go down
We used to walk along the river
And dream our way out of this town
The narrator claims a mutual friendship based on a foundation of wistful dreams of escape. The first and third line uses the pronoun "we," which assumes agreement and amity. However the second line is notably a singular; only Mary "loved to watch the sun go down." The listener may later come to interpret this line as a sign of Mary's looming mortality and of the narrator's unconscious admission that he controlled her mortality, Mary's love of the sunset signaling a fatalistic attitude or willingness to sacrifice her life, as a martyr to the homicidal rage of the narrator (not unlike Desdemona in "Othello").
No one understood what I felt for Mary
No one cared until the night she went out walking alone
And never came home
The narrator now intertwines Mary's fate with a reiteration of his ostracism within the community. The idea that "no one understood" the narrator's feelings seem to be mutually exclusive from concern for Mary or about her friendship with the narrator("no one cared"). This paints a picture of a community that will make its negative perception of a young boy understood, but will not step in to protect a girl (or woman) from a close relationship with the offending narrator. We are not given evidence that Mary is an outcast like the narrator, nor are we told that she is a valued member of the community. Mary's innocence, position, or safety seems to matter less to the narrator than further establishment of the unjust perception of the narrator and the villainous narrow-mindedness of his surroundings.
Man with a badge came knocking next morning
Here was I surrounded by a thousand fingers suddenly
Pointed right at me
The words and perceptions now take on an almost exaggerated paranoia: a policeman visits and, almost instantaneously, the accusation of foul play is thrown upon the narrator as "a thousand fingers" point at him.
I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
Here is the one instance where the narrator contradicts himself: earlier in the narrative, he claims Mary "went walking alone." But here, the narrator places himself with Mary at some point in the evening. If the narrator is innocent, as he seems to imply, he should be able to provide the authorities with a time he last saw Mary, as well as some sort of alibi as the narrator made his way back from the river alone and without Mary. Is the portrait of the community true: is public opinion so soured on the narrator that no one believes him from the outset and would fail to provide him an alibi? Or is the narrator's repetition of "I swear" the overemphatic proclamation of innocence meant to conceal bloody hands?
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town
The narrator's first instinct appears to be to return to the last place he "saw" Mary "safe and sound" and flee. Or does "leave" imply self-harm brought on by overwhelming guilt?
A different musical theme plays as the narrator reflects:
I think about my life gone by
And how it's done me wrong
There's no escape for me this time
All of my rescues are gone, long gone
This could be the narrator's sad, honest assertion that Mary was his only champion in the town of Hazard and the culmination of years of unfounded discrimination. But again, the paranoia and repeated solicitation of pity is present, as well as the possibility that "no escape" could imply the narrator's culpability in Mary's disappearance or other crimes of person in the town. The figure of pursuit by the law, only recently raised by Mary's disappearance, seems to have a backstory we are not allowed to examine.
The narrator repeats, one last time:
I swear I left her by the river
I swear I left her safe and sound
I need to make it to the river
And leave this old Nebraska town
This proclamation is followed by a haunting, ghostlike refrain that includes an "oooooo" vocalization, chimes, and a low bass note. The narrative thread lost to us, we can only conclude that these ethereal noises, combined with the ominous sound of the guitar, mean our narrator has succeeded in making it to the river to prepare his own watery grave or has been remanded, after an unsuccessful flight, to face trial for Mary's alleged murder.
If the time-frame of "Hazard" is set in the time of the song's publication, the late 1980s/early 1990s, one is skeptical that charges of second-degree murder would pass an impartial grand jury with no physical evidence, especially with so little time elapsing from the alleged victim's original missing-person's report. One can only assume that, unless the case presented in "Hazard" occurred some time earlier in Nebraska's statehood, that our narrator, if innocent, would not be found guilty with the facts as presented by the narrator within the story.