Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Master and Everyone (Drag City 2003)


Don't listen to this if you're having doubts about staying married. Or even carpooling with someone for a long time.

Will Oldham, ever the free spirit, dissects this free-wheeling image and lets selfishness and desire off the leash with a self-conscious clarity of purpose - and production - and the results tell you (and the women in your life - for the moment, anyway) all there needs to be told about the workings of the male mind.

She loves a soul,
That I've never been
A dog among dogs,
A man among men
And every day,
When I come home to her
She holds a phantom,
She kisses and she hugs him
And I am not
Averse to how she loves him
Why must I live and walk,
Unloved as what I am

Why can't I be loved as what I am
A wolf among wolves,
and not as a man
Among men

She craves a home
That she can go in
A sheltered cave,
That I have never seen
Not in my life,
And not even in my dreams

Why can't I be loved as what I am
A wolf among wolves,
and not as a man
Among men

Unfortunately for the serial mongamists and co-dependents out there, this is what is going through your man's mind when you cuddle up to him on the couch after work.

At least you can rely on the fact that he probably won't leave. He'll bury it instead.