What does Blame It On The Tetons mean?

Modest Mouse: Blame It On The Tetons Meaning

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Album cover for Blame It On The Tetons album cover

Blame It On The Tetons Lyrics

Blame it on the Tetons. Yeah, I need a scapegoat now.
No my dog won't bite you, though it had the right to.
You oughta give her credit cuz she knows I would've let it
happen.

Blame it on the weekends. God I need a cola now.
Oh we...

  1. anonymous
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    Jan 11th 2017 !⃝

    The tetons built a massive dam that broke and destroyed cities and life.

  2. anonymous
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    Aug 26th 2013 !⃝

    Any time an interpretation starts with "This song is about" I skip it. Honestly, everyone can get something different out of a song, especially a well-written song. That's what we love about Modest Mouse. To me, this songs speaks of loneliness and isolation, and the detached realities we live. A dog and pony show attracts our eyes and ears but we don't really know what's really going on. Blame is shifted so much and so often that we're all clueless, or don't want to know where the truth is.

  3. anonymous
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    Oct 29th 2011 !⃝

    Come on guys

    there are so many things missed on this, including lyrics

    when you start to google...blame it on the..what shows up?

    this song is about loniless and how to get someone to respond and the complexity therein

    everyone is a building burning - this is straightforward.

    everyone is an ocean drowning with no one to show how - who are the clouds?

    they are the people that were close to you and they went away. it's not better, it is bitter.

  4. anonymous
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    Aug 8th 2011 !⃝

    He's very upset with the mountains...

  5. anonymous
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    Jun 14th 2008 !⃝

    (Blame it on the Tetons. Yeah, I need a scapegoat now.)
    Feels like the need to blame our problems on something, anything but ourselves.

    (No my dog won't bite you, though it had the right to.
    You oughta give her credit because she knows I would've let it
    happen.)Not entirly sure.

    (Blame it on the weekends. God I need a cola now.
    Oh we mumble loudly, wear our shame so proudly.
    Wore our blank expressions, trying to look interesting.
    Blame it all on me because God I need a cold one now.)

    Seems to me that this illustrates the general public, and their dissatisfaction with themselves. As well as an illustration of what they're saying, many people are poorly educated. Even very capable adults that run larger portions of our society have little to say outside their profession. They mumble (talk incoherently) loudly(to be heard but saying nothing). He then suggests, blame all their problems on him to make the point that it makes no difference who you blame it on if you are not taking responsibility for your living situation. Taking the position of the devil for many christians. Who many still blame a malevolent force that sways the hearts of man.

    (All them eager actors gladly taking credit
    for the lines created by the people tucked away from sight)
    I feel this statement is refering to the people whole act as our goverment. We belive they are the one's running the whole deal, when infact they are front men for businesses and people of great wealth that make the real decisions. Everyone thinks Bush is a terrible debater and public speaker, a general fool. Infact he is devilishly intelligent and a vicious debater, I've seen videos of his debates as a governor, and as a college student. He was decisive and too the point. Over powering if you will. The whole deal is a charade and Issac is tipping his hat to the notion.

    (is just a window from the room we're bound to.
    If you find a way out, oh would you just let me know how?
    Would you just let me know how?)

    I feel here he is talking about the great observer. The one we are all a part of. There's an old saying,"life is an infinatly divided god" I think he's talking about the mind and the vision is but a window toa place we've never been and only seen. It's kind of hard to explain with out a lot of prior knowledge on the subject. He wants to get out. He know's there are those who know how to get out of this plane on existance. I think it's a call to them. Or he's joking because he know's there's no way out of god.

    (Blame it on the web but the spider's your problem now.)
    Your stuck in one place, your mind, but now have to deal with your own thoughts.

    (Language is for liquid that we're all dissolved in.
    Great for solving problems, after it creates a problem.
    Blame it on the Tetons. God, I need a scapegoat now.)

    This is an interesting line. To me I see it refering to the language of math that defines all of existance. It not only defines all of lifes problems physically and mentally, but also defines thier solutions. It defines consiousness, but needs consiousness to be percieved therefore to exist.

    (Everyone's a building burning
    with no one to put the fire out.
    Standing at the window looking out,
    waiting for time to burn us down.)
    This is refering simply to the inevitability of death. Also refering to the consciousness of all gazing through our eyes.

    (Everyone's an ocean drowning
    with no one really to show how.)
    Not positive enough to say.

    (They might get a little better air
    if they turned themselves into a cloud.)

    People would get what the want if they got closer to it. Or surrounded themselves by it.

  6. anonymous
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    Feb 12th 2008 !⃝

    "..gladly take the credit by the people tucked away from sight is just a window from the room were bound to, if you find a way out, oh will you just let me know how?"
    i believe that this line refers to how, maybe not specifically, some movie stars and singers and performers all take the credit for what they perform as if they were the ones who made it up. Also, the line that talks about sight talks about how basicaly what we see is just that, and we often fail to see what lies beyond the small dark walls of our mind that have light shed upon them by our physical ability to see. This line, to me, also refers to aristotle's philosophy of how if you were to chain people to the back of a cave and only let them feel and see shadows of the actual world around them, that's all they know, and the singer wants to be like the man that aristotle talks of who is let out to actually see the physical world that he had been missing out on.

    "Everyone's a building burning
    with no one to put the fire out.
    Standing at the window looking out,
    waiting for time to burn us down.
    Everyone's an ocean drowning
    with no one really to show how.
    They might get a little better air
    if they turned themselves into a cloud."

    In this line, the singer is talking about how in life, were basically alive for a while and we hold it so dearly, but slowly, we wait for outselves to die and we wait for time to eat us away or kill us. were metaphorically slowly drowning and nobody knows how to swim, and I believe that the last line that refers to "they might get a little better air if they turned themselves into a cloud" is the singer maybe mocking christianity and how he views peoples attemots at finding a way out of dying through god as pitiful or as a joke. To me, this line is the singer being sarcastic and cynical toward people and their situation.

    overall, I believe that the song is the writer's summary of his philosophy on life and that is that basically we live ad then we die and that's all there is to it. Its blunt and sad but I see it to be true as well.

  7. Death_by_Ponies
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    Oct 11th 2006 !⃝

    Its a song about two chipmunks having sex in the rain. It is highly erotic and kind of turns me on.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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