Life always tells us to listen, sometimes a bit louder than usually, just a bit.
I got the idea and decided to work on Mama said two days ago, while working on Low man's lyric. So this morning I took the lyrics but only read them closely, I had to finish a letter to my dad before really getting started and anyway I don't like starting something when I know I'm going to be interrupted : I had to go to the funeral of an acquaintance of ours in the afternoon so I decided to let it aside until I'd be back.
And I'm back.
When we left the house, my mom saw a dead cat on the side of the road, two hundred feet from the house. A black cat. And one of our cats is black. She parked and we went to have a look : the poor thing had been run over, its body was all twisted, some blood coming out of its mouth. No distinctive sign. Like ours. We were completely unable to tell whether it was ours or not. Its body was beginning to rigidify, we couldn't even check whether it was a female or a male. I went back to our house, clapped in my hands to call our little tribe as I do when it's lunch time for them. I clapped and clapped again.
And our black cat arrived, tail up.
Grateful and peaceful, we left for the ceremony.
We had found the announcement yesterday evening. The man who died had been struggling with cancer for two years and a half. He was the ex-husband of one of my mom's old friends. We were not in touch, I almost didn't know him.
Some of his friends and his son spoke a few words about him at the church. They all talked about how his illness had allowed him, forced him, to become more opened to his feelings and emotions as well as to the ones of his close relatives and to spirituality.
They all said that by doing so, he had helped them all to go further on their own path.
Him, I'd say he needed to be shouted at to start to listen.

Here were the circumstances life put around me today, the day I had decided to start working on Mama said.
So, let's get started.

First, the style.
Many growled at it: "Arrrgh! They're going country! Arrrrgh! Enough of those damn ballads! Arrrrrgh! We want hard rock!".
"Shut the f**k up ! You stupid !", I'd say.
The guy is remembering and talking to his mom as well here. Do you know many moms who listen to hard rock? Would you talk to your mom with your "hard rock"? If you want to sing to her something and know the kind of music-language she enjoys the most, you're going to try to use the same or one that is as close to it as you can so that she will understand what you have to tell her.
You want her to listen, not to turn the sound off. So it's country. And so what? He's not talking to you anyway!

"Mama, she has taught me well, told me when I was young": he's remembering his mom, you don't need me to get that, I know… He does it in a respectful way : his mom used to teach him things, she used to talk to him, she cared about her son's education.

"Son your life's an open book, don't close it before it's done" : she was a kind of poetic woman to use that kind of metaphor… did she think life is written or that you're writing it? Anyway, for her, life is a kind of duty you have to carry until the end, until it's taken away from you.
It can also mean that the way you live your life, your deeds are stored somewhere, remain after you're gone as some kind of biographical books, that's it's not all blown away. So if you want to be satisfied by this biography of yours, if you want to be able to stand up for it, you'd better watch out for what you do, each and every single day.

"The brightest flame burns quickest, is what I heard her say" : it could have been a sort of premonitory saying… It doesn't sound as having been one of her "teachings", more something she would say without really paying attention, more to herself than to anyone in particular.
For her, the ones who live their life the most intensely, go first. And for saying that, I'd say she had to value more those persons than the others, so took them as an example, as a valuable path to follow.

May, 10th, 2001.

"A son's heart sowed to mother": I also found the line "a son's heart's owned to mother". I asked which was the correct one at the Metallica-Mechanix board yesterday. Laitnin answered and said : the first one, for having listened to it closely. So I'm going to go with that one but…
Isn't it amazing how some words in some songs are just not for sure ? You just can't know whether it's really this or that. They're not in the booklet, not on the official site… You can try to guess by listening to it hundreds of time and "find out" by yourself but then it's only your ears and could you tell for sure you have perfect ears?
And the great thing here is that sometimes both "this" and "that" are meaningful, each giving some sense to the line. James doesn't seem to pay attention to his pronunciation sometimes, just like most of us, but with him it can leads to some real strange effects.
I wouldn't say he's aware of it. I like saying that kind of things. Like: he's not all aware of all the meanings that his lyrics contain. And tell me if you know better!
"Sowed" gives a really beautiful image. The son's heart is a seed and the mother is the soil. Both are nothing alone. A seed in a box is just like a grain of sand. Soil alone is a desert. They need one another to become meaningful : the seed to become alive, the soil to become fertile.
The mother nurtures her children's heart : the "food" she's able to give can be as well emotions, feelings, spiritual awareness,… as long as the children needs it, as long as they're not completely able to receive this directly from the outside world, like a foetus inside of the womb is not able to receive directly food and oxygen from the outside world. It has to be brought to him/her through the mother's body.
A sense of eternal ties is given by this image : son's heart and mother forever depending on one another. This leads to the symbolic mother who inhabits each one of us : this part of us (called an archetype) that develops itself through our relationship with our "real" mom and that is supposed to allow us, one day, to be independent beings, it's the part of us through which we become able to feed ourselves alone. This is our eternal mother.

"But I must find my way": his heart is tied, forever in relationship with his "real" mom as well as with his "symbolic" mom but at a time it comes to be not dependence anymore.
At a time, the fetus gets out of the womb and the umbilical cord is cut, at a time the child becomes able to find his own food, whatever it may be, alone. At a time, we become able to choose what we feed ourselves with : aware that what we feed on reveals us who we are, just like the soil allows the seed to reveal the life that sleeps inside of it.
And it's not about identifying yourself to your "symbolic" mother, it's about including it to your Self.
The man here realizes it's time for him to become independent of his "two moms" : to find his way, to choose what he's going to feed himself with, to become aware of his own growth and take responsibility for it.

"Let my heart go, let your son grow": sometimes, "real" moms happen to be very possessive, very dominating towards their children. They're afraid to "loose" them, when they should know better no one belongs to anyone.
By doing so, such a mom keeps her children in some sort of prison, if they try to brake free, then it means to her that it's because they don't love her anymore. And the children start feeling guilty for wanting what belongs to them : freedom. Moms have to let their children go when time comes, this is what love is about.

"Mama, let my heart go, let this heart be still, yeah still": by letting him go, she releases him from this guilt he feels, his heart can be still. She loves him and wants what's best for him : well, time has come for him to choose what's best and she has to accept it so that their relationship can be renewed and can find new ways of expression.
"Letting go" would be "The" way to express Love, to be "heart still", wouldn't it?

"Rebel, my new last name": yes, to get out of the surroundings of a possessive mom, we've seen you have to become an outcast (that's the word of the day, a mail I receive everyday from Wordsmith) in her own world.
Well, here it's not only the mother's world : our last name is given to us by our father, it's about the all family's environment he has to brake free from.

"Wild blood in my veins": to say "we're of the same blood" is a way to say we're of the same family.
The man is comparing his blood, his temper, with the one of the other members of his family, he's saying he's different from them. A wild animal can be ferocious but more than that, he's free.
He's saying that his nature makes him the way he is, his wild temper is engraved in him.
It's even saying he inherited it, that his family may look quiet and so very civilized people, there's still wild blood in their veins, they may be able to hide it but they transmit it to their children.

"Apron string around my neck, the mark that still remains": for the non-english speakers here, let me explain that an apron is a garment tied round the waist and used to protect closing, "to be tied to someone's apron string" is usually said of a man, meaning "dominated by a woman, especially a mother or a wife".
This domination he's talking about no longer is but lasted long enough to let him marks, scars.

"Left home at an early age, of what I heard was wrong": people used to tell him leaving was not the right choice, that he was to young to be able to do things by himself… He didn't listen to them. And probably, all through the years, he found people to tell him again he had done wrong. He's still not convinced : it's still only "what I've heard", his personal experience seems to tell him another tell.

"I never asked forgiveness, but what is said is done": as he was not feeling as doing something wrong, how could he have felt sorry and asked to be forgiven ? Anyway, whether you were wright or wrong, you can't come back on your past to get stuff done another way. Regrets are useless.

"Never I ask of you but never I gave": back to his mother. Is it me or the grammar is strange here?
It can mean he was an easy child, never asking for special attentions from her, never asking her questions about her, but never giving anything of him neither.
But he's saying he used to give nothing and now he's asking for nothing from her…
Anyway, their relationship is broken, that's the main idea, something ceased to happen or never really happened between them : no exchange, no sharing, as it's supposed to happen between a mother and her child.

"But you gave me your emptiness that I'll take to my grave": no exchange, a forever empty mother's hand.
To go further, emptiness is associated with the woman, the mother, the womb (the moon in astrology).
It represents another side of this function that allows us to grow, here by giving us a place to grow in/from: emptiness, a fertile emptiness, the mother's gift to her child.

"Mama, now I'm coming home, I'm not all you wished of me": the rebel is back, maybe feeling a need for reconciliation which can come from this need we all have to be part of a family, maybe just in search of a way to show his love to his mom.
He knows his mother waited for him to fulfill certain things, that she might very well be disappointed by who he's become, by who he simply is.

"A mother's love for her son, unspoken, help me be": he's not putting in doubt her mother's love for him, he knows she just never told him. "Just" having a heavy part to play here. It looks like the source of this broken relationship, the source of the son's suffering.

"I took your love for granted and all the things you said to me" : he used to consider this love as what he diserved without having to give anything in return, also to consider this unspoken love as normal… And to consider as true what she told him, her teachings… Well… He's becoming aware of what went "wrong" between them, he's starting to see his mother the way she was…

"I need your arms to welcome me": he needs to reconciliate with her, he needs her to accept him as he is, to show him her love.

"But a cold stone's all I see": he's standing in front of his mother's grave, which gives him now the same impression he used to get from his mom when he was young.
For me, someone who looks cold is not a "heartless" person but someone who doesn't show his/her love, who holds it back, or who doesn't show it the way you expect it.
Just have a look at who this guy became with such a mother.
Sometimes, parents seem to torment us for no reason and we realize later they were just doing a great job. Well, maybe it's much more than just sometimes…

May, 11th, 2001.