Tollund Man
Lyrics
I was sitting at the edge of the marsh
when the council came to bring me the news.
they handed me a bowl of cooked wild grasses and they
gave me the ceremonial shoes.
goodbye young Danish women.
goodbye Danish sky.
goodbye cold air, I am going away.
goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.[1]
Banter
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- Those of you who saw me last year - so funny to hear an echo on my voice, I'm not used to that, as if I'm speaking through the mists of time - those of you who saw me last year saw somebody shorter than the person who's with me now. This is Peter Hughes, he plays bass, and he sings in DiskothiQ, and we hawk records by our bands over there. And if you buy them, um, that would be just great. We'll be happy. He'll be happy, you'll be happy, it's a situation where everyone wins. So [inaudible due to Germans]. We'll sign them, or anything you want. I'll give you a recipe for vegan fry bread, it's quite tasty. I have to keep talking but I don't speak German. So I'd been on the ground about 24 hours when I started feeling this scratching in my throat and I've been sick ever since we hit the road. (1996-02-25)
- This next song is about a guy ... whom they found in Denmark. He had been living, well, not living, he had been perfectly preserved in a bog for 3000-4000 years. He had a rope around his neck and he was so perfectly preserved that you could see what the last thing he ate was if you looked at the contents of his stomach. (2003-02-18)
- This is a song about a man what they found at the bottom of a swamp in Denmark. [audience cheers for bog bodies] You know what I'm talking about! He had been there for like 4,000 years and because scientists are very clever they were able to tell what the last thing he ate was before he died. He died because he was the local candidate for a sacrifice. How he garnered that honor is unknown, but it's suspected that it was random, so it's as though somebody came to your house one day and said 'we're gonna drown you, get ready'. (2003-06-27)
- I was in college and I took an archaeology class—I didn't make it to the end of it, but I kept the textbook, and then when I was looking in the textbook in the idle hours I had to myself when I was no longer attending the class, I saw this guy...They had thrown him into a swamp, because he did something—history doesn't record what it was that he did, it might have been it was just sorta his turn to go. He'd been perfectly preserved by the swamp. You could see the expression on his face and his whiskers; it was hard to look at him. So I did what my other self did. I said 'I gotta write a song about that! (2007-09-21)
Live Performances
Footnotes
Extra couplets are added at the end of the second verse:
1996-02-25: No additions, probably because JD was sick.
2003-06-27: "Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down/near Cedar Avenue in Minneap,/when my crime comes." (John Berryman, "The Poet's Final Instructions")
2021-08-29: "And may these characters remain/When all is ruin once again" (WB Yeats "To Be Carved on a Stone at Thoor Ballylee")