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

• 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 - Mains d'Oeuvres, Paris)

Live Performances

• 2003-06-27 - Mains d'Oeuvres, Paris (recording - with Daniel Brodow of Refrigerator)
• 2021-08-19 Gothic Theatre

Footnotes

Extra couplets are added at the end of the second verse:
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")