Laura

Slurred vocals and weird effects make this song difficult to understand; it is as if the person is very drunk singing from the inside of a toilet. And of course, when unpuzzled, the lyrics don't make sense anyway.

The grain bag sits on the chair,
and why the hell am I with ya?
And if you told me that it wasn't there,
why the hell am I with ya?

Eddie Dingle, whose first appearance was on "Nan," makes another appearance in the lyrics of this song.

The namesake of the song comes up in really long whines of her name:

Laura. . . .
Laura. . . .

You can't really tell that they're saying anything, it mostly just sounds like a long moan.

I don't know who Laura is.

This song is © 1991 by Ween, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp/Ver Music/Browndog Music/BMI.

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The "muse" of Petrarch. According to tradition, the daughter of Audibert de Noves and wife of Count Hugues de Sade (to whom she bore 11 children).

In Avignon, in 1327, Petrarch first met and fell in love with Laura, the woman for whom his unrequited love was to inspire so much great poetry (unrequited, since she was married to another man).

Inspired by Laura, Petrarch wrote numerous love poems, titled Rime in Vita e Morte di Madonna Laura (or Canzoniere). When Laura died of the Black Death, in 1348 in Avignon, Petrarch wrote:

"Laura, illustrious by her virtues and long celebrated in my songs, first greeted my eyes in the days of my youth, the 6th of April, 1327, at Avignon; and, in the same city, at the same hour of the same 6th of April, but in the year 1348, withdrew from life, whilst I was at Verona, unconscious of my loss ....

"Her chaste and lovely body was interred on the evening of the same day in the Church of the Minorites; her soul, as I believe, returned to heaven whence it came."

Some scholars have argued that Laura was a fictive person invented by Petrarch, to serve as the unattainable ideal of his passions. This is not, however, the general scholarly consensus.

She used to let her golden hair fly free
For the wind to toy and tangle and molest;
Her eyes were brighter than the radiant west.
Seldom they shine so now. I used to see
Pity look out of those deep eyes on me.
"It was false pity," you would now protest.
I had love's tinder heaped within my breast;
What wonder that the flame burned furiously?
She did not walk in any mortal way,
But with angelic progress; when she spoke,
Unearthly voices sang in unison.
She seemed divine among the dreary folk
Of earth. You say she is not so today?
Well, though the bow's unbent, the would bleeds on.

Francesca Petrarch

Petrarch understands his love for Laura in opposite ways. On one hand, he sees it as a force that will lead him toward the divine. On the other hand, he sees it as a dangerous impulse leaving him prey to some of his own worst characteristics. This uncertainty leads to his characteristic use of the Oxymoron. Petrarch, like all of the great sonneteers reveals more about philosophy and self than about the beloved. Laura, the beautiful but enigmatic muse who inspired these lyrics died of the Black Plague of 1348. Petrarch's sonnets recorded the various change in his thoughts and emotions between his first vision of Laura until after her death. His sonnets were much more concentrated upon the psychology of the poet than on the beloved.

Lau"ra (?), n. [LL., fr. Gr. () lane, defile, also, a kind of monastery.] R. C. Ch.

A number of hermitages or cells in the same neighborhood occupied by anchorites who were under the same superior.

C. Kingsley.

© Webster 1913.