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drg55 View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: lizard King Crimson
    Posted: February 15 2004 at 01:36
What is Sinfield getting at with this term?

"Stake a lizard by the throat"

 Personally I think lizards are harmless enough.

(Fripp, you should have kept Sinfield in the band)

David.
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Alexander View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 04:25

My interpretation is allowing an ego to grow.

Since you meantioned Lizards are harmless, "Rupurt" still harms the little lizard.

On A Dilemmia Between What I Need & What I Just Want

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Gonghobbit View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 08:27
Maybe he's talking about w**king it ... huh, a word referring to pleasuring oneself gets censored? Kinda puritanical for such a 'progressive' site...

Edited by Gonghobbit
'This is a local shop, there's nothing for you here'
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Stormcrow View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 12:47

Originally posted by drg55 drg55 wrote:

What is Sinfield getting at with this term?

"Stake a lizard by the throat" 

 

It is a reference to performing an act of sympathetic magic.  Literally nailing a lizard to a tree (or board or door or wall) with the nail driven through it's throat.  A tree is the most likely place in this case as we learn "across his rain tree shaded lawn, lizard bones become the clay".

Note that a swan (either a spell, or a literal bird) is going to be born from the bones (turned to clay) of this lizard. 

Anyway; "burn a bridge and burn a boat, stake a lizard by the throat" is a magic spell to keep someone from getting somewhere or doing something.  You can't cross the river after all, if the bridge is burned and there's no boat, eh?

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Gonghobbit View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 13:42
Wow Stormcrow!
'This is a local shop, there's nothing for you here'
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Stormcrow View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 16:03

Originally posted by Gonghobbit Gonghobbit wrote:

Wow Stormcrow!

Well what can I tell you?  I had a weird childhood.

I forgot to mention that the killing of the lizard in that way was the activation of the spell.  I.e. the painful taking of the life of the lizard is payment to the spirits/underword/evil gods/ etc. for the activation of the spell.

Certain animals: bats, cats, toads & frogs, lizards, chickens, salamanders & newts, goats & sheep had more "currency" towards spell activation than what some others did.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 15 2004 at 19:10
So is this a form of Wicka? I stuck my tongue a flagpole in 20 degree temp and it froze. Took twenty minutes of salivating to get it unstuck.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 16 2004 at 03:23

Originally posted by danbo danbo wrote:

So is this a form of Wicka?

You have to realize that all attempts at doing magic, going back to the Druids of what is now England (who Julius Caesar tried to stamp out 2000+ years ago), the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Baal worshipers of Assyria and Sumer are all trying to do the same thing, for the same reasons.

Wicca, though it claims to be the representation of ancient rites and rituals from the dawn of civilization, not to mention the classic "witch" of Salem, MA; is only 80 - 90 years old as a "religion" and has to my knowledge added nothing to the occult practices other than a certain modern chic. 

The elements of sympathetic magic haven't changed for 6 - 7000 years at the minimum.  Anyone with access to the right (or wrong, as it were) books, including Pete Sinfield, could easily do enough research in an hour to write a song lyric with a proper representation of a magic spell.



Edited by Stormcrow
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Jim Garten View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 16 2004 at 07:02
Well, speaking as a lizard owner......

I own 3 of the little buggers, Dylan, the Australian Bearded Dragon, and the 2 leopard gekkos, Topaz & Tarkus - I wouldn't dream of staking any of them to a tree, wicca or not

Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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Stormcrow View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 16 2004 at 07:06

Originally posted by Jim Garten Jim Garten wrote:

Well, speaking as a lizard owner......

I own 3 of the little buggers, Dylan, the Australian Bearded Dragon, and the 2 leopard gekkos, Topaz & Tarkus - I wouldn't dream of staking any of them to a tree, wicca or not

GOOD!  <SMILIE>

Understand that I am just explaining it.  I AM NOT condoning it!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 17 2004 at 04:13

fascinating topic! 

As much as sympathetic magic may play a part in forming sinfield's metaphor here, I tend to cut to the chase and ask, "What is the song actually about?"    Lizard is a song about some kind of medieval battle, written with a kind of ironical self-consciousness about such themes developing in prog-rock songs.  I think that "stake a lizard by the throat" is Prince Rupert's challenge to himself, like "go kill the dragon."  He's not actually going to kill a dragon, but going to war, but a dragon is just a symbol for a feared enemy.  St. George wasn't just a fairy tale for kids, but a popular image of fighting "evil," whatever that evil was construed to be (Usually Moors and Saracens).

sad creature nailed upon the coloured door of time
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