What is Dude Ranch Nurse about?
 

This has to be my favorite song off Sonic Nurse along with I Love You Golden Blue, and I always wanted to know what it deals with. Actually I always thought it was about sex, and always hoped it was not (it would not fit the song mood at all...), so what is your interpretation?

just a psychosexual, polymorphously perverse ditty methinks

I always thought it was about sex, too. Though I thought it did fit the mood since it's a sexy song. Just me?

i have no clue, but i sure do like the song. i always kinda thought SY songs had kind of a broad meaning so you could make up yr own interpretations.

I always thought it was about prostitutes in the desert. But I didn't really listen that well. Golden Blue is my favourute...

RanaldoNecro

i always thought it was about their deep long lasting friendship with their best buds blink 182.

Kim used to introduce it as an "Anti-Bush" song

Interesting...

that is a badass picture!

Nothing. Sonic Youth's songs are just random words strung together that sound cool.

The "nurse" is Bush, as a fake useless nurse, pretending America is sick. He'll try to cure the country with lies ("pretend") but in the end it will fall down... because, "nobody knows the shape I'm in" , not even Dude Ranch Nurse...

She did introduce it that way a few times, yes. Most songs with good lyrics have multiple interpretations of meaning.

That's interesting about the Bush thing, I never thought about that. To me, the song seemed like a vivid (yet indescribable) portrait of a woman who, for whatever reason, was at the end of her rope, and seemed desperate to have this one last romance/encounter. Like she knew it was only a matter of time before she overdosed or killed herself, and she was begging this person (who didn't fully understand "what shape she was in") to just go along with it. It's weird--the song has almost moved me to tears, but I can't even say in concrete terms what it means to me. But she conveys this emotion so perfectly.

Multiple interpretations... I like yours, it's really artistic. I must say I felt the same as you first. And then I thought about "sonic nurse" as a very political album. That's what poetry is all about, emotions first, then the commitment.

that song gets me hard, very sexy....

Hahahaha. Agreed, man. Agreed.

I like the heavy interpretations, but I still think it's just about sex.