Dirty Paws Meaning
People shouldn’t get surprised at the fact that a music band named ‘Monsters and Men’ would choose the title “My Head is an Animal” for their debut album and write a song like “Dirty Paws” about a great battle between birds and bees and a four-pawed monster that ends up saving the day.
Dirty Paws
The title suggests that the main characters are animals, or at least they are represented as such. Let’s also assume that several lines in the song refer to actual animals. However, in other contexts, it is clear that these animals are acting as metaphors for people, including probably the vocalist.
Recently, the claim that this is a folk song was made in a Quora article. And the history of the troubled existence of bees in Iceland, the country of origin for Of Monster and Men, is what it speaks to in a literal sense. However, we don’t think our situation is all that complicated.
Dirty Paws Lyrics
Jumping up and down the floor
My head is an animal
And once there was an animal
It had a son that mowed the lawn
The son was an OK guy
They had a pet dragonfly
The Dragonfly ran away
But it came back with a story to say
Her dirty paws and furry coat
She ran down the forest slope
The forest of talking trees
They used to sing about the birds and the bees
The bees had declared a war
The sky wasn’t big enough for them all
The birds got help from below
From dirty paws and the creatures of snow
La la la
La la la la
La la la
La la la la
So for a while, things were cold
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
It was colored black by those killing machines
But she and her furry friends
Took down the queen bee and her men
And that’s how the story goes
The story of the beast with those four dirty paws
La la la
La la la la
La la la
La la la la
La la la
La la la la
La la la
La la la la
Meaning behind Dirty Paws.
There are many different versions of the meaning behind the song Dirty Paws. Below, in this article, you will see the most relevant meanings.
Meaning 1
Paper wasps build nests that grow as they house many worker generations as spring comes. The Queen lays eggs at the end of the summer, and the eggs grow into insects that leave the nest to mate and repeat the cycle the following year.
This song is about a young person (I’ll call them the Fox) who grows up and gets a puppy. The Pup has grown a little and now hunts minor bugs and berries, but he prefers grass because it is the most plentiful food source. This Pup finds a dragonfly while out in quest of food, follows it around in a fun manner, and eventually leads the Fox to a nearby forest.
After the following generation grows up and flies away, foxes will dig up nests and eat the larvae and anything else. In any case, the Pup grows bored with the Dragonfly and flees to look for these nests. But he wasn’t by himself. The only thing left was birds and other creatures were consuming the nests and bugs.
However, not all of the nests were captured. Those left in the nests still standing were afraid to leave them. Birds and other animals were in a feeding frenzy outside the few still-standing nests, with the Pup that Followed the Dragonfly being the most well-known.
This story concludes with that Dragonfly flying back to where the Pup first saw it after most wasps (including the Queen) have been eaten or otherwise disposed of.
Meaning 2
Some say this song is about World War II, and the birds and bees represent France and England, respectively. The US and Russia are the “Dirty Paws” and “Snow Creatures,” respectively. So when it claims that “the Bees declared a war,” it does mean it, and Germany is the Queen Bee. Europe is the forest.
The first verse introduces the idea that humans behave like animals when it comes to fighting. Although the allusion to “holes” could be a reference to the trenches of World War I and the “killing machines” could be the newly developed turrets and artillery. Due to its involvement in most global conflicts, the US is known as “dirty paws.” Its dirty paws indicate the four wars it has fought.
The families represented by the son, father, and Dragonfly are those that sent their children to war and had them return with a story to share.
Meaning 3
It’s also claimed that this song is about the struggle between humans and nature. The son most certainly stands in for all of us. We are damaging our land by mowing the grass. The remainder of the song tells how nature used animals and bugs to defend itself against us humans (we are the bees).
The area we ruined to appease ourselves is called “the forest that was once green.” Unfortunately, Mother Nature has greater odds and wipes off the bee population.
Conclusion
What this song does have is an environmental motif, if anything. And in keeping with that, it is founded on two fundamental concepts. One is the portrayal of nature as being perpetually at odds with itself. In other words, the various species appear to conflict with one another over territory.
Next would be something like how damagingly man has changed the environment. This goes beyond just the degree of industrial “forest blackening.” However, even negligible, repetitive actions we all take, like, say, “mowing the grass,” can negatively impact a species’ environment.
And coming back to the comparison of the beef between the many animals, this may be a metaphor for the frequent wars Europe has seen.
But let’s say that to make this song refer to one viewpoint or the other, Of Monsters and Men has not gone far. So even if there is an undercurrent of, shall we say, environmental concern, we will treat it as an open-interpretation piece.
