Baby ice dog

[Laj Waldner]

hijinks at UTARLG.UTA.EDU wrote:

> I've been listening to T&M for at least 15 years now.  And I still am not
> sure what Baby Ice dog is about. It seems that it's about plunging someone
> troublesome/unfaithful into ice.  But I dunno fer sure.  Then we get this:
>
> They'd like to make it with my big black dog
> But they just don't know how to ask
> You know they'd like to try anything that comes into your mind
> Oh freeze  on freeze on freeze on bone to bone
>
> What is up with the dog? Is it a metaphor (ala Jim Morrison, when "calling
> on the dog" is a reference to god)? Why the shift in line 3 from third to
> second person (also a typical Morrison move, ala "Words got me the wound,
> and will get me well again/If you believe it")? Is the supposed woman
> really a dog all along, and we see the reversal here (ala Zeppelin's Bron
> Y Aur Stomp)?
>
> Or what?
>
> --tjr

Well this is what I understand about the song, line 3 verse 6 should actually
read "Anything that comes into their minds". The Big Black Dog I think is
definitely a metaphor, in the verse. . .

"Turn me round like a broke down hound now, crossing me once too often, now
she's bound for a lower station, she crossing me once too often."

This is kinda making a simile of him as a broke down hound, maybe he's been
passive during the abuse he's received from her, and after the final straw
when he could no longer take it he had a change of attitude and became the big
black dog. The dog metaphor is used allot in this song, she's referred to as a
baby ice dog "her deceit ah it gave me a chill, I found out now, that baby,
that baby ice dog". During the song he becomes cold too, in the line. . .

"And now the ladies all fear this Mongolian man, with ice down his face. . ."

That's probably why he was too numb to assist her as she fell into the ice
:-). I also love the sarcastic remark "Baby that's the breaks".


Laj