Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[perspectives]

Hi,

What does it mean in the blue part?

[peterteacher]

'Picket fences' are just a type of fence that go around a typical surburban home.

'Picket lines' are what people make when they are protesting or striking.

I have no idea what 'skin tucked in' and 'meat side out' mean. They are not normal English phrases, you'd have to ask the author

Does anyone have an opinion on what is trying to be said with those lines?

The general idea seems to be that the people are protesting something but they are not very good at it!
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[pugachevV]

I've seen chicken packaged with the meat side out and the skin underneath to make it look as desirable as possible.
If you "turn something down," you refuse it.

To me the song is almost incomprehensible.

[perspectives]

Thank you, peterteacher and pugachevV.

Is it possible that picket fences are used as in picket fence effect, some white noise in the speech? The song seems to say that the narrator wants to keep the volume down ("I'd like to turn them down") but he/she cannot find the knob as that of the radio. That's why I associate picket fences with the picket fence effects? Does that make sense?

And the picket lines, could it be referred to the protesting, (again, the noise) that s/he wants to turn down, so it goes directly to hippie 'sixty-*beep*' (which I didn't quote in the first post)?

As for the skin tucked in and meat side out, could it possibly mean that kids are fighting on the street and they get their skins bruised and meat kind of shown out, say, bleeding, things like that? Or as pugachevV pointed out, it means to make it look as desriable as possible, could I surmise that the kids are kind of showing off their muscles, to kind of bluffing as to intimidate the opponents? Possible?

Any comments are greatly appreciated!!

[pugachevV]

Born into picket fences... picket fence used like this, symbolises middle-class domesticity and contentment, whereas a picket line is a symbol of discontent, protest and intimidation.