rigorousintuition.ca

JackRiddler wrote:

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:I tried a search on Websleuths, but they don't seem to know either. Might need to bring in the Vidocq Society on this one
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidocq_Society).

Mind you, the fact that the Vidocq Society haven't figured out yet that Vidocq himself was a big lying sociopathic fraud indicates that they might not be all they're cracked up to be.

Surely, if no deputy was shot, because the deputy was actually the sherriff, who only thought of himself as a deputy in order to absolve himself of blame for the oppression he conciously and purposely practised against Nattie and others - "I'm just a deputy. I was only following orders" - then the question posed by the OP is entirely moot?

I'm certainly fine with that as an explanation if one can show it in the text. I think we did that one above -- to Nattie, John Brown is the Sherriff, but to Babylon he is but a deputy and so they diminish Nattie's just act by calling Brown thus. (Or deputy may even be Brown's actual title.)

I'm definitely fine with VK's overall interpretation (and c2w?'s, they're compatible) and don't want to seem ploddingly literalist about this... but all right then, modify the question to "What is the deputy?" and I think you'll see it's still not settled and not minor, or Nattie wouldn't be insisting on its importance with every refrain: I hear the song saying not just that Nattie didn't shoot the deputy (whether or not any deputy was shot at all is separate) but that deputy-shooting wouldn't be good and Nattie finds the accusation unjust.

Here's another version I'm willing to go with: Babylon is claiming a deputy shooting that may not have even happened to stir up My Hometown against Nattie, because otherwise My Hometown finds the Sherriff-shooting acceptable and might make a hero of Nattie for it. It's a variation on "kill it before it grow." Or, to transpose this to Baader-Meinhof terms, you might get props in some quarters for offing Schleyer but not if you also kill his chauffeur.

But what does the text really say, I ask in my hopelessly conditioned Western way. Because the poetry goes together with a set of factual assertions (such as that Brown was shot down on the outskirts of town), and I'd love to have those cleared up.

Just call me "Internal Affairs."

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AhabsOtherLeg wrote:

vanlose kid wrote:
@ Ahab, that was a low blow.

*

Who Shot The Sheriff? (2017)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3378192/plo ... _=tt_ov_pl

Wesley Haynes, a previously convicted narcotics dealer, now clean, is accused of shooting the Sheriff and his deputy. Even so, the ballistic evidence shows that the bullets which claimed their lives matched three guns: The Sheriff's, his Deputy's and the Defendant's. In this triangle one man is on trial, but is he really their man?

JackRiddler » Wed Feb 08, 2017 3:48 pm wrote:Can you believe this? It's going to be a movie, or someone who read this thread is taking the piss on us.

Who Shot The Sheriff? (2017)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3378192/plo ... _=tt_ov_pl

Wesley Haynes, a previously convicted narcotics dealer, now clean, is accused of shooting the Sheriff and his deputy. Even so, the ballistic evidence shows that the bullets which claimed their lives matched three guns: The Sheriff's, his Deputy's and the Defendant's. In this triangle one man is on trial, but is he really their man?

JackRiddler wrote:.

Okay, these being the Marley days for me after that other thread, I watched him sing Sheriff again, and I've decided I've been a simpleton on this question.

The Deputy is the Sheriff. That's what Babylon wants to call him: the lawful agent of a legitimate government, murdered while doing his job, and the song is Nattie's epic disputation: he was no deputy, he was lawless, it was self-defense and Babylon is tyranny. Even versions that include the line, "Where was the Deputy?" suddenly make sense. As in, do you see a deputy in this sheriff?

At least, until I change my mind again. But damn, what a performer!!! Henceforth I'm only listening to live versions.

By the way, a 2004 copyright notice at the end of a video on Youtube shows that Babylon (Universal Records) lays claim to the song, at least 24 years after his death.

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