Dirty Paws

If you’re missing Marc’s spirit, you might find comfort in the company of the flag-carrying two-legged creature in “Dirty Paws.” The lyric video (4:34 minutes) is the opening track of My Head Is an Animal (2012), the debut studio album by the Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men. (The album’s title comes from a line in the song.)

This video came to me one morning as I walked along the Mill River. I was crying in ferocious morning. How can it be that I will never again see the love in Marc’s eyes? Or have another chance to repay that love?  And after all the ways I fell short? . . . More tears.

Then, lo and behold, this Marc-like creature appeared on my iPhone!

Earlier that morning I had realized that several recent favorite songs were by Of Monsters and Men. A quick search led to a YouTube Music shuffle of My Head Is an Animal. When I looked down to learn this song’s name I couldn’t believe my eyes. The creature looks just like Marc! He has Marc’s trudge. He has Marc’s steady determination to carry on being the best Marc that he could be, putting one foot in front of the other, carrying the flag. And Marc would have loved the lyrics.

So the creature soldiers on, slow and steady, through a stormy winter mountainscape. Intent on his mission, he leads the way for the squadrons of birds who fly past through the sky. Perhaps we are those tiny birds, flying in the right direction thanks to Marc. The creature’s thoughts (the lyrics) might remind you of Marc’s whimsical realism.

Lyrics to Dirty Paws by Of Monsters and Men

Jumping up and down the floor
My head is an animal
…
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, they got help from below
From dirty paws and the creatures of snow

So for a while things were cold
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
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