Hi, Watchman. Your interpretation certainly is better than anything I was able to come up with. I'm going to chew on it awhile longer. The only part of your interpretation that I'm having trouble with has to do with the grammar. "Wouldn't you like to be right now..."--second person, talking to someone; in the rest of the song, the only time he's talking to someone, he's talking to his beloved ("having you close to me", "having you on my knee"); in that context, the "out where the actors play" lines almost sound like he's inviting her to leave him. Hmm...I'll keep working on it, but I think you've gotten me pointed in the right direction. Thanks.
Rez, good to hear from you again. My daughters are 15 and 20 now, and your anecdote about the gap-toothed 7-year-old brings back lots of silly memories from a time that was not too long ago, but seems an eternity away, as well. BTW, what is it about frogs and toads that make them such useful literary and metaphoric devices--from Aesop's fables, to the WB's cartoon "One Froggy Evening" (which one critic called a 7-minute morality play), to "Uncle Toad Said"? Maybe I'll find the answers before I, uh, croak.
Cheers,
DQ
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