Eshu was walking down the road one day, wearing a hat that was red on one side and blue on the other. Sometime after he departed, the villagers who had seen him began arguing about whether the stranger’s hat was blue or red. The villagers on one side of the road had only been capable of seeing the blue side, and the villagers on the other side had only been capable of seeing the red half. They nearly fought over the argument, until Eshu came back and cleared the mystery, teaching the villagers about how one’s perspective can alter a person’s perception of reality, and that one can be easily fooled. In other versions of this tale, the two tribes were not stopped short of violence; they actually annihilated each other, and Eshu laughed at the result, saying “Bringing strife is my greatest joy”.

And another great line from Rev Max:

The trickster forces us to contemplate paradox and our own endless capacity for self-delusion, the limitations of our own ridiculous reality tunnels, thats what forces people to wake up! [These people] resent it, but they need it too.

From the beginning the Hat Man was, in my mind, infused with this general trickster spirit. I would have hoped to further explore the idea of him offering help, but people not wanting the help (not recognizing it, etc). This found its way into the song via the “crab soup” section of the 2nd chorus, which was a last minute addition.

In a perfect world I’d have spent much more time developing such themes in the lyrics, but this one was sitting on the burner for far too long and I needed to get it out, lest it spoil and join the ranks of unfinished songs.