anglophilia April 14th, 2006 02:50PM  
The song is about conflict between brain and heart. Brock is sympathetic towards the brain, although he acknowledges his heart’s ability to act against his better judgment. The song’s imagery can be divided into two categories, the familiar and the unknown. The familiar is shown in the lines “In this place that I call home” and “In this life that we call home”. In his secure ‘home’ Brock’s brain exercises dominion over heart. “My brain’s the cliff, and my hearts the bitter buffalo” refers to the way buffalo were once killed. A bison would be isolated from the herd and then driven off a cliff. It isn’t the hunter that does the buffalo in, but the cliff. In the final line Brock alludes to the repercussions of the familiar, “The years go fast and the days go so slow”. Without heart, life seems meaningless.

The unknown arises when the heart takes command. “I’m on the way to god don’t know, my brain’s the burger and my heart’s the coal.” Brock’s scared because he doesn’t know where his heart will take him, but he feels powerless to stop it. Just as with the familiar, the second instance of the unknown gives some insight into the first. “I'm on my way to god don't know or even care, my brain's the weak heart and my heart's the long stairs” First off, it’s worth taking a look at the added “or even care”. Almost every Modest Mouse song views God as uncaring and inept. The analogy uses heart twice for aesthetic reasons. A long flight of stairs conquers a man with a weak heart, but in Brock’s wordplay the weak heart is actually the brain. Heart Cooks Brain is bizarre Modest Mouse imagery at its finest, second in my heart (and brain) only to Styrofoam Boots.

anonymous July 15th, 2008 06:31AM  
Even though matters of the heart and brain conflict, in the end the heart is what Brock goes with