Pink Floyd: Careful with That Axe, Eugene Meaning

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Careful with That Axe, Eugene Lyrics

Down, down. Down, down. The star is screaming.

Beneath the lies. Lie, lie. Tschay, tschay, tschay.

[sound of Waters blowing into the microphone]

[light screaming from Waters]

Careful, careful, careful with that axe, Eugene.

[very...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Feb 2nd 2013 report

   Im laughing with all those explanations.
   
   The song was originally titled Keep Smiling People when it was written.
   Youtube: /watch?v=gW9FBuUVqrc
   
   It was suppossed to be part of the film, The Committee, but the version recorded was horrible according to the band
   
   the next time it appeared it was called murderistic Woman
   Youtube: /watch?v=rCa6BN4KL8g
   
   from then on it evolved into the song you hear today.
   
   One theory is that in the early 1960's there was a small serial killing spree in the area of London near the river Thames.
   
   After three or four murders, a suspect was caught. That suspect's name was Eugene Craft. He was tried and found guilty. Hence, "Careful" might be a reference to that incident. But Floyd to my knowledge has never admitted where it came from.
2. anonymous

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   Jun 29th 2020 report

   I say the guitar dropping roadie sounds right.they liked it better than the other name.easy on that axe lemme. Famous roadies.
3. anonymous

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   Jun 29th 2020 report

   I have a nephew who had a childhood friend named Eugene. The kid was supposed to come over to play video games or something and when I heard what his name was, I said to my nephew, "Careful with that axe, Eugene." He couldn't stop laughing. I always found this title amusing, too. I would see it listed on the back of a Pink Floyd album and I would chuckle to myself. I just played it on youtube and this might have been the first time I have ever taken the time to actually give it a listen. The title is the best thing it has going for it, because there is nothing particularly great about this track.
4. Maitreya

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   Mar 6th 2019 report

   The great thing about such a song as Careful with that Axe, Eugene is a sort of polyphonic symbolism that it contains within its structure of drumbeats, whispers, screams and scat vocals. On the surface level it narrates the story of an incident in the forest where a woodcutter may have murdered his friend in a frenzy. Metaphorically it reminds one of several cultural tropes such as the killing of Abel by Cain symbolic of murder of nature; a primal scream of creation and destruction, of angst and Oedipal horror upon seeing the real; mankind horrified by murder of nature by human beings bursting out in an expressionist frenzy like in Munch's painting Scream.
   One can also perhaps relate the song to a Rashomon phenomenon ( after Kurosawa's classic film) where the nature of truth is obfuscated and any attempt to know what happened in the forest or who's the actual culprit remains opaque. On another level its Waters reminding human beings to be careful with the machinery and not to mess with nature, to refrain from wars and destruction.
5. anonymous

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   Mar 2nd 2019 report

   The great thing about such a song as Careful with that Axe, Eugene is a sort of polyphonic symbolism that it contains within its structure of drumbeats, whispers, screams and scat vocals. On the surface level it narrates the story of an incident in the forest where a woodcutter may have murdered his friend in a frenzy. Metaphorically it reminds one of several cultural tropes such as the killing of Abel by Cain symbolic of murder of nature; a primal scream of creation and destruction, of angst and Oedipal horror upon seeing the real; mankind horrified by murder of nature by human beings bursting out in an expressionist frenzy like in Munch's painting Scream.
   One can also perhaps relate the song to a Rashomon phenomenon ( after Kurosawa's classic film) where the nature of truth is obfuscated and any attempt to know what happened in the forest or who's the actual culprit remains opaque. On another level its Waters reminding human beings to be careful with the machinery and not to mess with nature, to refrain from wars and destruction.
6. turd

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   Mar 29th 2018 report

   disregard the user name...
   
   Tribute to Jerry Garcia. Got his finger chopped off by his brother???
7. anonymous

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   Oct 31st 2017 report

   It's simply a darker and more vague take on Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
8. anonymous

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   Jun 24th 2017 report

   The song to me represents an lsd trip: the beginning being a nervous come up (shown with the eerie keyboard and random note picking), the main section the peak of the trip (ecstatic guitar soloing with screams and drums representing the ecstasy and confusion of the peak) and finally the come down at the end of the song (shown with sedateful whispers by waters and calming vocals by Gilmour over his guitar notes)
9. anonymous

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   Mar 15th 2017 report

   Pink Floyd had a "roadie"c alled Eugene and when setting up for the venue....Eugene stumbled when carrying on Dave Gilmore's favourite guitar....his fav.axe. Gilmour calls out..."careful with that axe, Eugene"...but to no avail,as Eugene continued to stumble over cables, dropping Gilmour's fav "axe"...damaging it.....causing Gilmour and Waters to start screaming....
10. anonymous

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    May 7th 2016 report

    About the bugish creepy crawlers trying to get under our skin and into our minds that was ''imagined'' in the mindset of what the serial axe murderer Eugene Craft actually committed in real life to make themselves, especially GILMORE and WATERS in the PINK FLOYD band more interesting to obtain their ''psychotic killer instinct aura'' and numb freeze their fans to scare a little bit, if and when seeing axes used on trees sometimes thinking they're like people that should be TRUMPED DOWN TO THE STUMP when they become rotten and don't flower anymore to produce good fruit for us to enjoy eating.
11. anonymous

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    Feb 28th 2016 report

    Euthanasia Genetics.
    
    Careful with that, ya know?
12. anonymous

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    Nov 20th 2014 report

    My middle name is Eugene, as was my father's and his father's and as far back as I have traced. As a child, my father would admonish me with "Careful with that ax Eugene" when I was about to do something I could hurt myself or someone at. This predated the song and it is safe to say my father never heard the song or of the song in his life. It was with astonishment that I first learned of the title. When I asked my father about the often used phrase, he said it was just something his father used to say to him. My father's clan Machpie originates in the Hebrides and I often wondered if the phrase may have as well. Though I have no real idea.
13. anonymous

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    Nov 20th 2013 report

    Careful with that Axe, Eugene tells the story of two people in the forest cutting a tree. Nick Mason drum being the sound of the axe hitting the tree. While Eugene chops the other man sits on the other side, resting. The resting man calls to his friend "Careful with that axe, Eugene." The first scream is the resting man being hit with the axe. The second scream is Eugene, realizing he has just killed his friend.
14. anonymous

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    Dec 5th 2012 report

    This song is all about losing your religion. The axe is the symbol for the struggle a person meets when doing so. And at the top of this struggle ( please note the climax in the music) the primal scream arises. With this scream the person frees himselfs from the chains of religion. After the primal scream the screams to follow are less intense ( also the music calms down). At the end of the song all religion is gone and the person is in freedom with himself. John Lennon was inspired by this song when writing Imagine.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
15. anonymous

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    Jan 2nd 2012 report

    waters is ironically refering to himself as choc the mayan rain deity as he chronicals the death of his brother the sun whom he slays. the next intelligible lyric warns "eugene" to "be carefull with that axe". this can be interpreted in two ways firstly he could simply making reference to a rivalry between himself and gilmour or he could be again drawing the mayan god illusion where instead of gilmour being the wielder of the axe waters is and gilmour is the axe itself the embodyment of the mayan lightning god k'awiil he would then be warning himself eugene"chaac"(waters) about using the axe "k'awiil"(gilmour)to defeat his brother "the sun" which i have not yet identified as anyone specifically yet but is probably along the lines of an us and them kind of mentallity something like the bourgeoisie and proletariot

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
16. sydferret

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    Oct 24th 2011 report

    Waters is venting his enmity with Gilmour, via scream therapy. Careful with that axe is a simple warning that other axe handlers are available.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway