Origins
The song, according to Stevens, was inspired in part, by the tailor, Henry Matthews, who made suits for Stevens. He thought up the story of the worker that became the main character in the song.
Another theory is that he noticed a shop-front in Trinity Street, Cambridge, called 'Matthew and Son.' It was an up-market shop that sold grocery provisions, cheeses, coffee and household china. It was on the site that Heffer's Bookshop occupied as of early August of 2012.
Stevens later commented, "I had a girlfriend, and she was working for this big firm, and I didn't like the way that she had to spend so much of her time working. The riff seemed to fit the words, Matthew and Son. There was a bit of social comment there about people being slaves to other people."
Read more about this topic: Matthew And Son
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)