Coming Through the Rye

For this song, I thought the more sexual undertone of the lyrics made it quite different and unique from the other songs. It somehow makes the time period more relatable when I imagine this song being sung by raunchy men in a tavern, just enjoying themselves and having a jolly time.

For my drawing I wanted to express the strong imagery of a sexual encounter happening in a field of rye. The wilderness of the rye adds to the mysteriousness of the event. It hides the mans face and just barely covers the more explicit parts of the body. It almost seems like he is drawing the viewer into the rye, and into the sexually unknown.

I also wanted to express the idea of the loss of innocence and equating it with entering the rye, and thus entering adulthood and sexuality. This theme was explored in the book, "Catcher in the Rye" where the main character mishears part of the song and imagines himself catching bodies in the rye. Specifically, he wants to catch the children from running out of the rye field and falling off the cliff, or metaphorically he wanted to keep them from being exposed to adulthood and the sins that it brought.