For the first time at New College, Derek decided to respond on the forum. It hadn’t been his intent to insult or inflame his classmates, and he wanted to explain himself. “Honestly, I hadn’t interpreted it as being about a lynching, per se,” he wrote. “I imagine more of a 19th century Wild West scenario myself, sort of like a jeering town crowded all around. I hear it more as a poor person condemned unjustly and made an example of by a cruel and self-righteous crowd.” He saw it, in other words, as a song about himself.
