click a star to vote
Sep 14th 2019!⃝I think that this song is definitely about growing older and being concerned about decisions that have kept you from starting a family and the future prospect of dying childless.
The initial stanza sets the scene: Now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter. What does that say about me?
He goes on to ruminate about passing on unconditional love (the love of a parent for his child) just for himself and his own desires (wealth, fame, sexual gratification, independence, freedom - he's a rock star, after all).
The chorus "Oh man that I used to be, oh man, oh my, oh me" is really thinking about his past mistakes. Surely many good women fell in love with him, but he could not commit to a life with them.
He then thinks about the inevitability of death. Both the slave and the empress must die, so what really matters? What matters is whether your children are there with you at the end or whether you're alone.
So take my golden teeth (better to have "real" teeth), and his golden chain
(which ties him to his current life) and bury it with your dowry (the promise of the family he does not have) and bury it with his name (the surname that dies with the childless).
The insertion of "Montezuma to Tripoli" in the final refrain is a direct allusion to the Marine Corps Hymn that begins "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...."
He feels kinship to the Marines who chose to serve their country and died childless, but he has no noble ideal nor higher need that vouchsafes his choice. He is contrasting the man that he was to those men, and finding himself wanting. Titling the song Montezuma points out that this contrast is the crux of the song's meaning.
