A Million Mushrooms

A Million Mushrooms
General Information
Name	A Million Mushrooms
Source	The Tragic Treasury
Length	01:58
Background Information
Composers	The Gothic Archies
Performers	The Gothic Archies
Associated With	The Grim Grotto
Song Order
Previous	How Do You Slow This Thing Down?
Next	Things Are Not What They Appear
Audio
Song

"A Million Mushrooms" is the eleventh track on The Tragic Treasury, performed by The Gothic Archies. It coincides with the book The Grim Grotto.

Lyrics

A million mushrooms fill the field

Where marchers' bodies lately fell

More marchers marching heavy-heeled

Release more spores that march as well

Across the twilit charnel ground

And over long-bewildered farms

Through palaces, where not a sound

Is heard, though there should be alarms

But winter comes and only ice

Is crushed beneath the marching feet

In all the land where once was rice

There now is nothing fit to eat

Except mushrooms which nourish not

The body, nourish not the mind

And often poison, eating rot

The marchers march insane and blind

References to A Series of Unfortunate Events

• The song most aptly describes the Medusoid Mycelium, a lethal species of fungi that spreads through the air and can kill within the hour.
• The song also seems to be telling a story, of "marchers" (of an army, likely) being driven insane by the mushrooms they march through. As "more marchers marching heavy-heeled" continue on, they continue the spread of the spores, continuing the death ahead of them.
  • Likely, this makes a metaphor for the horrors of war- "over long-bewildered farms[...] where once was rice" paints the picture of a devastated countryside, with life destroyed. As the story details death brought by marchers, it is not a far leap to assume it is describing the devastation brought by war.
  • This interpretation could also imply a metaphor for VFD during the events of the series; both sides send their agents, including young children, on possibly fatal missions in an effort to obtain the Sugar Bowl, which does not matter in the long run- their war destroys the lives of the children, much as Count Olaf implied upon reciting This Be The Verse.