Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

"I just wanna scream 'hello' My god it's been so long, never dreamed you'd return"

this part must be on a top 5 pj moments

its written from the point of view of the elderly woman, who has some menial job behind a counter in a store, who has never left her small town. someone has just walked in who she recognizes from her past. the song is about the flood of feelings and memories (hearts and thoughts) that she experiences seeing this person walk through the door.

This song reminds me of someone I as a young girl wanted to have a relationship with. We met when we were kids and clicked from day one. Things never materialized into a relationship. He left town, went away got married, the whole nine. I thought of him for years. He had said when he left he had wanted me to be that girl. Finding out he was gone, with someone else... I decided it was not meant to be. Some years later he gets a hold of me. I never thought I'd see or talk to him again. We share a phone call. A few more years pass. He is broken up and living back in the area. We see each other and he can't recognize me as the same girl. We spend some time together, seems things are the same as far as spending time together. It means to me hearts and thoughts they do fade over time, but seeing someone in person once there is that recognition they can come flooding back. To me this song signifies change, sadness, what could have been and confusion.

For me it is a lot about lost love and what could have been. Having grown, but not sure if you are changed so much that you cannot have what you once had, or even if that's what you really wanted all along. It's about regret for the past and hope for the future. Maybe even being too scared to admit you made a mistake or if you will repeat it. It's all about timing. Life leaves a lot of times for what ifs.

This always seemed, to me, about a couple in love as young people, and then the man walks into some nameless small town when he's like eighty, and recognizes his first love again but is afraid to say anything to her, and she recognizes him as well but due to being trapped in her small life, she doesn't say anything.

It's a bit like my grandmother...married 50 years, then my grandfather died. Two years later, she runs into the boy she knew when she was 16 who she dumped to date my grandfather. They are now married.

I think this is about: like we all go through phases in life, teenager, college, adult. And like you separate them in your mind. Then you go back to a place and it brings you back to a time. And it's like "damn, I'd forgotten that whole period of my life and it meant something to me, but I've lived so many lives since I've lost it, and it's a shame that isn't still ingrained in me as part of the fabric of my soul." Even though it might be to a degree. I think it's like you go into this grocery store and there's this woman that always asked how you were doing and told you about her kids and you knew her name and her favorite cigarette and now you walk back in and it's like "Shit, that was a part of my life that completely fell away from my memory and I can't even remember her name." I think it's about wanting to live a lot of lives, but being sad that they couldn't all just be one, even though in a way they are.

I was led to believe by an online source that this title was chosen in response to the many critics of Pearl Jam's former use of short song titles, and to put it bluntly, "rip the piss" out of them; and was totally irrelevant to the actual meaning of the song. Whether or not this is true is of course debateable, and many users have already posted convincing arguments about it being written from the perspective of the mentioned elderly woman.

What I feel cannot be disputed though, is that this song is about a person returning to a certain place they have visited, or re-establishing feelings they may have once had, in the past; and realising that deep-down, everything is the same as it ever was. "Hearts and thoughts" may fade away over time, but can be brought back in the picture from memories in an instant.

Listlessness is contagious to only strangers that pass by without the willingness to touch.

When touched..the depravity infects and fades. But the sorrow of hopes released to reality of circumstances that no longer stings.... Is mature and unfamiliar.

It is.

It is and reality recognizes the difference between death and the road to it.

We all fade away.

We are that counter.

That place.

We are that small town.

It's not if...

It's when.

" lifetimes are catching up with me"

"Memories like fingerprints"

I just want to scream...my God it's been so long..."

Our place is no different.

We will either rejoice or regret.

Or a mix thereof.

Makes me think of my 8th grade crush. Loved her to death. Would've taken a bullet for her. I knew her like a good friend and thats what we had been. Then she made other friends and, well, we just stopped talking. "Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away" is how I felt day after day of trying to get her out of my head. This song really helped me through this as well as "One Man Army" by OLP. Heard this on the radio the other day and it brought these memories up again.

need4creed good agrument, your probably right. But Creed sucks, I'm so glad they broke up and I'll never have to change the radio station to avoid hearing their new one.

I like what PJ10 said. I grew up in a small town, and I know the feeling of walking in the general store and seeing the same old woman behind the counter there. Every time you see her it's a little bit depressing, just that she spent her whole life doing that.

Hahahahaha.. 'MtterOFctItsAllDrk' well summed up. need4creed, that's some very good analysis, but i just don't understand how someone who obviously knows his shit, can choose to have a favourite band that were one of the crappest going around!? Shame shame shame