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Joan moved away to Colorado
Said she found god and a boyfriend as well
One that won't hit her or make her feel shallow
There's a lot to learn about Joan
Before I moved in, Joan had a fling with the landlord so she got to live stay for free
I'm not a genius but I figured out
There's a lot to learn from Joan
And after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where they slowly misplaced your life...go get it right
I went to the closet to get dressed for work
When I spotted a box I had not seen before
With a box of all kinds of letters that never got sent to a guy in Colorado since 1994,
And I know it's wrong but I sat and opened
In no certain order a letter or two
She talked about blisters and bruises of anger
And she bought a handgun to learn how to shoot,
And the last letter said that she had to get out
But I couldn't make out the rest of the note,
From the blood stains all over,
The page of the letters.
There's a lot to learn
And there's a lot I learned about Joan
And after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where you slowly misplaced your life, oh and after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where they slowly misplaced your life...go get it right
Go get it right,
Go get it right,
Go get it right.
Said she found god and a boyfriend as well
One that won't hit her or make her feel shallow
There's a lot to learn about Joan
Before I moved in, Joan had a fling with the landlord so she got to live stay for free
I'm not a genius but I figured out
There's a lot to learn from Joan
And after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where they slowly misplaced your life...go get it right
I went to the closet to get dressed for work
When I spotted a box I had not seen before
With a box of all kinds of letters that never got sent to a guy in Colorado since 1994,
And I know it's wrong but I sat and opened
In no certain order a letter or two
She talked about blisters and bruises of anger
And she bought a handgun to learn how to shoot,
And the last letter said that she had to get out
But I couldn't make out the rest of the note,
From the blood stains all over,
The page of the letters.
There's a lot to learn
And there's a lot I learned about Joan
And after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where you slowly misplaced your life, oh and after all this time, you were waiting on the ride, to stop at the place where they slowly misplaced your life...go get it right
Go get it right,
Go get it right,
Go get it right.
Lyrics submitted by BlueAndStarry
Track duration: 04:20
"Joan" as written by Butch Walker
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"Joan moved away to Colorado, she'd found God and a boyfriend as well, One that won't hit her, or make her feel shallow, And there's a lot to learn about Joan"
-i believe its about joan leaving her past life and fond drugs to help cope with the abusive relationship of her past. She believe the drugs wont hurt her and will make her forget about the pain.
-The second verse i believe is about the narrator moving into the same apartment building as joan, and begins to hear rumors about her. I believe The part about the landlord and staying for free, means that she does what she has to do to survive, prostitution for drugs and shelter. As the narrator gets closer to joan he cant help but feel that there is more to the joan story.
-in the chorus i believe the "ride" refers to getting high and how she keeps "waiting on the ride" to numb the pain and help her forget her past abuse but it only suppresses it.
-the 3rd Verse i believe its about the narrator and joan beginning a relationship and he starts noticing Joans physical and emotional scars or the "box of letters that he never saw before" because she never opened up to him or "sent the letters". The narrator keeps wanting her to talk about it or "opening the letters" and when she slowly opens up and tells him about all of the abuse and all her suicidal thoughts(buying a handgun and learning how to shoot), it brings all these ideas back in her head and before he can finally understand the severity of her abuse, why she uses, and how he can help her, she kills herself ("And the last letter said that she had to get out, But I couldn't make out the rest of the note From the bloodstains all over the page of the letters")
Second... Even if the song is about her grandmother he changed the true story to fictional song and created a back story just like TaraleeAbby said so with that said...everyone is debating fictional events that never happened.
Third...The interpretation of this fictional song about "Joan" Butch actually spells out most of it for us...Here are a few lines and explanations........
1. The chorus: "There's a lot to learn. There's a lot I learned. About Joan"...Just like us Butch was learning about Joan because he never knew her and learned everything about her from the letters but we don't figure that out till later because Butch is telling the story backwards...."Before I moved in".... "When I spotted a box I had not seen before, With all kind of letters that never got sent to a guy in Colorado since 1994"..."Joan moved away to Colorado. Said she'd found God and a boyfriend as well" (side note) This song is off of his album "Letters"...interesting symbolism...?
2. Joan did indeed have an abusive boyfriend (The LandLord) also she had ones prior to that also hit her. She also planned to move to Colorado to get away from it all. Also she bought a hand gun and learned how to shoot incase it ever got to a life and death situation...which it did. The reason why butch couldn't read the rest of the note was because of blood AFTER SHE KILLED THE LANDLORD and HERSELF...The Boyfriend/Landlord probably barged in on her writing that final letter because he had been intercepting them and reading them so he figured out that she was leaving him. He became enraged and attacked her. Consequently, she pulled the gun and killed THE LANDLORD then turned the gun on herself out of overwhelming guilt of the murder and her own long term depression.
3. As of how the letters got collected and stashed in the deep part of a closet im not sure. Maybe Taraleeabbys mother collected them from the apartment after the Murder/Suicide. Which would be a good explanation of how butch got his hands on them because Butch or "Brad" knows Taraleeabbys mother.
4. The End of the Song: "After all this time. You were waiting on the ride. To stop at the place where they slowly misplaced your life. Oh and after all this time...."Go get it right, Go get it right, Go get it right, Go get it right"....Joan obviously had previous history or abusive boyfriends and depression. The "Ride" is a metaphor for "her life". She "stopped at the place where she slowly misplaced her life"...she stopped at the LandLords place where she thought she could restart her life from her last previous broken relationship...so she "misplaced her life" there because it was the same thing all over again only this time even worse and more abusive. "Go get it right" This means her final justification...killing that bastard abusive Boyfriend then ending her own personal pain by killing herself. Because that was the only way to "make it right" for Joan.
(A good amount of my friends are Butch Fans since the Marvelous 3 days and have analyzed "Joan" as have I. They mostly agree with my logical translation of the song. BUT once again the song is fiction so I could be wrong. I think someone should just ask Butch when he goes on tour again what the real story after he's set. He'll explain it, cus he's fuckin awesome like that)
"Joan moved away to Colorado
Said she'd found God and a boyfriend as well
One that won't hit her, or make her feel shallow"
is what she planned to do, and what she said in the letters...so that's what the landlord told people.
and so that's the story he heard when he moved in.
and the landlord abused her, she couldn't take it and killed herself basically...
=[
The tale that Butch is conveying seems to me to follow as such:
Joan, the recent inhabitant of a less than upscale apartment, moved into said apartment as an attempt at escaping an abusive relationship. Down on her luck, but in need of some shelter, she did a dirty deed to keep herself alive. Really, prostitution and all acts similar is usually a twisted, yet business-like affair. Sexual favors instead of rent. That was as far as the relationship between her and the landlord went. However, classic in an abusive relationship, the ex-boyfriend chased her down and made a plea for his love. As any emotionally disturbed, reliant woman would do, she took him back. But once a beater, always a beater, and surely she couldn't escape again. After awhile, the only way out was to commit suicide.
As to who the person in Colorado is that she's writing to, I can't be sure. From the song, you would guess it was an old flame, obviously significant. But goodness, it made it easy to create a non-incriminating backstory for the landlord to tell people, namely Butch when he moved into the same apartment x-time after her departure from this world. The forgotten box of letters explains the real story to him later.