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once a week
i make the drive
two hours east
to check the
austin post office box
and i take the detour
through our old neighborhood
see all the
chevy impalas
in their front yard up on blocks
and i park
in a alley
and i read through the postcards you
continue to send
where as indirectly as you can
you ask what i remember
i like these torture devices
from my old best friend
well i'll tell you what i know
like i swore i always would
i don't think it's going to do you
any good
i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down toward
the water
i always get a late start
when the sun's going down
and the traffic's thinning out
and the glare is hard to take
i wish the west texas highway
was a mobius strip
i could ride it out forever
when i feel my heart break
i almost swear I hear it happen
is the clear and that hard
i come in off the highway
and i park in my front yard
i fall out of the car
like a hostage from a plane
think of you a while
start wishing it would rain
and i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down toward
the water
i come into the house
put on a pot of coffee
walk the floors a little while
i set your post card on the table
with all the others like it
i start sorting through the pile
i check the the picture
and the postmarks
and the captions and the stamps
for signs of any patern at all
when i come up empty handed
the feeling almost overwhelms me
i let a few of my
defenses fall
and i smile a bitter smile
not a pretty thing to see
think about a railroad platform
back in nineteen eighty three
and i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down
down toward
the water
i make the drive
two hours east
to check the
austin post office box
and i take the detour
through our old neighborhood
see all the
chevy impalas
in their front yard up on blocks
and i park
in a alley
and i read through the postcards you
continue to send
where as indirectly as you can
you ask what i remember
i like these torture devices
from my old best friend
well i'll tell you what i know
like i swore i always would
i don't think it's going to do you
any good
i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down toward
the water
i always get a late start
when the sun's going down
and the traffic's thinning out
and the glare is hard to take
i wish the west texas highway
was a mobius strip
i could ride it out forever
when i feel my heart break
i almost swear I hear it happen
is the clear and that hard
i come in off the highway
and i park in my front yard
i fall out of the car
like a hostage from a plane
think of you a while
start wishing it would rain
and i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down toward
the water
i come into the house
put on a pot of coffee
walk the floors a little while
i set your post card on the table
with all the others like it
i start sorting through the pile
i check the the picture
and the postmarks
and the captions and the stamps
for signs of any patern at all
when i come up empty handed
the feeling almost overwhelms me
i let a few of my
defenses fall
and i smile a bitter smile
not a pretty thing to see
think about a railroad platform
back in nineteen eighty three
and i remember
the train headed south outta bangkok
down
down toward
the water
Lyrics submitted by fuckedupdog, edited by subwoofer
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Most likely not the "real" meaning, I know, but it's interesting to think about.
It seems like both are haunted by whatever happened and can't let it go. One stays in a single place and the other roams the world, both they're both dealing with the pain of the past.
Could she be in prison?
Clearly, the couple lived together in Austin. Although the song doesn't say so explicitly, one gets the feeling that the person sending the postcards split up with the narrator and left him in Bangkok. There's a powerful image of him standing on a railroad platform, watching her train leave, as she continues her travels without him - perhaps in some effort at escapism.
She continues to send him postcards as she travels - and, sifting through the postcards - a list, essentially, of the destinations she's passed him up for - he wracks his brain looking for a rationale: a reason for her to have left; a motive. He despairs at never finding one.
The song never actually says that the narrator and the postcard-sender were in a romantic relationship. But I think we're justified in inferring that they were: he feels his heart break, his bitter smile at having been deserted, his promise always to be honest (to 'tell her what he knows') - and the fact that her absence so obsesses him that he describes himself as a 'hostage', and wishes he could escape by driving on a never-ending freeway. (I think the only line that suggests they were anything but romantic - 'from my old best friend' - merely alludes to the relationship's familiar closeness.)
There's also evidence that the sense of malice, or at least careless teasing, that he detects in her correspondence (though it's more of a respondence, to steal a line from Lionel Shriver) is well-placed: in the intervening decades, she's never communicated in a method that would allow him to reply. One imagines that she mails him either to delude herself into thinking she hasn't deserted him, or because she thinks that his hearing from her might comfort him - either way, she can't quite bear to hear back from him. And surely she must know that the postcards - in which she invites him to reminisce (she asks what he remembers) - are, indeed, torturous.
Whatever her motive, I'm always transported back to the image of him on the railroad platform, watching her receed toward the sea. I wonder if he has an inkling that she'll haunt him forever. I wonder if he already knows that he'll let her.
austin post office box, and i take the detour, through our old neighborhood".
Anyway, they travel around for a long time, and backpack around the globe (including Thailand of course). The main character after a while decides its time to "grow up" and leaves the other person, moving back to west Texas", the other person wants to keep travelling. They leave on good terms though, and agree to keep in touch "well i'll tell you what i know, like i swore i always would"
The traveller tries to keep in touch, sending postcards from various places they visit, sending them to the PO Box.
On the trip home, the main character realises how much misses the one who keeps travelling, and longs to return to them again (his "heart breaks"). He trys to figure out where he could possible rejoin his friend by looking at the postcards that they sent, to see if he can predict where they will be next "i check the the picture, and the postmarks, and the captions and the stamps, for signs of any patern at all". Soon, he realises that it is impossible "when i come up empty handed, the feeling almost overwhelms me" and becomes incredibly bitter as he realises that all that he has left are his memories "and i smile a bitter smile, not a pretty thing to see, think about a raileroad platform, back in nineteen eighty three"
This is perhaps my favourite MG song (for this week at least). I heard a live boot of this. Only John could do a live version recorded on a palmcorder that has better production values than he album version.
If you dont know what a mobius strip is, look it up, it adds a lot of depth to the song.