Lyrics for Clementine as interpreted by EnjOy IncUbus

Clementine Lyrics
They're waking you up to close the bar
The street's wet, you can tell by the sound of the cars
The bartender's singing "Clementine"
While he's turning around the open sign
Dreadful sorry, Clementine
Though you're still her man
It seems a long time gone
Maybe the whole thing's wrong
What if she thinks so but just didn't say so?
You drank yourself into slow-mo
Made an angel in the snow
Anything to pass the time
And keep that song out of your mind
Oh, my darling
Oh, my darling
Oh, my darling Clementine
Dreadful sorry, Clementine

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atarisemokid
03-16-2003

Rated 0 
This is by far one of my favorite Elliott Smith songs. The way he turns Clementine into something so tragic yet hauntingly beautiful, his voice makes me fall in love.

"Oh my darling clementine.. Dreadful sorry clementine."

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indie pretense
06-24-2003

Rated 0 
"the street's wet you can tell by the sound of the cars" is a brilliant observational lyric. i can hear the sound of tires on a wet road so clearly when i hear that line.

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ilovetrish
07-03-2004

Rated 0 
i love his voice when he sings..
"what if she thinks so but just didn't say so? "

oh, its brilliant.

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emmdithy
10-24-2004

Rated 0 
a macrabe play on a macrabe folk song--
the original, about a miner who loses his daughter clementine in a mine shaft accident, has the same lyrics-- 'oh my darling oh my darling clemintine, you are gone and lost forever dreadful sorry clementine."

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nopoetic
12-22-2004

Rated 0 
i think this song is about being with someone you dont really love but cant admit it because you dont want to hurt them. and how the other person knows that you may not really, truely love them. its sad for both people. you still care about them but you dont really love them.

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SteadySlippin
01-10-2005

Rated 0 
the song is of the regret of past memories/fantasies of what could have been that is only sooth'd by bottles or another's arms.

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jawstone
01-22-2005

Rated 0 
this song absolutely gives me the chills. i can unfortunately feel how he felt when writing this song. i think he takes something like clementine and transforms it into something depressing to justr combat the traditional meaning of love songs. elliott was a brilliant man. he will be missed. R.I.P.

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found_story
03-28-2005

Rated 0 
i love this song, but i cant put my finger on why i do so. just brilliant, thats all.

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snifty
09-18-2005

Rated 0 
i love this song too... it reminds me somewhat of "independence day", another elliott classic. the thing that has alwasy struck me about these two songs is how he could take something so laden with meaning, so ripe for triteness, and turn it into a beautiful little alternative world... at once, about the song "clementine" and something totally apart. i just don't know of any other song writer who can do that credibly. all the more reason to regret the loss of elliott. two years later, and i still can't get over it.

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paul_and_elliott
12-12-2005

Rated 0 
the part "drank yourself into slo mo, made and angel in the snow" cannot be beat. If you were drunk and it was snowing outside that's exactly what you would do-- make an angel. Elliott is a lyrical geinus

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bjort
01-24-2006

Rated 0 
the folk song clementine is about a miner who falls in love with another miner's daughter hence, "kissed her little sister, then I forgot about Clementine", Clementine dies via loosing her footing and drowning, and her lover couldn't swim.

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joe2000
03-14-2006

Rated 0 
where the fuck did u get that from?

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venus in mohair
03-26-2006

Rated 0 
joe, bjort was talking about this song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_My_Darling%2C_Clementine The meaning is pretty straightforward.

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bjort
04-30-2006

Rated 0 
Yeah man

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last hour
05-12-2006

Rated 0 
A catchy nursury rhyme that easily floats into one's mind and remains there until it's sung to one's self long enough, notably here when one works in a bar and is somewhat gladly closing up for the night in the company of the rugulars and the quiet. This song is of a memory of elliott's that for whatever reason he remembered. The bartender was singinf clementine. How bout "the street's wet you can tell by the sound of the cars?" Arguably one of my favorite elliott lines, just for its simplicity and observation. It's like he wasnt looking at the outside world of night but he can hear it while dreading his imminent journey home.

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put_urself_on_par
07-05-2006

Rated 0 
clemintine is a song by johnny cash which is about a kid named Cody who got engaged to clementine and he rides off back to his home to celebrate but he gets killed and clementine never got to see cody again

im positive that is what the bar tender is singing as the oh my darling clementines are taken from the song

so i think this song is about someone who lost someone that he loved

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put_urself_on_par
07-05-2006

Rated 0 
wait thats confusing i mean its maybe a song about someone who is greiving the loss of someone they loved

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put_urself_on_par
07-10-2006

Rated 0 
after looking at the wikipedia thing i realise im wrong about the johnny cash thing hahaha

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pixiemouse27
09-11-2006

Rated 0 
i was just thinking as soon as i had looked up the lyrics and read what he had really said. the streets wet, you can tell by the cars. I thought the exact same thing indie pretense about the imagery that one line creates, he chose such a distinct sound do describe. "clementine" is really angelic his whispers are in identical tune and equal balance in the audio.every part of it is perfect. You can fall in love with elliot smith through this song. I was really curious about the correct quaralation with the old traditional folk clementine or if there is even one?

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pixiemouse27
09-11-2006

Rated 0 
Ok, I just read the clementine lyrics and that ballad is fucking eerie. "Drove she ducklings to the water
Fell into the foaming brine.
Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles soft and fine." He couldn't swim and so he watched her drown thus commiting suicide. I think elliot was creating a made up tune spliced with his descriptive memories about a setting. he did borrow the traditional folk tune's chorus and thought the addition of the resemblence would do the song good, as it did. the song seems to be a common yet made up scenerio. A relationship went arrye and so that persons found themselves waking up from passing out at a bar questioning and pondering their relationship."Though you're still her man, it seems a long time ago" that, indicating lack of communication etc..Perhaps replaying the chorus "dreadful sorry" in their mind right after hearing the bartender humming it.. being one of the two sounds heard right upon awakening.

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meansnothing2me
01-17-2007

Rated 0 
if you listen very carefully, it sounds like someone other than elliott says 'bartender' on this track

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orchidaceae
01-28-2007

Rated 0 
absolutely gorgeous...i love the slow, crawly-ness of the song, it gives me the chills.
and yeah, i think it's definitely him relating either his relationship or someone else's to the folk song 'clementine'.
it doesn't really matter what it means though, because man, it's haunting.

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BIZITCHUMTITZ!
04-23-2007

Rated 0 
I think this song is about a man and a woman who are sort of having trouble in their relationship and they haven't seen eachother in a while because of it. Like the relationship isn't officially over but it's hanging by a thread. So the man is scared that the girl actually thinks it's over and he just drinks up to keep the pain and anxiety of it all away.

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Hopeless Poser
09-05-2007

Rated 0 
I think that sometimes even elliott smith wrote straightforward lyrics. I think its literally about a guy who is drinking himself into a stupor at a bar and being thrown out at the end of the night. And why is he drinking himself to death? to Forget Clementine, whom that song reminds him of. Maybe she is dead like the Celmentine of the folk song ( my suspicion) or maybe she is just dead to him.

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eyore596
09-20-2007

Rated 0 
I like hopeless poser's explanation, but I first saw it as about a girl named clementine, and that somehow her boyfriend had done her wrong and she forgave him, but was still really hurt by his actions. Perhaps this is too much of a story interpretation, but I think that he said he was so sorry when this unnnamed thing happened. her name being clementine, she hears that song a lot, and everytime she hears it she thinks about this guy and how messed up the whole thing is, so she drinks to get it out of her mind.

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