Yeah, this song is definitely about having an absent mother who seems to not care about her children. He and his siblings loved her so much, and felt almost unworthy of her presence, thus he is ashamed to even talk to her on the phone. When her car breaks down they get to see her and they play with her hair. Their grandpa raises them because their mother moves away. The grandpa buys them a vcr as a sort of distraction, and replacement for their absent mother. The next time they see her is when their grandpa dies. Then, they are old enough to see that their mother really wasnt as good of a person as they had thought she was. She sits and smokes in her room, and doesnt seem to care that their grandpa just died. She colored her hair, possibly a metaphor for the fact that she changed who she was, or who the children thought she was. The children end up being ashamed of her because they realize that she wasn't as good of a person as they thought she was.
I also find it interesting how this relates to the line in "The Seer's Tower''
"Oh my mother, she betrayed us, but our father loved and bathed us."
Sufjan seems to be making a special point of absent mothers, possibly relating to an experience of someone he knows...
Sorry about how long this turned out...
Yeah, this song is definitely about having an absent mother who seems to not care about her children. He and his siblings loved her so much, and felt almost unworthy of her presence, thus he is ashamed to even talk to her on the phone. When her car breaks down they get to see her and they play with her hair. Their grandpa raises them because their mother moves away. The grandpa buys them a vcr as a sort of distraction, and replacement for their absent mother. The next time they see her is when their grandpa dies. Then, they are old enough to see that their mother really wasnt as good of a person as they had thought she was. She sits and smokes in her room, and doesnt seem to care that their grandpa just died. She colored her hair, possibly a metaphor for the fact that she changed who she was, or who the children thought she was. The children end up being ashamed of her because they realize that she wasn't as good of a person as they thought she was. I also find it interesting how this relates to the line in "The Seer's Tower'' "Oh my mother, she betrayed us, but our father loved and bathed us." Sufjan seems to be making a special point of absent mothers, possibly relating to an experience of someone he knows... Sorry about how long this turned out...