this song is a description of the narrator's relationship progressing, developing, and becoming stronger daily. the relationship is not, however, without its problems.
after a period of peaceful, happy romance (see "'81"), the woman and her lover run into some trouble. she goes on to tell her lover that she regrets how she told him to open his heart (in "easy"), "when [she's] got trouble even opening a honey jar." when she says, "and that right there is where we are..." she is explaining that the problem at hand is one of her lover having finally let her in, only to find her unable to reciprocate fully. maybe this is why she's decided to take him home to meet the folks and see where she grew up? this indicates that he is, perhaps, not the one making the relationship difficult. here, in this song, we begin to see a picture of the narrator's unreliable emotional state unfolding: she may be someone that is simply hard to be in a relationship with, someone who is not easy to love because of her emotional fluctuations.
anyhow, we now have our current scene: the two lovers taking a trip to the narrator's "old country," which she has presumably moved away from quite some time ago. she feels like she does not recognize the place that she once called home, probably because she has changed so much over the years. feelings of nervousness and anxiety begin to overwhelm her : "i did not mean to shout 'just drive! just get us out, dead or alive!'"
now that she has taken this "leap" in an attempt to make him feel as if she's truly letting him in, she states that "for the time being all is well," and asks him to simply accept that and love her for a while. she convinces him that she fell for him "as easy as falling asleep." she knows that no amount of talking is going to make things better once they start to go bad (presumably she knows that they will because she knows his character and also her own), but for now she's going to try to make it work and enjoy the quiet, loving period of their romance.
the mere idea of the trip is, for lack of better words, really freaking the narrator out. she knows that she's "at the top of [her] game" right now, taking him to her family and her hometown was a great idea for the relationship, but she doesn't want to go. perhaps it's a bad memory there, or perhaps she just isn't ready to take the relationship to that next level. she doesn't want to fold and turn around, and is trying with her "whole heart and soul to stay right here in the right lane." she ends this segment by stating that all she really wants is for her lover to pull over and hold her-- for a very, very long time, "'til [she] can't remember [her] own name."
please remember that this is only my attempt to interpret the whole album, "chapter" by "chapter". i'm trying to not only make sense of each piece as an individual song, but fit them together to form the cohesive narrative that miss newsom intended them to be. i'm not saying my interpretation is as she intended it, but i figured i'd go ahead and share it with you lovely people since i've read your comments for so long without ever adding my own.
this song is a description of the narrator's relationship progressing, developing, and becoming stronger daily. the relationship is not, however, without its problems.
after a period of peaceful, happy romance (see "'81"), the woman and her lover run into some trouble. she goes on to tell her lover that she regrets how she told him to open his heart (in "easy"), "when [she's] got trouble even opening a honey jar." when she says, "and that right there is where we are..." she is explaining that the problem at hand is one of her lover having finally let her in, only to find her unable to reciprocate fully. maybe this is why she's decided to take him home to meet the folks and see where she grew up? this indicates that he is, perhaps, not the one making the relationship difficult. here, in this song, we begin to see a picture of the narrator's unreliable emotional state unfolding: she may be someone that is simply hard to be in a relationship with, someone who is not easy to love because of her emotional fluctuations.
anyhow, we now have our current scene: the two lovers taking a trip to the narrator's "old country," which she has presumably moved away from quite some time ago. she feels like she does not recognize the place that she once called home, probably because she has changed so much over the years. feelings of nervousness and anxiety begin to overwhelm her : "i did not mean to shout 'just drive! just get us out, dead or alive!'"
now that she has taken this "leap" in an attempt to make him feel as if she's truly letting him in, she states that "for the time being all is well," and asks him to simply accept that and love her for a while. she convinces him that she fell for him "as easy as falling asleep." she knows that no amount of talking is going to make things better once they start to go bad (presumably she knows that they will because she knows his character and also her own), but for now she's going to try to make it work and enjoy the quiet, loving period of their romance.
the mere idea of the trip is, for lack of better words, really freaking the narrator out. she knows that she's "at the top of [her] game" right now, taking him to her family and her hometown was a great idea for the relationship, but she doesn't want to go. perhaps it's a bad memory there, or perhaps she just isn't ready to take the relationship to that next level. she doesn't want to fold and turn around, and is trying with her "whole heart and soul to stay right here in the right lane." she ends this segment by stating that all she really wants is for her lover to pull over and hold her-- for a very, very long time, "'til [she] can't remember [her] own name."
please remember that this is only my attempt to interpret the whole album, "chapter" by "chapter". i'm trying to not only make sense of each piece as an individual song, but fit them together to form the cohesive narrative that miss newsom intended them to be. i'm not saying my interpretation is as she intended it, but i figured i'd go ahead and share it with you lovely people since i've read your comments for so long without ever adding my own.