It's weird no one else seems to have heard it this way: The "speaker" in the song is talking to an old friend he kind of ditched for this girl. "moved to the west coast" "she never told me that you called".... Now that he see's her for the crazy bitch she is, he's leaving her and realizing what he did to his friend: "if you wrote me off, I'd understand it cause I've been on some other planet". Now he wants to be friends again and make up for everything: "come pick me up, I've landed." The crazy bitch was "the telephone czar" who never let him talk to his friend. Now her "reign" is over and the speaker will "answer" for being so shitty to his buddy. Ben folds just has this magical way of taking the simplest lyrics and making them so powerful. This one really hits home because I dearly miss someone who ran off with his own "Telephone Czar" and I'm hoping he lands soon.
It's weird no one else seems to have heard it this way: The "speaker" in the song is talking to an old friend he kind of ditched for this girl. "moved to the west coast" "she never told me that you called".... Now that he see's her for the crazy bitch she is, he's leaving her and realizing what he did to his friend: "if you wrote me off, I'd understand it cause I've been on some other planet". Now he wants to be friends again and make up for everything: "come pick me up, I've landed." The crazy bitch was "the telephone czar" who never let him talk to his friend. Now her "reign" is over and the speaker will "answer" for being so shitty to his buddy. Ben folds just has this magical way of taking the simplest lyrics and making them so powerful. This one really hits home because I dearly miss someone who ran off with his own "Telephone Czar" and I'm hoping he lands soon.