This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Well, she followed him from Phoenix out to California
And then she passed out on the bed
And all the little things he never even asked her for
She simply smiled and shook her head
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
And now I realize I'm livin' like a trucker does
Although I haven't got the belly
And though she followed me to California all the way
I only wanna watch the telly
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
He asked her please stop quotin' Rod McKuen in your postcards, can't understand it anymore
And if your gonna read your poetry aloud to me
I'll have to show you to the door
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
And then she passed out on the bed
And all the little things he never even asked her for
She simply smiled and shook her head
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
And now I realize I'm livin' like a trucker does
Although I haven't got the belly
And though she followed me to California all the way
I only wanna watch the telly
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
He asked her please stop quotin' Rod McKuen in your postcards, can't understand it anymore
And if your gonna read your poetry aloud to me
I'll have to show you to the door
Why can't we smile just like we used to?
Why don't you figure anymore?
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice?
It doesn't matter anymore
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While reading through Nathaniel West's 1939 novel "The Day of the Locust," I came across the following line: "He wondered why all his sympathy had turned to malice." When i read it, it resonated with a musical lilt. Immediately I knew that I had heard this very same sentence in a song before. I stopped reading and hummed the sentence in my head, trying to recall the tune it belonged to. I knew it was a band i liked and whose CD i owned, but it wasn't until I googled the keywords "lyrics," "sympathy," and "malice" that I learned it was this Luna song. I first heard this song 7 years ago, after buying a used copy of "Bewitched" (Luna's best album, alongside "Chinatown") for 6.95 at a Blockbuster music. I purchased the album because I recognized the band from an Uncut Magazine compilation CD where their song "Super Freaky Memories," in a small way, blew my mind. I am a southern Californian, Nathaniel West's novel takes place in Hollywood and this song is, to this day, one of my all time favorite Luna songs. Both the book and the album were purchased second-hand and I think I have hit on an interesting connection between the two, although aside from this linguistic similarity the song and the novel have little in common. And, in case you're wondering, the novel is excellent. It is considered the premiere novel about Hollywood, specifically pre-WWII Hollywood, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who likes to read fiction.
Why has my sympathy now turned to malice? This song reminds me of a girl I was hanging around with so I wouldn't be lonely. Eventually she drove me nuts and I decided it was preferable to be lonely.
This song actually is pretty sad.. the melody and the lyrics.... really great
So, Dean Wareham actually talks about this song in the docmentary. It's about a chick who was really into Sean Eden and she would follow him from show to show. "Well, she followed him from phoenix out to California" that's about Sean and this chick.
"He asked her please stop quoting Rod McKuen in your postcards..."
Rod McKuen wrote a bunch of songs and translated the songs of Jacques Brel, but he is probably most well-known for his schlocky books of romance poetry, very popular (especially with women) in the 1970s.