Passenger Side

If any of you have ever been arrested for DUI and no what it is like to not be able to drive anywhere after having your license suspended, then I don't think there's anything about this song that is a real mystery. Pretty damn literal, if you ask me!

wow i found this song less... deep. i just pictured a couple friends driving down a dark stretch of highway after a party. and while a bit drunk the person starts thinking about his life. For example "Should've been the driver, could've been the one/I should've been your lover, but I hadn't seen..." is about missing an opportunity with a significant other... you know?

This song has always seemed pretty simple to me, but I had an interesting thought about it the other day. I think the bridge of the song reveals that he got in an accident while driving drunk and maybe killed or injured his date. "Should've been the driver, could've been the one" could refer to how in many drunk driving accidents, the driver walks away fine but the passengers or others involved don't. "Should've been your lover, but I hadn't seen . . ." could refer to how they could have dated, but he didn't see whatever it was that he hit, leaving the sentence unfinished because the memory was too much for him. Could be wrong but I just thought it was interesting.

someone who is backseat driving from the passenger side, who really deep down wishes they could be the sober one to drive the car, but love to get drunk. thus having the court date in june, offering money for gas, going to the bank....or in my group of friends case taco bell!

Hello out there! Clearly the driver isn't driving. Tweedy says "let me make you a deal- just get behind the wheel" He says this after he sings "You're gonna make me spill my beer if you don't learn how to steer" They have been swerving all around with this other person "in control" of the situation. I think he is saying that he normally "wears the pants" in relationships and he allowed this other person to be in charge and it is a swerving, swilling, spilling, completely f-ed up mess. Maybe the relationship "drove" him to drinking too much.

He doesn't like riding on the passenger side. He likes control, people.

5 comments for this song? Are you kidding me? Wilco gets ignored while Eminem gets worshipped. What a sad, sad world we live in.

He's gotten his driver's license suspended after a DUI. Either the girl he's interested in has rejected him, or he doesn't have the nerve to ask her out, because he feels frustrated/ashamed at being dependent on others to drive him around. I think the "should've been the driver" part is intended to sound ironically similar to people regretting drunk driving accidents, but is in fact just referring to his lack of success with the girl (because of the DUI). There's definitely some immaturity here.

i love this song!!

Don't we all know this person.

Some people are content being passengers on the path of life some want to be drivers and some are drivers…