1
Poison Oak, some boyhood bravery
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28, edited by kangaroo98, darkeyelewj
Poison Oak Lyrics as written by Conor Oberst
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
If it's so obvious that he's singing about his brother, makeartnotmath, then please explain "my clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears." Unless it's purposely ungrammatical, then it doesn't make any sense that he's singing to his brother. Unless "your brother's tears" is his own tears, which doesn't explain why he'd refer to himself in first person in the beginning of the line ("MY shirt"). Or maybe the brother with the tears is a third brother? But then why would he say "YOUR brother's tears" and not "OUR brother's tears?"
According to two different people, Conor has claimed that the song is about two different people. One person said his cousin Ian and the other said his brother Justin. So who should we believe?
Well, I think it's about his cousin Colin, who committed suicide a few years ago. I don't really know anything about Colin, so I won't try to make up facts to explain the song, but when you read the following lines, keep in mind that Conor had (at least) two cousins, Ian and Colin:
And I'm glad you got away, But I'm still stuck out here. My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears.
Colin "got away" by killing himself, and after the death, Ian cried on his shoulder. Makes sense, no?
To me, the song is about questioning the purpose of life. Conor wanted to get away from everything like his cousin was trying to do--he loved his cousin for slamming the door and stealing a car and driving to Mexico because it seemed like such actions had purpose and vitality. Conor was in a state of "paralysis"--unable to understand what the hell everything is about--he "still believed in war," even. But the death has awakened him--it's the "yellow bird that he's been waiting for." He's still "stuck out here" and "drunk as hell," but he realizes that he wants to keep living because the suicide has only resulted in a muddy field where the garden was ("A Difference in the Shades" reference, maybe?) The sound of loneliness makes him happier, after all, he can be happy and content with himself. He "never thought this life was possible"--that he could be happy with life, at all, and not want to kill himself, but having witnessed the suicide of someone he was close to, he's realized that'd he rather just make music and try to work through his sadness than run away, use heroin, or kill himself.
And maybe his cousin had sexual identity problems--"dressed in women's clothes, made ashamed..."??
I readily admit to the extreme possibility that I'm wrong, and I feel awkward writing about Conor and his brothers and cousins as if I actually know them...