Soaked

Yeah I was listening to this and thinking how awesome it would be to book them to play where I work at this winery cause we just have bands every once in awhile and it's such a groovy and alcoholic kind of song. Too bad we probably can't afford 'em.

I have no idea what this song is about, but I love it anyway. It has a classy, smoking jacket type vibe that evolves into something more melancholy towards the end.

A song that clearly incorporates a relationship cannot simply be distilled as being a song merely “about a relationship”. Interpreting incomprehensible songs as being about addiction is the only bigger cop out than labeling this as a song about a relationship. Some of Pinback’s music comes from romantic relationships with women, but also with each other, with films, with record labels that have fucked them, with World War Two, with Star Wars, not every profound relationship is between a man and a woman just because a lot of them are. So enough about what the song isn’t about, let me get to the heart - being soaked through. Being saturated, dripping, made heavier and drenched in emotion. Tossing pieces of yourself away, into the fire. Betraying those dear to you. Life soaks us through.

This is a great song. I took this as someone, preferably a woman,who's brushing off this relationship.

Not just brushing off, but pretending it never existed? And he's pulling an "I told you so" in the last few stanzas.

I got the impression it was about dealing with a person who's an addict. They're tossing their life away (or their relationship with the person trying to help them). The "paper model plan glued to your spine" gave me a visual of a person with paper wings, who thinks they can fly but they only crash down. "Hell of a night" and "you're soaked through" and "you closed the bar" make me think of someone who's addicted to partying and brings a lot of drama to the scene.

i agree that it seems to be about either an addict or someone with some kind of mental condition that this person has been trying to help them with but the person doesn't want help or can't be helped. "paper model plane glued to your spine severing off your feelings" has a strong connotation of this, and also the part "you started screaming blue murder true, that's so you, you're soaked through" reminds me of someone waking up in a bad dream soaked in sweat or having a bad reaction to a medication or going through withdrawl.

I think the addiction thread of interpretation is most probable. The outro and last four lines are kind of heartbreaking in my opinion. The bass slides in the background seem to heighten the sense of loss or losing that comes with someone taking them all (presumably pills) and doing it alone, or without the singer. This taker chose the form of their fall and did it without whoever it is that cared enough to sing this song, and it sounds like sad regret that he couldn't be there when it went down, also presumably to stop it from happening perhaps.