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Couches in Alleys Lyrics
Hey Jack it's me,
I don't mean to bother you but somethings been on my mind.
At the end of this road that climbs the horizon, will be reached in a matter of miles.
And when the wheels cease to spin, the walls and the fences will grow higher than redwood trees.
And I know your demise.
And I fear what will happen when the road fails to flow under me.
Oh Jack you see, I felt like your mirror with the wind ripping through my hair.
When the wheels ceased to spin and I incase my surroundings, I realized I hadn't gone anywhere.
When the problems I'd left with couches in alleys, where no one would ever claim.
And the hardest part was sifting through the pieces of the rain soaked and rotten remains when I got home.
I don't mean to bother you but somethings been on my mind.
At the end of this road that climbs the horizon, will be reached in a matter of miles.
And when the wheels cease to spin, the walls and the fences will grow higher than redwood trees.
And I know your demise.
And I fear what will happen when the road fails to flow under me.
Oh Jack you see, I felt like your mirror with the wind ripping through my hair.
When the wheels ceased to spin and I incase my surroundings, I realized I hadn't gone anywhere.
When the problems I'd left with couches in alleys, where no one would ever claim.
And the hardest part was sifting through the pieces of the rain soaked and rotten remains when I got home.
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Woah. This song is really cool, man. :) listen to it, and comment!! :D
I don't get what this song means.. .
It sounds like he is trying to get away from his problems. that no one will take claim of them and they just sit there never going away. That he goes and goes and he is afraid that he is not getting anywhere, that he is stuck and cannot escape. Jack? i guess thats who he is talking to. confiding to about what he is struggling with.
thats how i hear it. i like this song alot. just a guy who is stuck and asking for help.
I heard this for the first time the other day, and I've been listening to it all day today (the artist is Styrofoam, since that doesn't appear to be listed on here) and I'm a little lost on the lyrics.
I get the feeling that Jack is dead since the lyrics deal with some kind of a journey. The lines "I felt like your mirror," "what will happen when the road fails to flow under me" stood out in particular. It sounds to me like he's headed down the same road as Jack and is worried about what might happen to him, so he's asking Jack's advice.
Complete shot in the dark there.
Something I left out...he also refers to some kind of disaster at the end. Basically I think he's singing about mortality.
I've heard that the "Jack" he's referring to is Jack Kerouac, famous "On The Road" author who has a penchant for wanting to see the world/get away. When he wants to leave his problems like couches in alleys (fantastic visual image by the way) he feels like Kerouac's "mirror". The rest of the song seems rather self-explanatory.
he once said in an interview that his favorite book was On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Ben Gibbard is a beat-nic to the bone.
Yes, it is about Kerouac. Anyone who has read On the Road would pick up on the refrences easily.
the previous posters are correct, ben is talking to kerouac in the song. it's summed up in the line 'i fear what will happen when the road fails to flow under me', in other words, what happens when ben reaches the end of the road, and his endless search of self-discovery and search of a home actually ends?
but that's when he realizes that 'he hasn't gone anywhere', and that any journey along a road he thought he took was mostly for naught, because all the problems he had sought to leave behind by going down this road in the first place are 'couches in alleys' that he's simply got to deal with once he gets home, only now they're 'rainsoaked and rotted'.
so there's an obnoxious line-by-line translation of an extremely depressing but wonderful song.
wow, i really like when artists write about books. it becomes really personal, when you've actually read the book yourself too. I should probably pick this "on the road" up.