Thirteen

from an interview on babble.com:

The song "Thirteen" is about your wife, Liz, and you've said it's your favorite on the album, but also that you used to have a hard time listening to it. Why is that?

There are some details in there that probably sound so regular, details that might feel like any details you'd use in a little love song, but they're real personal things. The necklace Liz gave me that belonged to her mother, who died when Liz was 9, and the place where we got married. It's just us, 100%. Some of it was hard to listen to. I would drive around and listen to the early mix of the album, and that song would just make me cry. And Liz, too.

How did you guys meet?

We were introduced by my old bass player, and we all went back to his house one night, and Liz and I sat on his front porch and talked all night. She was going on a road trip with her friend Anna, and she told me she was coming through Texas and didn't know anyone. I said well, you have to stay with the Kwellers. And then, for the rest of that month while she was on a road trip, we talked on the phone. That's how we really got to know each other. There's a line in that song about how we fell in love on the phone.

Taken from BK's Bio, http://www.atorecords.com/?title=artists&aid=2&what=bio

"Then there's “Thirteen” — a spare, piano ballad that Kweller considers the album's masterpiece.

“‘Thirteen' was a breakthrough for me,” he says. “As a songwriter with pop sensibilities, you can feel pressured to always write big, sing-along choruses. Lately I find myself placing the importance on emotional content and not on standard pop technique. With “Thirteen” I just kept writing verse after verse and never felt the need for a chorus. The words carried the song home. All these emotions were pouring out of me while I was writing it. I was thinking of my wife Liz and all that we've been through in eight years. Thinking about the friends that have come and gone, the people you think you know that you don't, the curveballs life throws you, the good and the bad.” "

In short, Thirteen is about Ben's relationship with Liz Smith (his wife).

I am really wondering why this song is titled "Thirteen"

Does anyone know?

i really love this song, but this seems to be missing the first couple verses: "we've been in the rain we've been on the mountain we've been round the fire

in fancy hotels drank water from farm wells we sang with the choir

i kissed your dry lips we jumped off the high cliffs skin to skin"

at least that's how my version starts.

i think "thirteen" is a refrence to Big Star's song of the same title. they both are really simplistic, down to earth love songs.

i just assumed it was stuff that happened to him when he was thirteen that seems a bit young for some of it maybe, but who knows

i actually heard ben speak about this in a recent NPR interview. he said that he originally wrote this song about his gituar. however if was unsure if the song would eventually go onto the album. then one day he was playing it to himself to figure out what he was going to do about it and his wife heard him play it and said, you should really play this about me (or something along those lines) so in the end yes it is about his wife, but not originally

this song is about a love ben kweller has had, and i think it is titled thirteen because he probably feels like his is 13 again when he is with her

This song is absolutely beautiful. My boyfriend played this on the piano and sang it to me for my Valentine's Day present this year. I'll always love this song. It's so honest and raw and full of love. It's so special. His wife is one lucky woman.

i now love this song so much, just discovered it in my library. it's so pretty and simple and earnest, and i like the little details. he let's you just experience everything with him, and doesn't attempt to find deep philosophies or anything. now his wife has inspired what are in my opinion, his two best songs (the other is lizzy). I love Ben Kweller.