Two Girls

This song, arguably one of Townes Van Zandt's most beloved, has an undeniable appeal to it, though it is very difficult to decipher, due to the surrealistic nature of the lyrics. I have always found the chorus unfathomably resonant, but when I try to wrap my head around what it is trying to say, I always feel like I come up short...

Still, to wager an interpretations: I read it not as the narrator literally being in love with two different women, but contrasting a real life lover with an ideal, fictitious one.

This could go two ways: on one hand, perhaps the "one in heaven" is the unattainable, ideal image of a lover--the one that doesn't really exist in the real world ("down below"), and thus the one the narrator "does not know." In this scenario, the narrator loves the imperfect woman that he is with despite that she does not match up with the ideal image of a romantic partner that is in his head.

On the flip side, maybe something prevents the narrator from having a healthy relationship with a loving, "good" partner ("one in heaven"), and instead he always ends up in unhealthy, toxic romantic situations. He loves the woman he is with, though the relationship is unhealthy and he knows that there is probably a woman out there with whom he could have a healthy relationship, but he "does not know" who she is.

A friend of mine and I were discussing this song, and he recommended the possibility that one of the romantic partners has passed away (thus is "in heaven"). I found that rather compelling as well!

Overall, regardless of the interpretation, I would say it is difficult for me to read this song without also thinking of Townes Van Zandt's complex and troubled history with drug and alcohol abuse. The chorus seems to suggest to me that he feels like he is a little fucked up and probably won't ever have a functioning, healthy romantic relationship. Luckily for us, Townes Van Zandt was sensitive and smart enough to translate his pain into something beautiful and relatable--something we can love and learn from.

I think the last line should be:

Fort Woth's full of penguins And Im a-playin it by ear.

Yes, the last line should be changed to "Fort Worth's". He changes this line up occasionally on other versions of this song. He's also used "Beaumont's" instead of FW.

This song is my all time favorite song, i love the steve earle recording best but the song speaks for itself, it can sound good adjusted to any genre'

Yes because there are so many Cajuns and bayous in Fort Worth, compared to Beaumont.

I've heard from others that some of the inspiration for this song was a girlfriend of his that got killed while hitchhiking. I sat down to listen one day, and came up with this interpretation. The opening line was my main hint. "The clouds didn't look like cotton, they didn't even look like clouds" struck an early innocent childhood memory when I was flying in a jet for the first time as a 5 year old kid. I thought the clouds would look like cotton candy, but they didn't even look like clouds from way up there going fast. Totally unrecognizable to the clouds that I was used to looking up at. Anyway, I got to thinking about heaven when I looked out in the clouds and pictured heaven in that strange setting as a five year old, wondering how all that would really work. I believe this is written from the perspective of a newcomer to heaven, having a hard time figuring things out for the first time up there. His two girls are his ex who he loved dearly but she died, and the "one below" is below him on earth and still alive. He loves her in spite of her flaws. Her name is Jolly Jane, and she is the character in the third verse. He worries about how she is going to live the weary years ahead without the most recent husband (HIM) that "just pulled out". He obviously still cares deeply for her in spite of not listening and being lazy. The second verse about the two dudes riding up on horses, I believe, represent some of his best friends or family but everything and everyone is a little different in heaven. They are perhaps lonely, because they are waiting for their loves to join them in heaven. When the horse riders part, they recognize him, but since everything is a little different up there he didn't recognize his buddies (earlier Verse 1: "his friends looked like a crowd"). As they ride off the drive says "he's a little slow between the ears, he's always been that way" is like buddies talking a little smack in a funny way... giving him his space and time to come around and figure it out on his own. "You've got to learn to swim before you fly". Well swim in what? A swimming hole full of rum. Townes loved his rum. This is his heaven. He has to take the plunge to figure out what the hell was going on in order to earn his wings, "before you fly". I'm kind of all over the place as far as song order goes, but that's how I can explain so far. The last verse is also written from the perspective from being up in the clouds of heaven with a birds eye view of Beaumont Texas, that had recently gotten a big snow or ice storm or something. One of the coldest years in Texas history was around 1888 or something like that... perhaps that is the time setting for the song, because that could been the first big freeze or snow since before the Cajun's started settling that area (around 1850isn?). And the reference to moccasins "treading ice, and leaving strange designs" makes you think it was the time of a larger native american population. The "leaving strange designs" definitely paints the picture of being up high and looking down. Beaumont is full of penguins perhaps has double meaning. One, that it is so damn cold that penguins could live there, and 2) people wearing suits in Beaumont, which business was starting to thrive there around the late 1880's and perhaps there were lots of business men in town. Give it a listen to the song with this interpretation in mind, and let me know what you think. I'm might be way far off.