Kylie From Connecticut Lyrics
Ben Folds explained what he was visualizing when he wrote this song.
"What I visualized when saying the words "Kylie is calling from Connecticut" was an older woman who'd stuck her marriage out through thick and thin, 1950's style. Dedication and perseverance. She has always suspected her husband had affairs but she's also always said that she just didn't want to know. This is the way an older generation dealt and Its a viable way to deal. But one day, probably in her mid 60's she finds a slip of paper on her husband's desk, written by his secretary that says "Kylie called from Ct. She says you've got the number". So her husband is out of town for the weekend and as she's in bed alone, as she often is, her imagination gets the best of her. But she begins to realize that her imagination and her suspicions that are eating her up are because in truth she hasn't been in love with her husband for so long that she's not sure she can recall a time when she was. In fact, as the song says, her heart belongs to a man she had an affair with years ago, who she would have spent her life with but for the fact that she had young children. And so as she looks through the closet, her memories, things she's never told anyone, she turns out the lights and goes to sleep. Of course that means she dies in first semester of english lit. I won't write a sequel of her husband and Kylie in his convertible rolling in Los Vegas."
well, i'm not gonna argue with Ben here, but i think its even more moving to think of this woman's old love as the man her husband used to be. i really cant see her keeping pictures of another man in their closet for 30 years, but i can see that her husband may have changed decades ago and she misses who he used to be and thinks about him late at night in contrast to the scummy, cheating bastard he's become.
my own personal interpretation of this song was that it was from kylie's perspective. i always saw it as kylie being the one stuck in the bad marriage. she had cheated on her husband years ago and loved that man more and is finally calling that man up to rekindle things, taking a step toward the man she wanted rather than the one she was stuck with.
so many names in all his songs
The "meaning" as Ben explains it reminds me of the short story "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter. The woman who's only thinking about the pain in her past even to her last moment. Granny Weatherall is a lot more angry and embittered than this protagonist, but I still feel there's a connection between the two characters. I don't know if Ben meant it, but I see it.
Noah
Just thought I'd note that at his live shows he has been changing the line to "And she never told (sometimes he says 'showed') a soul for the last 30 years/Now she closes her eyes." Maybe he just liked that better after the album came out. I have know idea. Just wanted to throw that out there.
For the record, I believe the line is "she sees it again as she turns out the light".
At first, I thought this song was simply about a woman discovering her husband cheating. She says with him because of her old-school, look-the-other-way mentality, and she is sad and remembers her former lover. End of story.
But a closer reading of the lyrics has me now considering an alternative interpretation: that the husband might not even be guilty of cheating! Perhaps Kylie is an innocent business associate, doctor, therapist, friend, etc.
The only person explicitly identified as having had an affair is the wife. Could it be that is she is unnecessarily suspicious of her husband cheating because of her own guilt and memory of an affair?
Clearly, her heart belongs to someone else, but perhaps, even though she hasn't loved her husband in 30 years, he has remained in a faithful to a mostly loveless marriage, just out of his own pure devotion. And despite that, her suspicions 'come back' (again and again).
Anyway, just another possible reading.
Before reading all the rest of the comments, I always thought this whole song was a story about Kylie, narrated by the man that "her heart belongs to". Kylie married this guy, had kids with him, but she didn't really love him. She loves another man whom she had an affair (maybe multiple, because it seems like she really loves him) with when the children were small. She would've been with this man if she hadn't had children with another. She had been keeping her feelings a secret for 30 years, and finally she was sick of keeping it inside. She started going through love letters he wrote her, looking at pictures of them together...And finally she called the man she really loves, just because she missed him. But it was really "nothing at all" because she knows she can't be with him; there was no point in calling anyway. The man didn't answer the call, instead he received a note from his assistant, telling that someone called. He knew the number, he knew it was kylie, but he never called back (maybe he knew they couldn't be together, or he didn't love her anymore, idk). So Kylie is now forever stuck missing him and wishing she could be with him, or even know what had happened to him. All she can do is close her eyes and imagine how her life would be with if she was with that man she really loved... Sad really, this song makes me cry. Ben did a great job with this, it's one of my all time favorites.