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Willetta Lyrics

Oh I was on my way to doing something else, you prop my eyelids up with toothpick thoughts
Thursday, shuffling feet on your cemetery lawn
Weeping about your skin, in your sleep you just slid it off
Just so you could get dressed up in this
Your nightgown of oak, your ribbons of roots
Is there nothing you want from me now, no help I could give but to lower you down?
Oh all your friends standing by waving greedy goodbyes
I've got nothing now I want to say
You wouldn't talk back anyway
And you know we won't do what you wanted us to
There ain't nothing here to celebrate
We're all worse of without you
At that feast in some two star hotel
I'm circling the room and mingling half stunned
Nauseous with the truth of it all
Knowing here the whole time this won't really fade
Now it just stays in our spines
Oh but we're all shaking hands offering condolences
Stories of some envied youth, less life threatening more moot
And our eyes they all drown, our tongues get wrung out
There ain't nothing here for us to taste that ain't bitter already
They warn us our reservation is up
It just seems so cruel
Like the parasites that eat your thoughts your plot gets covered up
By someone who never even knew you
Oh then the curtain comes down, the crowd it thins out
There's no reason now for us to stay
And we all hurry home, because it won't be long till we're in your place
Song Info
Submitted by
ginoliz On Oct 02, 2008
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6 Meanings

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Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

I'll always cry when he hit's that last "place".

It is one of the most perfect notes I've heard this year.

Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

this is such a beautifully somber song. the lyrics are so perfectly laced together and the music is something very unique and captivating. im really impressed with this album.

Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

I think this song is written about a tree. Maybe a tree with emotional significance that got cut down. Read it with that in mind. Pretty cool...

Your nightgown of oak, your ribbons of roots Is there nothing you want from me now, no help I could give but to lower you down?

a tree getting cut down?

Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

err...it's pretty clearly about a funeral--for his grandmother, maybe?

Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

Yeah, Willetta is definitely about coming home for a funeral, and the woman telling her friends not to be sad but to celebrate. The singer still knows that he can't celebrate and that his life will never be the same. This entire album is about the death of a loved one, and a scorn for the church and the somber traditions that the person encounters when he comes home for the service.

Cover art for Willetta lyrics by Dear and the Headlights

It's missing one of the best parts of the song:

By someone who never even knew you

And that's how it ends!

Love it.

Lyric Correction

So that's what he says at that part of the song. I always wondered, and wow.. that's a line that shouldn't be missed. Really beautiful song.

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