Good Intentions Paving Company

In the relentlessly upbeat energy of the first half of the song, we see the narrator trying to ignore signs that all is not well in her relationship. There are themes of fog and blindness, and disconcerting shifts between what is well-known and entirely foreign: "Hello my old country / I have never in my life before been here"; and the chilling split of self: "It's my heart, not me." Through the joy, the exuberance, and the sense of aliveness, there runs an undercurrent of being swept along by something she cannot keep pace with and cannot redirect.

After being "unable to drive" (a piece of her is resisting), she still believes when she cries it's "for no good reason"--she's cannot yet intergrate emotions that might separate her from her partner. Meanwhile, she tries hard to control her own internal confusion and his behavior, until she gives up and asks him to "just drive, just get us out..."

The imagery of flags and nationhood, highways and pavement, introduces a larger theme--the disappointment of the American Dream. American patriotism believed the best in humanity could be expressed through our form of government, which promised freedom and equality; it is now clear to what disastrous ends those good intentions have led. Likewise, the romanticisim of the open road cannot conceal the reality of a country of cement and pavement, strip malls and unsustainable fuel. I don't think Newsom is writing propoganda here, but she does nod to the larger tragedies playing out all around us, all the roads paved with good intentions criss-crossing through a country that was once woods and prairies.

And then we reach the second half of the song, where realization hits--and suddenly we aren't in this relationship alone anymore. There is "you, me, and the rest of the gang." Where there was once careening movement there is now hesitation, and waiting under an overhang for the rain to stop. The narrator cannot sustain the myth of couplehood as two people alone in the world, rocketing towards a brand-new country. Even so, she is "in love with the hook/ upon which everyone hangs." This is the moment when her heart must expand to include the other people her lover loves, and how these ties will always introduce uncertainty. Once she can face this, there's no more blindness or fog. She's able to see how hard she's been working against her own desires, and she's finally able to express one clearly: "When I only want for you to pull over and hold me / 'Til I can't remember my own name."