Eugene Lyrics
What if I’d never seen hysterical light from Eugene?
Lemon yogurt, remember I pulled at your shirt
I dropped the ashtray on the floor
I just wanted to be near you
The man who taught me to swim, he couldn't quite say my first name
Like a father he led community water on my head
And he called me “Subaru”
And now I want to be near you
Some part of me was lost in your sleeve
Where you hid your cigarettes
No I’ll never forget
I just want to be near you
In the sprinkler I mark the evidence known from the start
From the bed near your death, and all the machines that made a mess
Far away the falcon flew
Now I want to be near you
For the rest of my life, admitting the best is behind me
Now I’m drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away
What’s the point of singing songs
If they’ll never even hear you?
Children of smokers can relate to this: all the times we threw away our parents cigarettes after finding out what they really were. How you actually have memories of different types of ashtrays you remember just lying around from your childhood. They became as vivid a memory as the layout of a childhood home. A cigarette burn that as a mistake, or hot ashes hitting your arm from an open car window. Why would mom or dad or mom and dad keep something so close to them that causes so much harm, you wondered then. they keep it closer to themselves than you to them.
The song is about his childhood and his want/need to be near his mother, who never really pays enough attention to him. He remembers incidents fondly, but each is overshadows by the need/want to simply be near his mother.
That Subaru line is just perfect. Light, but perfectly placed. It makes the rest of the song so devastating.