In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
She said, "It's none of my business but it breaks my heart"
Dropped a dozen cheap roses in my shopping cart
Made it out to the truck without breaking down
Everybody knows you in a speed trap town
Well it's a Thursday night but there's a high school game
Sneak a bottle up the bleachers and forget my name
These 5A bastards run a shallow cross
It's a boy's last dream and a man's first loss
And it never did occur to me to leave 'til tonight
And there's no one left to ask if I'm alright
I'll sleep until I'm straight enough to drive, then decide
If there's anything that can't be left behind
The doctor said Daddy wouldn't make it a year
But the holidays are over and he's still here
How long can they keep you in the ICU?
Veins through the skin like a faded tattoo
Was a tough state trooper 'til a decade back
When that girl who wasn't mama caused his heart attack
He didn't care about us when he was walking around
Just pulling women over in a speed trap town
But it never did occur to me to leave 'til tonight
When I realized he'll never be alright
Sign my name and say my last goodbye, then decide
That there's nothing here that can't be left behind
The road got blurry when the sun came up
So I slept a couple hours in the pickup truck
Drank a cup of coffee by an Indian mound
A thousand miles away from that speed trap town
A thousand miles away from that speed trap town
Dropped a dozen cheap roses in my shopping cart
Made it out to the truck without breaking down
Everybody knows you in a speed trap town
Well it's a Thursday night but there's a high school game
Sneak a bottle up the bleachers and forget my name
These 5A bastards run a shallow cross
It's a boy's last dream and a man's first loss
And it never did occur to me to leave 'til tonight
And there's no one left to ask if I'm alright
I'll sleep until I'm straight enough to drive, then decide
If there's anything that can't be left behind
The doctor said Daddy wouldn't make it a year
But the holidays are over and he's still here
How long can they keep you in the ICU?
Veins through the skin like a faded tattoo
Was a tough state trooper 'til a decade back
When that girl who wasn't mama caused his heart attack
He didn't care about us when he was walking around
Just pulling women over in a speed trap town
But it never did occur to me to leave 'til tonight
When I realized he'll never be alright
Sign my name and say my last goodbye, then decide
That there's nothing here that can't be left behind
The road got blurry when the sun came up
So I slept a couple hours in the pickup truck
Drank a cup of coffee by an Indian mound
A thousand miles away from that speed trap town
A thousand miles away from that speed trap town
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I think by "still walking around" the storyteller in the song means back when his dad was still a healthy womanizer, before he became an invalid.
I really like this song. It's obvious by the lyrics that the songs protagonist has suffered a traumatic loss, but it's not obvious what I was. There are hints in the lyrics that let you infer that he's recently lost the only person he feels close to( possibly his mother), and he realizes that his father who has been in that I. C. U. for over a year ( possibly in a coma) is not going to recover, and that his hometown holds nothing for him but heartache, so he signs to have his dad taken off life support and he says his last goodbyes. Then he pulls out of town and keeps driving as far as he can until he's "a thousand miles away from that speed trap town. The song is beautiful, but it's also desperate and haunting.
Bjohns it is 5a bastards, as in a classification of high school football.....songwriting gold
I agree that something other than the impending death of his father is tormenting this guy and that is the reason the woman gives him the flowers. Death of his mother seems likely.
The thing I find odd about the lyrics is
He didn't care about us when he was walking around Just pulling women over in a speed trap town
Walking around pulling people over? Don't you do that in a car? Maybe I'm over thinking it but I know Jason Isbell chooses his lyrics with great care and it wasn't just a mistake, and it seems like a very odd choice to me, especially since "driving around" would fit into the song just fine.
@SingSongSam The walking around means when he wasn't up in the ICU. In other words when he could get up and walk around. That is when we has a tough state trooper pulling over women.
@SingSongSam I think he uses "walking around" because he isn't talking about literally pulling women over. He's referring to his father's womanizing. When he was walking around picking up women. He just uses the phrase "pulling women over" because it fits with his job as a state trooper.
@SingSongSam I think he uses "walking around" because he isn't talking about literally pulling women over. He's using "pulling women over" as a euphemism for his father's womanizing. But rather than state it straightforwardly, he uses the pulling women over phrase because it works on multiple levels both in his father's womanizing and his job as a state trooper.
@SingSongSam i think it is walking around as opposed to being bedridden in an ICU. I assume his son died in a football game (boys last dream.and man's first loss)
Shouldn't "those 5'8" bastards" be "those 5A bastards"? As in division 5A? It seems unusual to refer to a football team as 5'8" bastards.
In this song I always took it as he had lost a son in the football game. Just speculating of course but he obviously lost something when those 5A bastards ran a shallow cross." A boys last dream and a man's first loss."
@timothy102 I might be personalizing this a bit but I always took it to be that high school football was "a boy's last dream and a man's first loss," meaning that in the eyes of a now older man who is experiencing loss in his current life, he remembers when that last high school football game ended. Being done playing the game (perhaps his dream as a boy) may have been his first loss as he finished high school and became a man. Now, in the throes of loss in his later life he is viewing a high school football game and remembering that he first learned about loss when his high school football career (and childhood) ended.
I can’t believe none of you are referencing the one thing that has been universally true in every small town I’ve ever lived- cops would pull over teenagers and younger women for some minor infraction and then scare them and then coerce them into giving them sexual favors or intercourse in their police cruiser to get out of tickets. In the small town I grew up in there were many cops that did this, some in their 30s/40s having sex with teens in their cruiser… one even was caught getting oral from a 16 year old and never reprimanded for it but ruined that girls reputation and she was bullied until she dropped out
NO, his mom didn't just die. nobody else has either. except, figuratively, the narrator. the first line tells it. what's none of her business and why is it heartbreaking to her? cuz she cares about him and she sees him as the guy who's taken on the shame over something he didn't even do. and, MAYBE, he's told her he's leaving town and thus, her, cuz he can't take it anymore. and then, maybe not. but it doesn't matter becuase, how he feels being the target for the annimosity toward his dad by the locals, is heartbreaking to her.
the roses are for his dad whom he loves despite what the dad did that everybody knows he did. someplace deep down inside everybody luvs their dad despite what he may have done to make you feel ashamed. everybody in town knows his dad used his power to overpower women and perp on 'em until one nite he's makin' it with one who's not his momma and he has a heart attack. iow, the old man's got a rep 'n the son is stuck with it. if he stays there he will always be looked upon to carry the guilt and shame his father caused.
the game has no significance except as the place where he went that nite to forget who he is. its there to describe his misery.
its an incredibly poignent, heartbreaking song. lots of great song writers but few who pushed the edge in a way that influences everything to come. dyan, townes, kris, mickey are among those few. and now isbell...
Thanks for getting the "Indian mound" phrase correct, instead of "Indian Man" that is more common. Are people outside the midwest not familiar with Indian burial mounds? "Mound" not only makes more sense than "man" but is also a better rhyme! So it seems like a slam dunk.