Last Call

I don't know guys... I get a different impression of this song. I don't think it's about a break up with a girl. I think it's about a teenager's troubled relationship with his mother. A mother he part loves, part hates, part wishes she would just leave him alone, but who ultimately made him who he is. I don't think this song switches between the "I" and the "You" but still refers to "I" like someone suggested (and you're right that Elliott did do this alot) but I think that in this one all the "You's" refer to his mother and all the "I's" refer to him.

I think it starts with him having a fight with his mom because she didn't tell him the truth about something and he feels like she is emotionally detached (icicle etc) and that all she does is just walk away. The line with "The clap of the fading out sound of your shoes" definitely reminds me of being a kid and listening to grown women walk down a hall - like knowing the teacher was coming by the sound of her shoes clacking in the hall.

So he listens to her go and wonders if he ever even knew his mother or if he ever will because she is so detached and because she won't tell the truth (Made him wonder who he thought that he knew).

Then he starts drinking to try and bury the feelings and his anger. She comes to check and make sure he's okay when he's passed out drunk. She keeps trying to talk to him, but like a teenager, and like someone who's depressed, he gets mad at her for trying (Sick for your sound; Sick of you coming around; Trying to crawl under my skin; When I already shed my best defense). I think he's especially mad because he tried to connect with her at the beginning but got shut out so he doesn't want to open up to her now. He was mad at her before for 'walking away' but now he's mad at her for coming around.

Also, he feels like she's a hypocrite for trying to talk him out of his lethargy, depression and alcoholism. Like, who are you to talk to me about my stuff when "All you aspired to do was endure; You can't ask for more, ask for none; Knowing you'll never get that which you ask for; So you cast your shadow everywhere; Like the man in the moon; You start to drink, you just want to continue; It'll all be yesteryear soon". He's saying she never tried to do more than endure her life, that she escaped by drinking and by going through life like a shadow, so she shouldn't get on his case for doing the same thing.

The last verse underscores this previous point. He goes through the motions of going to church with his family, watching other people celebrate but he can't feel it himself. And then he says: "And I'll sing the praises of my maker's name; Like I was as good as she made me". The maker is his mother, not God. He's saying he's just what his mother made him to be - a depressed drunk who doesn't ask for more from life than to endure it, or to sleep it away: "And I wanted her to tell me that she would never wake me".

This last line, if the 'she' is his mother can have multiple meanings. The literal one: 'when i'm passed out in my bedroom trying to sleep away my cares, don't come in and wake me up and try to talk to me - just leave me alone.' The not-so-literal one: She's his mother so she's responsible for him "waking" in the first place, for him being born. So it could mean 'I wish she had never had me if she was just going to bring me into this life'. And it could also mean 'Let me wallow in my depression and sleep though my life if I want to, don't try to wake me up'. Lastly, of course, it could mean 'let me die if I want to. If I want to drink myself into a coma and die, let me. Stop coming to check on me to make sure I'm all right. Don't try to wake me."