Cars and Telephones Lyrics

Lyric discussion by lacpunker 

Cover art for Cars and Telephones lyrics by Arcade Fire

Yes, this song is about a long-distance relationship, but it does speak to something more complicated.

I think it also conveys--not just the torment of distance in a relationship--but the pain of how peoples lives go different ways over time, and more often than not those different ways are apart. How you can share so much with a person but life carries you in different directions, and can leave a different taste in different mouths. (To me, that's what the autobiography line addresses.) I think the song is ultimately about the futility one can feel in the face of that.

To me, that is the complexity that makes this song so haunting.