No idea if this song is about Winnona Ryder, but it's not about a "girlfriend," it's about a patron. The lyrics reflect an older woman, offering to take in and support a talented artist in exchange for his companionship ("a real royal lady, a real patron of the arts...all the men her age were mean...gave me anything I wanted"). She had a jaded view on life, but he maintained the love affair ("lighting candles to the cynical saint"). While she was wealthy enough to be a patron, she wasn't really a part of the in crowd, or perhaps was only in because of her connection to an ex- or deceased husband ("she would lie about where she's from...life is how it is not how it was"). Also, although she was more wordly than the singer, she was a bit flaky in her knowledge, and the lyric is a bit sarcastic about that ("I learned to listen, felt like I was back at school, she'd talk forever about the phases of the moon...without even knowing I guess I took her advice"). Even still, he has fond, but somewhat dark memories of her ("it's not that often, but I think of her sometimes, just somethign quaint, a couple ships in the night").
No idea if this song is about Winnona Ryder, but it's not about a "girlfriend," it's about a patron. The lyrics reflect an older woman, offering to take in and support a talented artist in exchange for his companionship ("a real royal lady, a real patron of the arts...all the men her age were mean...gave me anything I wanted"). She had a jaded view on life, but he maintained the love affair ("lighting candles to the cynical saint"). While she was wealthy enough to be a patron, she wasn't really a part of the in crowd, or perhaps was only in because of her connection to an ex- or deceased husband ("she would lie about where she's from...life is how it is not how it was"). Also, although she was more wordly than the singer, she was a bit flaky in her knowledge, and the lyric is a bit sarcastic about that ("I learned to listen, felt like I was back at school, she'd talk forever about the phases of the moon...without even knowing I guess I took her advice"). Even still, he has fond, but somewhat dark memories of her ("it's not that often, but I think of her sometimes, just somethign quaint, a couple ships in the night").