Pablo and Andrea Lyrics

Lyric discussion by realitysoldier 

Cover art for Pablo and Andrea lyrics by Yo La Tengo

I could have sworn Georgia sings "no use in showing me tears if you want me to stay" instead of what is posted here.

It seems like Georgia (singing the part of Andrea in the story) is desperately trying to unlock Pablo and free him from whatever misery he's in. He sleeps through all of the fun (setting off flares outside), he's hiding something, lonely, etc. She doesn't mention the color of the roses, so it could just be that Pablo's upset about a break-up (red roses in that case being the love taken away) or he's in mourning still long after the (black) roses are gone.

All of the verses about time are just emphasizing that she's not going to give up on him. This lyrically also seems to tie into Blue Line Swinger ("I'm willing to hold your hand while you're lost, while you're so full of doubt")

That's my best stab at it.

Pablo and Andrea are the names of the children of the photographer Robert Frank, most famous for his seminal collection "The Americans" (and somewhat notorious for "Cocksucker Blues," the documentary he made about the Rolling Stones). In the early 1970s, Andrea Frank was killed in a plane crash in Guatemala; at about the same time, Pablo Frank was diagnosed as schizophrenic and hospitalized; he died in 1994, the year before Electr-O-Pura was released.

I don't really have any idea how that relates the these lyrics, but that's who Pablo and Andrea were.

@uhhhclem I did a little Googling.

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/frank-mary claims: "On December 28, 1974, Mary’s twenty-year-old daughter, Andrea, was killed in a plane crash in the Guatemalan jungle near the Mayan ruins at Tikal. One year later, in 1975, Mary’s mother nearly died from cancer, and within a year of his sister’s death, Pablo developed Hodgkin’s disease."

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2008/04/frank200804 : In Home Improvements (1985), he picks up the scene, this time outside a Bronx mental hospital on his way to visit his son: “Pablo, I promise you, I won’t give up,” Frank says in voice-over. In...