For about the first twenty times I heard this song, I heard the line as "What if we'd had A kid?" It was just idle speculation - just a way of noting how long it had been since the two broke up, sigh, time passes, love fades, etc. - it fit what I thought was the mood of the song.
But the instant I heard it accurately, as "THE kid," that mood shifted completely. Suddenly the kid's not an abstract whim, he's the focal point of everything (in spite of not existing...) He's the reason for "the fight" - he's the life they didn't have together.
I can't shake the feeling that the singer and "Joy" are the couple from "Killers," even though I don't want them to be, because I want those guys to have made it through together. (Similarly, I don't want the dead bank robbers in "Northfield MN" to be the future selves of the "Optimist vs. Silent Alarm" couple, but they might be.)
For about the first twenty times I heard this song, I heard the line as "What if we'd had A kid?" It was just idle speculation - just a way of noting how long it had been since the two broke up, sigh, time passes, love fades, etc. - it fit what I thought was the mood of the song.
But the instant I heard it accurately, as "THE kid," that mood shifted completely. Suddenly the kid's not an abstract whim, he's the focal point of everything (in spite of not existing...) He's the reason for "the fight" - he's the life they didn't have together.
I can't shake the feeling that the singer and "Joy" are the couple from "Killers," even though I don't want them to be, because I want those guys to have made it through together. (Similarly, I don't want the dead bank robbers in "Northfield MN" to be the future selves of the "Optimist vs. Silent Alarm" couple, but they might be.)