My take on the "surfer boys" line has always been that they ARE her kids, yet the level of her pain and despair, the cultural alienation she is feeling, the violence she is suffering from her husband, make them seem like they're not - in the gilded cage of Hollywood where all is appearance and the pain is hidden. I write from London (hey, about 10 miles from Croydon)...the juxtaposition of the dull suburban, characterless nature of Croydon and the glitz and excitement of Hollywood is really pointed. It carries with it all that sense of pathos about 'escape'...and yet look what she escaped too? And there's the undercurrent of the 'lost' expat, far from home, friendless...there's just this one bar "where all the English meet", and that's all she has...
The "Suicide in the hills above old Hollywood is never gonna change the world" lines are so powerful...because he then sings "Any more than the invention of the six-gun / Any more than the discovery of Radium / Or California tipping in the ocean"...events that had a profound effect on the world (first two) or would (no 3). So this turns the meaning of the suicide line around - it becomes a declaration of the narrator's love for her, an indication of what a massive difference the loss of her would make to him...
Such a wonderful, sad, loving song.
My take on the "surfer boys" line has always been that they ARE her kids, yet the level of her pain and despair, the cultural alienation she is feeling, the violence she is suffering from her husband, make them seem like they're not - in the gilded cage of Hollywood where all is appearance and the pain is hidden. I write from London (hey, about 10 miles from Croydon)...the juxtaposition of the dull suburban, characterless nature of Croydon and the glitz and excitement of Hollywood is really pointed. It carries with it all that sense of pathos about 'escape'...and yet look what she escaped too? And there's the undercurrent of the 'lost' expat, far from home, friendless...there's just this one bar "where all the English meet", and that's all she has...
The "Suicide in the hills above old Hollywood is never gonna change the world" lines are so powerful...because he then sings "Any more than the invention of the six-gun / Any more than the discovery of Radium / Or California tipping in the ocean"...events that had a profound effect on the world (first two) or would (no 3). So this turns the meaning of the suicide line around - it becomes a declaration of the narrator's love for her, an indication of what a massive difference the loss of her would make to him...