The French Inhaler

I think that some folks are reading too much into this. He was in a bar chatting up a girl who said that she was an actress, and she was going to be a star some day. Yes, the song is about unfulfilled dreams. He's lonely, and drunk, and he's talking to this woman that he thinks is attractive, and he thinks that he might be going home with her. He drinks up all of his money. Then, at the end of the night, the bar is closing, the lights come on, and he realizes that she's going home with someone else. And, on top of that, she didn't even get his name right. He told her that his name was "Warren", and she thought that he said "Norman". Also, in the harsh light, he sees that she's just another person with faded dreams, she doesn't know him at all, and she isn't attractive anymore. The "French Inhaler" is a metaphor for the cruelness of fate, which shows you the promise of something good, and then takes it back. If you've ever seen someone French inhale a cigarette, what they're doing is expelling the smoke through their mouth, and then sucking it back in through their nose. When the smoke finally re-emerges, there's truly nothing left-just like his dreams/opportunities. The "French inhaler" stamped and mailed her-in other words fate sent her elsewhere and he had no chance at love or happiness.