Probably the most confusing and also one of my favorite songs on the album. Jordan is in love with the pronouns "I" and "you" which always makes it difficult to figure out who he is talking to or about, but that's his style and it works.
I reached the same conclusions as parttimelovah: The story jumps back and forth between 1) the narrator and his lover on their road trip(s) through the desert referenced in "For Mayor in Splitsville" and "Stay Happy There" in the present day (2009) and 2) the narrator's father driving alone trying to escape his crumbling marriage when the narrator was a baby (1981). Thus, this song connects the past to the present, and illustrates that through this family's history the open road has been as integral a setting as the rooms of the houses they lived in.
I would like to point out that the couple in HUDSONVILLE, MI 1956 and THE CHILD WE LOST 1963 isn't the narrator's parents but his grandparents, and their children are the narrator's father/uncles/aunts. The album covers three generations.
It's interesting that the narrator's father worked at a hardware store in his youth. Jordan has stated in interviews that he he and his cousin Brad (the drummer) work (or at least used to work) in a hardware store in Grand Rapids, a fact that made it into the song "Edward Benz, 27 Times" from Wildlife which is based on a true story.
Probably the most confusing and also one of my favorite songs on the album. Jordan is in love with the pronouns "I" and "you" which always makes it difficult to figure out who he is talking to or about, but that's his style and it works.
I reached the same conclusions as parttimelovah: The story jumps back and forth between 1) the narrator and his lover on their road trip(s) through the desert referenced in "For Mayor in Splitsville" and "Stay Happy There" in the present day (2009) and 2) the narrator's father driving alone trying to escape his crumbling marriage when the narrator was a baby (1981). Thus, this song connects the past to the present, and illustrates that through this family's history the open road has been as integral a setting as the rooms of the houses they lived in.
I would like to point out that the couple in HUDSONVILLE, MI 1956 and THE CHILD WE LOST 1963 isn't the narrator's parents but his grandparents, and their children are the narrator's father/uncles/aunts. The album covers three generations.
It's interesting that the narrator's father worked at a hardware store in his youth. Jordan has stated in interviews that he he and his cousin Brad (the drummer) work (or at least used to work) in a hardware store in Grand Rapids, a fact that made it into the song "Edward Benz, 27 Times" from Wildlife which is based on a true story.