Alex & Mark are a married couple who either divorced or had some other troubles. or maybe the troubles are just conjecture. A&M are probably fictional so it's besides the point. either way, I think the song is just about the faux security of being in a relationship. it's nice to think about your S.O. as just that thing you have in your life that will always be there to comfort and protect you, to banish all your fear and distrust and loneliness from being a part of you. but it's a problematic fantasy to let that kind of thinking fool you. so KV kinda outlines the anxieties he has of being alone inside his mind and reality vs. fantasy.
but more interesting than the point of the song, perhaps, are the lyrical building blocks he uses to construct it. the certain mythical-but-modern phrase "girl named/called Alex", the "I wanna live" stolen from Neil Young's "Heart of Gold", and the "hey that's what I say" from the Stones' "Satisfaction". it's so great how he sings these things in a too-serious capital-R Rock kind of way... for me it represents trying to bare the vulnerable realities and wishes of a fragile human through the medium of rock music. it makes an anthem out of those soft things we should try to bring out in ourselves more. (though I guess the anthem on this album is really KV Crimes.)
Alex & Mark are a married couple who either divorced or had some other troubles. or maybe the troubles are just conjecture. A&M are probably fictional so it's besides the point. either way, I think the song is just about the faux security of being in a relationship. it's nice to think about your S.O. as just that thing you have in your life that will always be there to comfort and protect you, to banish all your fear and distrust and loneliness from being a part of you. but it's a problematic fantasy to let that kind of thinking fool you. so KV kinda outlines the anxieties he has of being alone inside his mind and reality vs. fantasy.
but more interesting than the point of the song, perhaps, are the lyrical building blocks he uses to construct it. the certain mythical-but-modern phrase "girl named/called Alex", the "I wanna live" stolen from Neil Young's "Heart of Gold", and the "hey that's what I say" from the Stones' "Satisfaction". it's so great how he sings these things in a too-serious capital-R Rock kind of way... for me it represents trying to bare the vulnerable realities and wishes of a fragile human through the medium of rock music. it makes an anthem out of those soft things we should try to bring out in ourselves more. (though I guess the anthem on this album is really KV Crimes.)