All due credit for the below interpretation goes to Coleridge as I am simply copying his comment, which is buried in the replies, so not many people would find it. And he nailed it perfectly:
"I think this song is about an ordinary shmoe whose girlfriend, an actress, has suddenly hit the big time. She has been shooting a film in Manhattan for a while, and hasn't been returning his calls. He sees her on the cover of a magazine and it makes him realize how much things have changed, and how quickly. Afraid he might be losing her, he decides to drive to New York City on the interstate. He arrives at the location where his girlfriend's film is shooting, but is not allowed on the set. Instead of talking to her boyfriend, she sends her body double over with the keys to her hotel room at Essex House (a very, very posh hotel across the street from Central Patk) and instructions to wait for her there because "the actors want to be alone".
He goes there, and waits in the empty, intimidatingly opulent hotel room for a while, and thinks about how he used to never have to wait for her at all. He sees another copy of the magazine with her picture on the cover, the one he drove there with, and he gives up. She's so far above him now, and he's lost her, and it just isn't fair. How come it's not him getting famous, and rich, and abandoning HER?
And then it hits him. It can be, just this once. He grabs her new platinum card, and decides to take a five-star trip to Paris. First class. On the Concorde. On her. My baby's gonna pay for me. .. Meaning she'lll pay his bill, and shell pay fir breaking his heart.
He calls his brother. Nobody home. Thinks of calling his girlfriend, but knows there's no point. The Concorde doesn't turn around... But he wonders if he made a mistake, if she's lonely. And heartbroken in new York, missing him and lonely, wondering where he went and still in love with him."
All due credit for the below interpretation goes to Coleridge as I am simply copying his comment, which is buried in the replies, so not many people would find it. And he nailed it perfectly:
"I think this song is about an ordinary shmoe whose girlfriend, an actress, has suddenly hit the big time. She has been shooting a film in Manhattan for a while, and hasn't been returning his calls. He sees her on the cover of a magazine and it makes him realize how much things have changed, and how quickly. Afraid he might be losing her, he decides to drive to New York City on the interstate. He arrives at the location where his girlfriend's film is shooting, but is not allowed on the set. Instead of talking to her boyfriend, she sends her body double over with the keys to her hotel room at Essex House (a very, very posh hotel across the street from Central Patk) and instructions to wait for her there because "the actors want to be alone".
He goes there, and waits in the empty, intimidatingly opulent hotel room for a while, and thinks about how he used to never have to wait for her at all. He sees another copy of the magazine with her picture on the cover, the one he drove there with, and he gives up. She's so far above him now, and he's lost her, and it just isn't fair. How come it's not him getting famous, and rich, and abandoning HER?
And then it hits him. It can be, just this once. He grabs her new platinum card, and decides to take a five-star trip to Paris. First class. On the Concorde. On her. My baby's gonna pay for me. .. Meaning she'lll pay his bill, and shell pay fir breaking his heart.
He calls his brother. Nobody home. Thinks of calling his girlfriend, but knows there's no point. The Concorde doesn't turn around... But he wonders if he made a mistake, if she's lonely. And heartbroken in new York, missing him and lonely, wondering where he went and still in love with him."