Counselor here. While this song is partially about the days of youth, there's a deeper meaning to it many people miss. Collin Meloy always writes about some sort of pervasive issue in his stories; in this case it's addiction and substance abuse. It's safe to assume Elaine is the narrator reflecting on not only the fun she had in her youth, but the warped relationships prevalent in her life because of her mother's alcoholism as referenced by, "Her mother would quit and then suffer relapse from the drink." Many children of alcoholics find themselves attracted to other addicts simply because they learned what a relationship is from their addicted parent. Essentially, they only know how to relate with addicts and the emotional/physical abuse that comes with such a relationship. Elaine finds herself with, "A lover like Alain Delon," (more on that later) who abused prescription drugs, "...from the pills he would take." I mean, the back of the album cover is a bottle of pills if you need more proof. Elaine followed this lover blindly regardless of how she may have been treated by him because she followed her mother growing up in the same facet. Elaine herself most likely abused something considering, "The fun she had had." What of the rest of her family? "Her father had died in the mines," most likely because he overworked himself trying to provide for the family while the mother drank their money away. Her brother tried to find solace and perhaps another family in a gang in the crime world where he wound up dead and, "...all hung up on the scaffolding." What about the time period that all this takes place? Alain Delon was a relatively famous French actor in the 1960s-1970s. Elaine most likely admired the sort of smoking and drinking "bad boy" his character was and had a celebrity crush on him while she was growing up. Also, prescription pill bottles such as the one on the back of the album are a relatively new thing. That places her narration to her son in the modern day (2008 when these singles were released). Her brother was hanged not by local authorities, but by a rival gang. Law enforcement stopped hanging people a long time ago. Side note: At this point, it was fairly uncommon for The Decemberists to write songs in this setting with the exception of "O Valencia!" on The Crane Wife which makes this single even cooler in my opinion. The song is a mother telling her son a precautionary tale about the dangers of drug use and their family history of addicton now that he has reached an age where he can understand such things. We can assume Elaine has entered recovery herself from the way she refers to her past-abusing self in the third person as the days of Elaine. This makes the song even more of a rare gem in terms of Collin's song writing. It's a song about hope... The hope a mother has for the future generations of her family now that she had conquered the grasp it has had on it over its generations. But, hey. That's just a theory. A SONG THEORY.
Counselor here. While this song is partially about the days of youth, there's a deeper meaning to it many people miss. Collin Meloy always writes about some sort of pervasive issue in his stories; in this case it's addiction and substance abuse. It's safe to assume Elaine is the narrator reflecting on not only the fun she had in her youth, but the warped relationships prevalent in her life because of her mother's alcoholism as referenced by, "Her mother would quit and then suffer relapse from the drink." Many children of alcoholics find themselves attracted to other addicts simply because they learned what a relationship is from their addicted parent. Essentially, they only know how to relate with addicts and the emotional/physical abuse that comes with such a relationship. Elaine finds herself with, "A lover like Alain Delon," (more on that later) who abused prescription drugs, "...from the pills he would take." I mean, the back of the album cover is a bottle of pills if you need more proof. Elaine followed this lover blindly regardless of how she may have been treated by him because she followed her mother growing up in the same facet. Elaine herself most likely abused something considering, "The fun she had had." What of the rest of her family? "Her father had died in the mines," most likely because he overworked himself trying to provide for the family while the mother drank their money away. Her brother tried to find solace and perhaps another family in a gang in the crime world where he wound up dead and, "...all hung up on the scaffolding." What about the time period that all this takes place? Alain Delon was a relatively famous French actor in the 1960s-1970s. Elaine most likely admired the sort of smoking and drinking "bad boy" his character was and had a celebrity crush on him while she was growing up. Also, prescription pill bottles such as the one on the back of the album are a relatively new thing. That places her narration to her son in the modern day (2008 when these singles were released). Her brother was hanged not by local authorities, but by a rival gang. Law enforcement stopped hanging people a long time ago. Side note: At this point, it was fairly uncommon for The Decemberists to write songs in this setting with the exception of "O Valencia!" on The Crane Wife which makes this single even cooler in my opinion. The song is a mother telling her son a precautionary tale about the dangers of drug use and their family history of addicton now that he has reached an age where he can understand such things. We can assume Elaine has entered recovery herself from the way she refers to her past-abusing self in the third person as the days of Elaine. This makes the song even more of a rare gem in terms of Collin's song writing. It's a song about hope... The hope a mother has for the future generations of her family now that she had conquered the grasp it has had on it over its generations. But, hey. That's just a theory. A SONG THEORY.