The woman in this song is a prostitute. A "midnight caller" refers to a John, who she is beneath for obvious reasons. "Paper green" refers to the money that is exchanged for her services. "You never hear them calling her name/They just know where they've been," I interpret to mean that while nobody seeks her out, she tells her customers her name, perhaps to try to form a connection, however small, with them out of loneliness.
"You never hear her holler" (no sexual moaning perhaps, or perhaps no protest on her part,) and "the tears no longer come" seem to me to represent her emotional distance from herself, she is devoid of feeling. "She reads her daily book of the past/That shows of everyone" I interpret to mean reading her journal, which contains memories of people she used to be friends with.
In the verse that begins with "She sees a daytime stroller," she sees a patron of hers from earlier, and though she smiles at him, she knows he won't come back to her again, adding to the theme of loneliness. "She's got no saint to follow" could either mean she cannot find solace in religion, or perhaps that she has no moral exemplar to give her an easy answer to her problems, no hero to guide her in her life. "Too proud to ask an old friend for help/Too proud to let him know" refers to the aforementioned friendship with the band as shown above by @richie, and how she feels she cannot ask them for help getting out of her situation.
The first two lines of the chorus of the song, "Grey years that show in her hair/Can't be, but don't seem to care" simply means that though she is young, she shows the effects of hard living in her body, the grey hairs persist despite the fact that normally she should not have them at her young age.
Hopefully this interpretation is helpful to others/creates discussion, although ultimately it is just one of many :)
The woman in this song is a prostitute. A "midnight caller" refers to a John, who she is beneath for obvious reasons. "Paper green" refers to the money that is exchanged for her services. "You never hear them calling her name/They just know where they've been," I interpret to mean that while nobody seeks her out, she tells her customers her name, perhaps to try to form a connection, however small, with them out of loneliness.
"You never hear her holler" (no sexual moaning perhaps, or perhaps no protest on her part,) and "the tears no longer come" seem to me to represent her emotional distance from herself, she is devoid of feeling. "She reads her daily book of the past/That shows of everyone" I interpret to mean reading her journal, which contains memories of people she used to be friends with.
In the verse that begins with "She sees a daytime stroller," she sees a patron of hers from earlier, and though she smiles at him, she knows he won't come back to her again, adding to the theme of loneliness. "She's got no saint to follow" could either mean she cannot find solace in religion, or perhaps that she has no moral exemplar to give her an easy answer to her problems, no hero to guide her in her life. "Too proud to ask an old friend for help/Too proud to let him know" refers to the aforementioned friendship with the band as shown above by @richie, and how she feels she cannot ask them for help getting out of her situation.
The first two lines of the chorus of the song, "Grey years that show in her hair/Can't be, but don't seem to care" simply means that though she is young, she shows the effects of hard living in her body, the grey hairs persist despite the fact that normally she should not have them at her young age.
Hopefully this interpretation is helpful to others/creates discussion, although ultimately it is just one of many :)