I have listened to this song many many times and I can really connect with it as I'm also from Ohio. I'm also a big fan of Mark Kozelek. As for the meaning I think a few of you hit it on the nose it's about loss of a love but I think he is using it as a metaphor. You need to be from Ohio to understand the subtle meaning of his feeling of no longer connecting with his love for a women as well as the place he was born which is in Massillon Ohio. It's the feeling everyone has for the places in our past that only the other people who where there can you relate with. It's the loss of a time in his past as a youth. Ohio was once a thriving boom town area where there where lots of jobs and promise as well as dreams where a young middle class family could be raised and many childhood memories where made there. Now Ohio it is nothing like that it's just another depressed area of the county that has been abused and forgotten. In interviews he talks about hanging out at friends houses getting high and listening to Neil Young and Pink Floyd. I think he has better sweet memories of his time in Ohio. In interviews he does not seem to have ever made a connection with Ohio and he almost feels about that he does not even do concerts in Ohio. He said at a recent concert I attended in Pittsburgh when a fan yelled out "come do a concert in Ohio?" he replied "Ohio was way to close to family he has there". I think the song has two meanings. I think the women reference is fiction and the Ohio references are his real feelings of a place forgotten and unable to connect with.
I have listened to this song many many times and I can really connect with it as I'm also from Ohio. I'm also a big fan of Mark Kozelek. As for the meaning I think a few of you hit it on the nose it's about loss of a love but I think he is using it as a metaphor. You need to be from Ohio to understand the subtle meaning of his feeling of no longer connecting with his love for a women as well as the place he was born which is in Massillon Ohio. It's the feeling everyone has for the places in our past that only the other people who where there can you relate with. It's the loss of a time in his past as a youth. Ohio was once a thriving boom town area where there where lots of jobs and promise as well as dreams where a young middle class family could be raised and many childhood memories where made there. Now Ohio it is nothing like that it's just another depressed area of the county that has been abused and forgotten. In interviews he talks about hanging out at friends houses getting high and listening to Neil Young and Pink Floyd. I think he has better sweet memories of his time in Ohio. In interviews he does not seem to have ever made a connection with Ohio and he almost feels about that he does not even do concerts in Ohio. He said at a recent concert I attended in Pittsburgh when a fan yelled out "come do a concert in Ohio?" he replied "Ohio was way to close to family he has there". I think the song has two meanings. I think the women reference is fiction and the Ohio references are his real feelings of a place forgotten and unable to connect with.