This song is very abstract. Stay with me.

I know that the tense shifts all over the place. Sometimes it's past tense, present tense, and even future tense within the same line. Don't try to make grammatical sense of it. It'll drive you nuts. And that's on purpose. I considered trying to clean it up, but I thought it helped the point of the song to leave it baffling.

I guess you'd call this a love song. Although I think the line "it doesn't count as a love song if nobody's in love by the chorus" is one of the most important phrases in understanding the lyrics. It IS a love song. But love is more complicated than a love song. Sometimes "I love you" isn't as simple as "I love you too." Sometimes it's "let's not fuck this up by dating, but I love you too." And when that's left hanging there, everything is fucked up. Time, location, emotions...they're all out the window.

I guess in this story, it's two people meeting up after not seeing each other for a while. The guy obviously has deep feelings for the girl, but it's not meant to be. And that kinda sucks. But at least they've got whatever they've got, and whatever that might be is walking down Delmar in U City looking for a beer. He'd do anything for her, but the best thing he can do for her is not press that. No matter how long it takes to put those feelings away.

Yes, it's semi-autobiographical. Of course it is.

When I wrote this I had a line in the song that I had to change because of the passage of time and events. The line "Worst case scenario, there's that club where we used to go" USED to be, "Worst case scenario, there's probably parking behind Cicero's." Cicero's was a bar/restaurant in St. Louis that I liked. It closed while I was working on this album, with very little fanfare. Nothing lasts forever.

I also added a line to the song. I was writing about St. Louis and my pet theory that even if they move, no one ever really gets out of there. People are always drawn back. Or they can move to Detroit or Minneapolis or someplace and live there for 30 years, but when anybody asks they say, "I'm from St. Louis." In the song, it's clear that the girl has left...but she hasn't. Something keeps her coming back--maybe it's him and maybe it isn't. Then while I was writing the album, Chuck Berry died. And I wrote "I guess everything changes. Even the best things. Nobody expects Chuck Berry to play here again." It seemed like a perfect metaphor. Chuck Berry's dead. But he'll always be part of this town. No one leaves St. Louis. The love never fully dies.