One Headlight: A Dissertation (or at least an attempt at it...)

"One Headlight"

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

[сhorus:]
Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

She said it's cold
It feels like Independence Day
And I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed
And I seen the sun up ahead
At the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end-it's just her window ledge

[chorus]

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me

[chorus]

Confession time:  when this song first came out in 1996, I was not a big fan of it.  For the life of me I cannot remember exactly why this was.  Maybe being released when I was starting to lose interest in music radio has something to do with it.  But eventually it grew into being a personal favorite.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to go online and actually read the lyrics.  At first I was a bit upset to see that I might have heard and interpreted the song a bit differently than it had been meant to be.  But re-reading it I found I was most likely on the right path after all.  In general I don’t try to dig too deep into a song I like, but on occasion I must dig deeper, to make sense of one.  This is one of those times.

The main theme I perceive from this song is that of denial… and the guilt that ultimately tears through said denial.

The Narrator is talking (singing) about the death of someone he was close to.  I at first thought maybe it was a lover, but I began to realize it was more likely a relative, and most likely his mother.  ‘That's when they say I lost my only friend’ implies real closeness, and when coupled with the famous quote ’A boy’s best friend is his mother’ it becomes clearer.  (And I am not suggesting that Norman Bates is a credible source.  It just fits with my analysis.)  Some time in the past the Narrator decided that he didn’t want to be with her.  This act, this denial of her, led to her death, which I am guessing was suicide- most likely by an overdose of sleeping pills.  (‘Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease’ implies that while she killed herself, she did it in the least painful way she could.)

Now why did he leave her behind?  While nothing is explicitly stated, the impression you get is that he was not satisfied with the lifestyle they shared- which his mother evidently did. (‘There's got to be something better than in the middle’)  He wanted bigger and better things, and her hesitation/refusal/indifference led to him leaving her to get what he wanted.  She tried to reach out to him, to find the real him she knew was there behind the new persona he created, but was rebuffed at every turn.  (‘But there's got to be an opening/Somewhere here in front of me/Through this maze of ugliness and greed’)  And as he got farther away she became more despondent, and felt she lost against what he wanted; so she made her choice to not go on.  (‘She ran until there's nothin' left’).

This all comes to a head in the finale.  His mother is dead, and while he is not being blamed for it, at least officially (‘The long broken arm of human law’ implies that the legal system doesn’t implicate him), the Narrator is realizing the truth.  As he stands, alone in his childhood home with the ghosts of memory, his first wishes are to destroy it, to erase it from his mind.  (‘Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes/This place is always such a mess/Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn’).  But as he’s standing there, it fully dawns on him:  in his desire to become something he thought was better, he succeeded, but in doing so he lost everything that was REALLY important.  And with that revelation, he comes undone.  (‘But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams/I think her death it must be killin' me.)  We leave the tale right as this happens, when the guilt, the shame, the remorse flood in unchecked.  What happens next is unknown… but it makes for more interesting speculation.

Now this was the first real dissertation I have done on a song (‘Hello Cruel World’ I don’t feel counts), and I like to think I did pretty well with this.  But for all I know I could have gotten it completely backwards.  I am not the original writer of the song… just a fan.  Still, this was fun to do and hopefully fun for you to read.