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in: Full Force Galesburg songs, Video

Twin Human Highway Flares

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Twin Human Highway Flares
KCHzY

Album

Full Force Galesburg

Released

1997

Artist

the Mountain Goats

Length

2:42

Previous Track

"Down Here"

Next Track

"Weekend in Western Illinois"

Twin Human Highway Flares is the eighth song on the album Full Force Galesburg.

Lyrics[]

You turned to me and asked me if I'd always be your boy
As we drove across the river into western Illinois
And on the railroad bridge, half a mile of solid steel
Wheels were spitting out sparks, scraping at the rails
Wind in your hair all right
Sunset spilling through the rear window
Your white t-shirt hugging your shoulders, beaded with sweat
On the day that I become so forgetful
That all of this melts away
I will burn all the calendars that counted the years down to
Such a worthless day

As we walked across the parking lot toward the motel office
We were walking with a benediction on us
Light was everywhere, the building stood against the sky
Like a monument to desperation two floors high
A mile and a half from the river
We went back to the car to get our overnight bags
Sunset spilling through your earrings all over your body
When we shut the motel room door behind us, we knew we'd hit the motherlode
On the day that I forget you, I hope my heart explodes

Comments by John Darnielle About this Song[]

  • "This was the first love song I ever wrote for my wife, before she was my wife." -- 2005-07-02 - Old American Can Factory - Brooklyn, NY
  • "There are two people in this song — or three, if you count the highway, which I generally do. They look a lot like me and the woman who would later become my wife, driving from Chicago to northern Iowa on a summer day. Only I don't think that ever happened. I know we never had any '50s road movie conversations like the one that opens the song. We weren't, at the point in time when this song would have had to've taken place for it to be true, using overnight bags. We had suitcases. And there wasn't enough backstory between us for buildings to appear as "monument[s] of desperation." But the picture I get in my head, or got in my head when I was writing it in a Grinnell apartment circa 1996, was of my girlfriend and I heading a little ways west and digging in for a long life together. I think it's almost a symbolic scene for me in that way. On one tour we opened the set with it quite a few times, and I enjoyed it more and more each night. The characters in this song aren't keeping secrets from you; anything they don't tell you just isn't any of your business." -- "My Five Favorite Mountain Goats Characters -- eMusic article
  • “… and Galesburg to me was a spot that I saw for seven minutes, looking out of a train window uh, well you know, somebody had some clothes on a line, and a couple dogs were barking in a yard, and I thought I could get off the train here and disappear forever in this town. It was one of those moments, it was one of those moments you get where like vast infinities and possibilites open up for you for just a second right. It’s not your Maslovian plateau moment, it’s something else, it’s this moment when you realize that there are a lot of selves inside of you and one of them is about to be left behind as the train heads on towards Iowa.” -- 2014-05-02 - Kresge Recital Hall - Knox College - Galesburg, IL

Things Referenced in this Song[]

Live Shows this Song Was Played at[]

Videos of this Song[]


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