American Girls | Carriage | Richard Manuel is Dead | Goodnight L.A. Butterfly in Reverse (Maryanne) | Black and Blue | New Frontier | Hard Candy Hard Candy Back to the Top It’s the name of one of the songs and then the songs refers to your memories, which are sort of sweet but difficult. I guess in the end it ended up being an album about memory. I didn’t do that on purpose — I never do.” American Girls Back to the Top "Ok, this is a very simple basic song. Guy meets girl, girl is weird, guy takes girl for granted, girl leaves, guy dresses up in girl's clothes." You know how when you meet a girl outside of a club and you start to think that you could have been anyone? That it didn't have to be you but it could have been anyone at all. This song is about a guy who meets a girl outside of a club. And she dresses up for him every night in these little outfits. And then it turns out she's totally insane and one day, she leaves. And the guy ends up getting exactly what he deserves. Any of you who have dated know just what I'm talking about --- one of you is insane, and the other one gets exactly what you deserve. So she leaves and one day he finds himself going through the closet and trying on her clothes. Carriage Back to the Top "This is another new song, it's from the new album. It's about how, you know you date someone for awhile and it seems like the most important thing in the world, the center of the universe, you think it will never end. And then you look back on it a year later , or some period of time, and it seems like it almost wasn't there at all. And this is about how the most incredibly beautiful thing, part of a relationship, and somehow it ends up meaning nothing. This is about how everything ends up as shit. OK, I'll tell you what it's about. Specifically, I had this girlfriend for a long time a few years ago and we broke up. And after we broke up we got back together again, for like one night, and she got pregnant. And we talked about it a long time and we decided to have the baby even though we weren't really going out anymore. And then she had a miscarriage. That was really sort of sad, although I mean I was kind of panicked at the time too. So it was kind of a relief but it was also really horrible. And you look b ack on it years later and you think about this incredible time when you're making love to someone and the only thing that's left is this memory of some disaster. The only thing that remained of that whole relationship at all was this thing that just disappeared. And I don't have a title for it yet because I can't come up with anything that quite fits it but this is about that." Richard Manuel is Dead Back to the Top This is about a thing that happened about 15 years ago when I was out all night with my friends drinking. I came home about six in the morning with this girl and got the morning paper on the way in the house and I opened it up and it turned out that Richard Manuel had died. He was the piano player and one of the singers for The Band. And I was a huge fan, you know? They were a big deal to me. And I kinda went to bed that morning thinking about how this thing that I had always loved was gone now. It's like John Lennon dying, there's not going to be anymore Beatles reunions, for sure. There's not going to be any Band reunions. And I was thinking this girl will probably be gone sometime soon too, you know, things just come and go in life. When were starting recording, we started writing, and we wrote this song. It's just sort of about how you can't hold on to anything in your life (your idols, the music you love, some girl, anything at all) a lot of times because you can't give all of yourself. And this is call ed Richard Manuel is Dead." Goodnight L.A. Back to the Top "I can't sleep very well. I mean you must have noticed this in songs before, but I'm up all night a lot. And this is about this one particular time when I'd been up for about two days. And it was coming on dawn one morning and I was thinking about shit." Butterfly in Reverse (Maryanne) Back to the Top So uh how many of you out there ever listen to the band Whiskeytown or Ryan Adams. Well me and Ryan are pretty good friends. When I started to work on this song a few weeks ago it had really cool music and he just came along and really helped me out and wrote the bridge , there was something about the lyrics, most of them were kinda stupid, so ryan came over to the studio one day and while everyone else was working on something else, me and ryan went to the piano room and we literally tossed back and forth every other line, so one line is his and the next ones mine until we had the whole song down. So this is by me and ryan and Charlie and its called Butterfly in Reverse or just Maryanne. Black and blue Back to the Top This is another new song. If you're a guy and you are sorta YEAHHH! You know about those girls who are all fucked up and fragile. And it just kinda fucks them up because you're addicted. I speak as one of those guys. Anyways, this is about the coolest, most fragile girl. New Frontier Back to the Top From the outside of everything to the inside of you" refers to many things, but mostly I think that's what communication is really all about. You try to get things across the gap between you and someone else. And the gap is huge sometimes. It seems like you have to come all the way "from the outside of everything".. Lovers try to cross it. Advertisers try to cross it. Everyone tries to cross it. I try to cross it when I try to take things I feel and make them things you feel. It's the great unknown. It's also a humorous take on it in the song. When the protagonist says in the 2nd verse that no one understands a word he says, you think it's a "deep" statement about lack of communication, except in this case, he's simply pronouncing the word "Aluminium" incorrectly. It certainly isn't about getting the band bigger in Europe. I try not to write things that simply need translation. That's not the kind of meaning I like to put in songs. That's for riddles. For more Hard Candy meanings visit CountingCrows.com Back