rilo kiley-does he love you?

Get a real job
Keep the wind at your back and the sun on your face
All the immediate unknowns
Are better than knowing this tired and lonely fate
Does he love you?
Does he love you?
Will he hold your tiny face in his hands?

I guess it's spring, I didn't know
It's always seventy-five with no melting snow
A married man, he visits me
I receive his letters in the mail twice a week

And I think he loves me
And when he leaves her
He's coming out to California

I guess it all worked out
There's a ring on your finger and the baby's due out
You share a place by the park
And run a shop for antiques downtown

And he loves you
Yeah he loves you
And the two of you will soon become three
And he loves you
Even though you
Used to say you were flawed if you weren't free

Let's not forget ourselves good friend
You and I were almost dead
And you're better off for leaving
Yeah you're better off for leaving

Late at night
I get the phone
You're at the shop sobbing all alone
Your confession it's coming out
You only married him
You felt your time was running out

But now you love him
And your baby
At last you are complete
But he's distant and you found him
On the phone pleading, saying, 'baby I love you'
And I'll leave her and I'm coming out to California"

Let's not forget ourselves good friend
I am flawed if I'm not free
And your husband will never leave you
He will never leave you for me


This song is between two women who were friends living in California until one of them gets married. Unbeknownst to the other, the new husband and the old friend are having an affair. I think it is a pretty typical romance narrative in the way that this women thinks everything will work out if this guy leaves his wife. It's like we were talking about in class, forgiving and forgetting happens so easily in books and movies, it's unrealistic. It also touchs on the narrative of women's dependance on men. The now married woman used to say 'you are flawed if youre not free' but then she marries him because 'she felt her time was running out'. It is sort of like in Summer, Charity grapples with the feeling of wanting to be independent, yet can't make herself happy with out a man.