One of the reasons I love Fountains of Wayne is that their lyrics are so straight-forward and relatable.
They write about people who might live in your neighborhood, pass by you on the highway, sit in the cubicle next to yours at work.
But today’s random SOTD, ‘Cold Comfort Flowers’ from the band’s last album, Sky Full of Holes, is a different ballgame.
The first verse starts out pretty simple, like most FOW songs. OK, I can picture this car and some peacenik getting pulled over by a cop. But around “Chinese arms” I get lost.
Does anybody care to shed some light on these lyrics?
Japanese car
You will remember the pap on the radio
Big blue policeman says stay where you are
Surrender your Chinese arms
Rock show Romeo
Black and white shoes
Strawberry haircut, in fist-pumping prime
Scrape off the dross, keep what you can use
And leave the weaker ones behind
They step outside to step out slow
In vain trying to find a hole they can’t outgrow
They evolve in time
Wind finely on the vine
Climbing toward the spots in the sun
An unwelcome fate
May ferry all away
But cold comfort flowers
Will bloom and decay
Pink clouds, summer sorrow
Oceanside swales
If you don’t feel pretty
With your face in the tide
Well, file your complaint in weary detail
And tell the little people you tried
They step outside to step out slow
In vain trying to find a hole they can’t outgrow
They evolve in time
Wind finely on the vine
Climbing toward the spots in the sun
An unwelcome fate
May ferry all away
But cold comfort flowers
Will blossom and fade
Meet Me In Montauk 
I believe these are all vignettes of people who fit a particular societal stereotype and remain pigeon-holed despite time and efforts to be viewed beyond superficiality and stereotype. Not sure how that works with cold comfort flowers that bloom and decay, but that’s my take.😄
Intriguing. I thought I had a sense of what the lyrics might mean, but I can’t make the first verse fit.
Initially, I thought both the first and second verses referred to real life events – some hippie being unfairly stopped by the police and having their nunchucks taken (though I just learned that nunchucks are Japanese, you get the idea…) in the first and the second focusing on a singer (Elvis Presley? type… who was that guy with the “straweberry hair” – Howard Jones, Dana just told me…. someone like him) who kept what he could use (musical influences, maybe some band members?) dropped the rest and attempted to become a star…
However, while the rest of the song lyrics could work to support the analysis of the second verse, with that would be star paying for his lack of loyalty by “not feeling pretty” for what has been done and blooming only to fade, I have no idea what to do with that car full of peaceniks from the start. What do they possibly have to do with cold comfort flowers (which, I’m interpreting, do bloom but offer no warmth or pleasure in the process).
I don’t know – that’s all I got right now….
Nagasaki and Hiroshima, cold comfort for the financial boom of Japan symbolized by the irony of the peace sign on the Japanese car. After that, I am lost…maybe even before that too. : )
I love this song and as many times as I listen to it, I really can’t figure it out. This part:
They evolve in time
Wind finely on the vine
Climbing toward the spots in the sun
An unwelcome fate
May ferry all away
But cold comfort flowers
Will bloom and decay
Some people hear “wine” and I think that leads me to think of grapes on a vine, and that vine winding it’s way upward, toward the sun. But all the careful planning that goes into things, something can come along and unravel all your plans (ferry all away), and the cold comfort flowers come and go.
Like Lennon-McCartney songs, Collingwoood-Schlesinger songs usually have one songwriter, and this one is Collingwood’s. He had this to say about this song:
If you are going to divide the Fountains of Wayne songs, mine are more oblique and less directly about something. The literal ones for me are the easiest to write, like the song on the new record called “Dip in the Ocean.” That came out all in one sitting. It’s about riding around in a car with the top down. “Cold Comfort Flowers” and “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart” were written over long periods of time, where a bunch of notes I’ve collected found their way into the songs somehow. I reject the notion that a song has to be about something. Sometimes it can be just a collection of ideas that all fit the same theme.
So in the end, I think it’s possible that we’re looking for meaning where there really isn’t, instead, it’s just some unrelated thoughts tied together with a catchy melody. As well, I think this solo is among the best of Jody Porter’s work. I love the way it has a Lennon-esque sound, similar to John’s work in Abbey Road’s The End.