Wondering...

[sarahmichelef]

So M and I have been having a debate. What exactly is the plot of The Barenaked Ladies' "The Old Apartment"?

Tell me what you think.

Comments

[fencerm2.livejournal.com]

Well, it could be one of two things, I think.

Either (a. He's just a bit neurotic, broke into the place because he could, and needed to have a blast from the past. Sometimes to deal with old issues, we need to return to locations of the past, and blah blah blah.

I know, as a huge fan of BNL, that the main lead singer, Steve, suffers from clinical depression. So this, to me, is most plausible.

Of course, the standard option (b. Is that his ex is the occupant of said apartment, and he lives with the woman he left her for, but is feeling some regret in that choice, so he has broken in just to talk about things. Clear the air, and blah blah blah.

That's my 2 cents worth on that. :-)

I have seen BNL live SIX times since 1994.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

I pretty much go with 'a'. He has no idea who lives there now, he just needed to be there again, and for one moment (just long enough) didn't care that it's a crime. I actually understand the urge, although I've never done what the song depicts. Oddly, the apartment I most want to break into and see was never mine, per se, but my grandmother's apt in Brooklyn.

Nostalgia's bizarre, sometimes.

this is disjointed, as I didn't get much sleep

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

a literal translation-

Guy breaks into an old apartment where he and his gf used live. He turns on the current tenants tv and plays it it on the floor just for fun to annoy the neighbors downstairs. He notices a few minor things in the apartment that used to be his. ("I guess they still are. I want them back.") Starts ruminating on current his current living situation. The later refrain about broken memories faded memories, I don't want them back is probably about the time period or relationship with the gf (now ex?). He thinks about the time period, and wishes that he didn't. He doesn't want those memories, but can't get rid of them.

The connotation is that "they" (him and another person, possibly not the gf) bought another place and he now is quite happy...'cept why did he break into the apartment? why did he come back? compulsion? regret? tribute to a time period? melancholy?

I've also read it as they just left some stuff behind when they moved, and broke back in for just the heck of it.

not-so literal-
the apartment could be thought of as a space in the guys mind/ or he's imaging all this as he keeps thinking again and about the relationship (tv=slight revenge fantasy) and the things he left behind (things he owned and aspects of self, time spent), he doesn't want to think about the time period, but keeps coming back to it.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I used to think it was "I broke into this place we lived together and mvoed out of when we broke up." Now I'm thinking maybe it's "I'm coming back to where we started our lives together. It was a shitty place, but it was ours, and even though we have a nice place now, I wanted to see the old place again."

[nenie.livejournal.com]

i buy the whole he broke in for the blast of nostalgia
that he still has issues with the ex and he wants to talk them out in some neutral space
even if she's not there

cuz
really
who hasn't done this
or had this need?

as for the stuff
i think it was his
he left it behind
and she left it behind as well
and the new tenants kept it cuz it was cool

because
again
this happens more often than you think
yknow?