50 songs for 50 states: Idaho

A musical celebration of the 50 states. One song each week over the course of the year.

Twin Falls – Built to Spill

In many cases, the best song about a place is really a song about getting away from that place.  But escape is never pure. The place is part of us, and its memories fill us. To get away may be necessary or good, but we can’t help but feel a sense of loss, too.

That’s true for quite a few of the songs in this project, but I’m not sure there are any examples more poignant than “Twin Falls.”

It’s about the romance that never had a chance to be. Childhood friends in a small town in a rarely-traveled corner of Idaho. The details are just perfect: playing 7-Up, or sitting under a parachute in elementary school. Promises being made that everyone was far too young, too innocent to actually understand.

But he left, rescued by his mother who moves them away in high school (“My mom’s good she got me out of Twin Falls, Idaho / Before I got too old / You know how that goes”).

And she continued on without him. Got married, had kids, lived her life. So she’s resigned to the realm of memory, where she can represent the innocence of childhood that we hold close to our heart without really wishing that its promises had been fulfilled.  Because to wish for that would be to accept everything else that Twin Falls stood for.

The tension there is particularly acute when you think about the two alternate ways that Martsch sings the song. The recorded version ends:

Last I heard was she had twins or maybe it was three
Although I’ve never seen
But that don’t bother me

But played live, he often switches it:

Last I heard was she had twins or maybe it was three
Although I’ve never seen
Except for in my dreams

Because the second one is true, he has to sing the first one. Because he can’t bring himself to look too closely at what it would mean if it did bother him.