Reflections

Well this song is really weird and can't really be related to anything. So I'm gonna side with Jake on this one when he said that he wrote it because he feels like if there are three people inside of him making decisions. He just doesn't know when one of them will make one. Like 3 multiple personalites.

I also heard a Marlena is a fish (?) So the fish was used in the video. ~ Leigh

The following interpretation was sent to me by Sara. It's a really good interpretation. Thanks Sara!!

I have some interpretations to add to what you wrote about "Three Marlenas." If you'd like a shorter version, let me know. To express how he feels himself, Jakob takes on the character of this woman. She has these three facets to her personality which emerge in different ways, and one is described in each verse. It's interesting to notice that in each verse, Jakob uses his favorite metaphor--the car--to express that side of her personality

The first side is the one which changes herself to please other people, who "dyes her hair red." She sleeps with someone because it's her only way to get home again. Here, she isn't completely in control--someone else has to "drive her home." Alone tonight in somebody's bed It's not her normal day-to-day life, it's not how she "pays the rent." But when she does these things, she feels "alone" and cut off, even when she is with someone else.

In the second verse, she dreams of settling down, of having something permanent in her life. She fantasizes about having a stable, middle class life with a someone. Here he could sell cars, (which is the highest paying job for people who aren't necessarily college-educated, etc.) It's kind of a fantasy of how she can achieve this middle class life. It's automatic for me to visualize her up in the hills around L.A. where Jake grew up--she looks down on the city and the lights blend with the stars in the sky. I refuse to believe that she says "heaven lights," whenever I see a concert, I see & hear Jake say "headlights" and that's how one magazine writer put it. It's set up as an opposition: she wants so much to pick a real star, not to pick a fantasy goal, that she ends up NOT picking a star. "Heaven lights" says that she DOES pick a real star; it doesn't make sense with a character who can't quite achieve what she wants and who sets her goals lower and lower rather than be disappointed. As she looks out, she wants to wish on a star, but she doesn't have the confidence to set high goals for herself, she thinks that might be asking too much (picking a kite, not a real star), so she aims lower and lower until instead of a star, she's actually looking at a headlight of a car in the very real, down-to-earth city. This works well with the next verse.

In the third verse, Marlena starts off with a big dream, like wishing on a star (a Rolls Royce) then corrects herself down to the level of praying to a mere headlight (the Chevrolet) This third Marlena dreams of freedom, liberation, relying on herself. Here there isn't a man either using her, or providing stability--there's only the uncertainty and excitement of the open road, continuing yet again the car metaphor. The chorus, which gets longer and more passionate each time, is about trying to find which if these instincts is right for her, which she should trust. She wants to believe they are all good, not evil, but she is uncertain which direction her life should take. In this way, it's as if she has three different people all struggling to make decisions about how much to risk, what to try for, how high to aim.