The Wallflowers - One Headlight - Lyrics Meaning

The Wallflowers "One Headlight" was released in 1996. Although the album wasn't popular initially, the song and video later broke through to place on the Billboard Top 100 for air play. The song tells a disjointed story, and as a result has been interpreted in many different ways.

Most of these ways have dark undertones. Some fans have interpreted it as being about death, suicide, drug abuse, or alcoholism. The lyrics do seem to tell the story of someone who has lost a friend due to tragic circumstances, and who is struggling to work through what the ultimate impact of the death will be on his life. The video seemed to reinforce this interpretation of the lyrics, with its heavy use of shadow and gothic influences.

However, The Wallflower's lead singer, Jakob Dylan, has said that the song is not about a broken relationship or a person. Rather, it was written to be about all of humanity and about the death of ideas in the world. Thus, while the song does seem to be a bit down and dark, it is not about the themes that most fans think. Instead of focusing on just one person and one life, it's mournful tone is instead directed at the world at large.