Look it's the middle of the night and I'm not really articulate at the moment but I just gotta say Blowback is some of Brandon's most intricate songwriting ever and it hurts my soul, the people claiming they're cliched and some shit. They're all interconnected with Caution, he's continuing that story, with the lines "she can go straight from zero to the 4th of July/The black top's burning up what's left of the fuse; She got Hollywood eyes, but you can't shoot what she's see/she's "type-cast" as white trash in Blowback) and...even the Tic-tac line people aren't getting.
He doesn't mention her smoking a cigarette in the beginning just for fun, and the Tic-tac line wasn't just for shits and giggles. He's showing her trying to move on from the trauma with a metaphor about smoking actively and trying to quit (gum, Tic-tacs etc are obviously a very common substitute) and the continuing refrain about breathing in the blowback is not an accident either, it plays into that metaphor perfectly as well and has a double meaning. Breathing in the blowback = breathing in the smoke produced, and also = coping with the effects and the consequences of her trauma, the PTSD symptoms. "Can you cast out a demon, can you wrangle the wind? Will you stay when she's breathing the blowback again?" = Can you help her conquer the disorder and the trauma and help her deal with it, can you handle the flashbacks and fireworks and mood swings (the short fuse reference) or will you just..give up and leave?
gummygunk
kianamaiart
andulkaphoto
