---
title: "Twenty-Three"

meaning: "FEiN Little Homes bar scene: margarita, she looks like her daddy, daughter locked in her bedroom at twenty-three: father gone again, I know what he is."

year: 2016
release: "Little Homes"
releaseType: "album"

artist: "FEiN"
artistId: "#fein"

coWriters: ["Brandon Michael Woodward"]
credits: "Written by Luke Francis Walton and Brandon Michael Woodward (FEiN). Produced and recorded by FEiN at Tiny Giant; engineered at LMU; mixed and mastered by Frank Rosato at Woodcliff (Discogs). Brian Robert Jones, bass (album). Luke Walton, percussion, Wurlitzer, synth programming."

spotify: "https://open.spotify.com/album/2xWtW9VwcaoHkS7FnIJfaQ"
apple: "https://music.apple.com/us/album/twenty-three/1111956961?i=1111957071"

themes: ["FEiN", "Little Homes", "family", "addiction", "2016"]

isrc: QZ2QB1600008
isrcSource: soundexchange
lyrics: |
  All you can drink is a beautiful thing
  Through my margarita I see her alone
  She couldn't be a day over nineteen,
  So I sit at her table and offer a drink
  She tells me I look just like her daddy,
  I tell her my daughter just turned
  twenty
  -
  three
  Back in a single family household,
  So worried
  At twenty
  -
  three she found her life felt
  So heavy
  She'll lock herself inside her bedroom,
  So empty

  My father's gone again,
  Wish he would never come back
  My father will pretend,
  That he was neve
  r off track
  He don' t know that I know,
  Yeah I know what he is
  He don't know that I know,
  Yeah I've seen what he is

  She shook my hand and said,
  "Thanks for the drink"
  Well I'm far too great to be wasting my night
  Some idiot's tryna take my car keys
  I swear I can drive, nobody can stop me

  My father's gone again,
  I hope he never comes back
  My father will pretend,
  That he was never off track
  He don' t know that I know,
  Yeah I know what he is
  He don't know, He don't,
  He don't, know.

draft: false

---

Track nine on [*Little Homes*](/albums/little-homes-fein/) (**May 31, 2016**), after [*Intro*](/songs/little-homes-intro/) (track eight). [SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/feinmusic/twentythree/s-Meo3v). Walton/Woodward co-write. A bar pickup and a locked bedroom, set against each other across the family wound the song is really about.

A man eyeing a woman who *couldn't be a day over nineteen* gets the line that flips the whole scene: *she tells me I look just like her daddy.* He has a daughter of his own, *twenty-three* and *locked inside her bedroom, so empty.* The chorus is hers, the child's clear sight of a father who keeps leaving and keeps pretending: *he don't know that I know, yeah I know what he is.* Then verse two answers it. The man at the bar slurs *I swear I can drive, nobody can stop me* as someone tries to take his keys, and we watch him become the exact father his daughter sees. The damage runs as inheritance, and the song closes by hollowing out the chorus to *he don't know, he don't, he don't, know.*

Family is the first little home to fail here, before any politics. Pairs with [*Creatures*](/songs/creatures/), and prefigures the later Scoobert [*Damned*](/songs/damned/) (*hey momma, hey my brother*). Leads into [*Don't You*](/songs/dont-you/).

---