The Tubes

The Tubes appear in Bret’s narrative not as a fully documented band biography but through three specific musical references: a song playing in his Mercedes while he watches Matt and Robert, a telephone exchange with Robert, and a lyric Bret later recognizes as a metaphor for his own isolation. Together, these moments make the band’s music a recurring thread connecting observation, intimacy, and self-understanding.

Music in the Parking Lot

While Bret watches Matt Kellner and Robert Mallory talking at Buckley, he slips into his Mercedes so they will not see him. When he starts the engine, “Don’t Touch Me There” by The Tubes plays loudly from the car stereo. He turns the volume down and waits. The music gives the scene a concrete soundtrack as Bret remains at a distance, watching a conversation whose subject he cannot determine.

After the boys part, Bret continues observing Matt, who gets into his Datsun and sits looking at something in his lap. The song does not explain what passed between the two boys; instead, it marks Bret’s position as a concealed observer while the conversation’s meaning remains uncertain.

A Shared Musical Reference

The Tubes also surface in a telephone call with Robert. Robert says that a plan requires subterfuge and speaks as though they are playing a game. Bret teases him for sounding like a spy in a 1940s movie. Robert replies that he is “just … practical,” a remark Bret finds subtly attractive. As the conversation ends, Robert refers to a Tubes song that had been popular earlier that year.

The reference makes the band part of the pair’s private conversational texture: music supplies a point of recognition amid a discussion shaped by secrecy. The exchange ends abruptly with a click, leaving the shared allusion in place without resolving the larger matter they were discussing.

The Song as Metaphor

Later, Bret recalls “Don’t Touch Me There” as one of his favorite songs. He notes that its lyrics parody a 1960s-style song about a woman not being ready for sex, but says that for him it had become a metaphor for his own alienation. The meaning he assigns the song shifts it from a passing detail into a way of describing emotional distance: a boundary between himself and other people.

Across these scenes, The Tubes’ music moves from the Mercedes stereo to Robert’s allusion and then into Bret’s retrospective interpretation. The recurrence does not resolve the uncertainty surrounding the characters; it gives that uncertainty a musical motif, linking hidden observation and guarded intimacy to Bret’s sense of being apart.