All Cleaned Out - Elliott Smith Song Discussion

All Cleaned Out is another classic Elliott Smith song.  As with all art of this high quality, I am open to interpretations.  In fact, I love hearing them.

To me, All Cleaned Out is about someone who is wholly unsure of himself. Someone who can keep it together for a while, but eventually screws things up...

and then becomes a disappearing man
after a little while

The key part of the song, though, for me is right here...

you toss the empty beer
not really as composed as you appear
an icicle inside
wearing clothes that clash
wondering is this treasure or is this trash
still trying to decide

We all try to put on fronts and act as if we have it together.  But, in reality, many of us have no idea who we are.  For some, life is one ongoing identity crisis ('clothes that clash).  And we constantly wonder if the moment or the future is 'treasure' or 'trash.'  Life is a process and as Bruce Springsteen once said, "There's no resolution to the human experience."  But we are taught to act 'composed,' but as Elliott often wrote we're not always as composed as we appear.

We go into our corners, our own little worlds and we don't want anyone else around.  We shut out the world.  We shut out people who love us.  Human contact and the process of really getting to know others, ourselves, and our place in the world drains us... we become All Cleaned Out.

This sort of crisis of not having the energy to deal with the crap that life and society throws at us comes up often in Elliott's music.  More than not having the energy, though, is the notion that why should we have to deal with the absurdity of the world and most facets of social life in the first place?  I think Elliott gets at just that in Can't Make a Sound when he notes: "The monologue means nothing to me..."

Thoughts?