This song is a stark and moving portrait of a family using the relentless rhythm of manual labor to build a barrier against an all-consuming grief. The narrative opens with the mending of a literal fence, a day's cost measured in tired muscles, but the chorus immediately reveals the true purpose of this constant busywork: it is a fragile defense against a pain they feel too weak to face. The "fences" they fix multiply—from roofs to hinges, to peeling doors—each chore a desperate attempt to hold their world together when a central piece, their daughter Cathy, has vanished from it.

The devastating core of the song is slowly revealed through spare, haunting details: Cathy was a "ray of sunshine" who was "hard to manage," and her departure was as quiet and final as a bus stopping outside their door. Her absence has rendered the children quiet and the parents silent, circling each other, unable to "break the ice." They are "attached to peeling doors" because focusing on a tangible, fixable problem is easier than confronting the unfixable void she left behind.

The song fades out on a cyclical and hopeless note, returning to the mended fence as if the entire painful journey has led them right back to the beginning of their avoidance. The final, repeated lament—"if only we could fix / the life we're living"—hangs in the air, a quiet testament to the truth that some ruptures are beyond any repair, no matter how many fences they build to try and contain the hurt.

Fixing Fences....we don't talk about Cathy

Collection of songwriters under the leadership of Bill Kinlough

Fixing Fences....we don't talk about Cathy

The Great Unwashed