Huckleberry Hound

05Jul07

When Clementine and Joel meet on the train to Rockville Centre (after they’ve both been erased), Joel doesn’t know the song “Oh My Darling, Clementine”. But when they first meet on the beach in Montauk (the real first time they’ve met, before they’d both been erased), Joel did know the song.

This is apparent for two reasons. Firstly, when Joel first met Clementine, he addressed how her name reminded him of the song (despite Clementine’s pleas for “no jokes”) and of his Huckleberry Hound doll he had as a child. Since this was a memory of Clementine, it and his knowledge of Huckleberry Hound were erased. Secondly when Joel is trying to resist the erasing procedure and hides in an early memory, we see his mother bathing him in the sink singing the Huckleberry Hound song. The significance of this is that the Lacuna staff were tracking Joel’s attempts to hide Clementine in early memories, and erasing those too. Although the change is minor in this case, it is left open that the procedure may cause significant changes to the recipient.

It is also worth noting the symbolism of Clementine’s name. The refrain of the song “Oh My Darling, Clementine” is particularly descriptive of the nature of Joel’s relationship with her:

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You were lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
Due to the procedure, Clementine was indeed “lost and gone forever” to Joel before they meet for the second time on the train, a fact that Joel finds himself regretting throughout the erasure as well as afterward, when his Lacuna records are delivered to him.

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