Waiting to keep the appointment she'd made = anticipating a date

Meeting a man from the motor trade = the date is with a car salesman

Also, the walrus? Turns out it was Paul.

She's a teenager who has planned to run away with a slightly older man. He appears successful and independent because he's a car salesman. He's maybe 5-10 years older than her, but represents freedom and independence and a beautiful adult life. Meanwhile, he's feeling great to have enticed a young and adoring girl to see him as the rescuing hero.

She's having fun.

The beauty of the song is the melancholy on both sides. What does each party really want? The faughter and the parents? Just the love and acceptance of the other, and permission for freedom.

Daughter. Daughter.

Sorry, miko, but "Daughter" was done by Pearl Jam.

I read something a long time ago positing that he was a {moonlighting} abortionist.

I read something a long time ago positing that he was a {moonlighting} abortionist.

You wouldn't happen to recall any of the argument used to support that, would you? It's been awhile since I've listened to that song, but that interpretation would seem to be a bit of a stretch. I'm genuinely curious.

Wow, I guess I'm stupid.
All these years I thought she just had an appointment to go and see about buying a car. To be independent.

An interpretation from the UK is this: if someone is in "the motor trade" it implies that he's not a car salesman for, say, a Ford dealership, but instead trades in second-hand cars from an old lot, and is a little shady. A man who might not be 100% trustworthy and legitimate.

So the impression I get from the song is that she's running away with an older man that she doesn't know too much about. "I'm in the motor trade, love".

gee, like chococat I thought she was simply buying a car too.

gee, like chococat I thought she was simply buying a car too.

That's not unreasonable, dabitch and chococat. But "a man from the motor trade" always seemed to hint at more to me.

I asked the intertubes again what it thought. Some people say that Paul said in a documentary that it's about a specific news story about Melanie Coe, a young woman who had run away (and as of last year apparently sells real estate in Cadiz). "Man from the motor trade" just meant a vague sleazy character. Others think that it's about Terry Doran, with whom the band worked. Some places combine the two theories.

After a whole lot of Googling, it turns out that some site called Wikipedia has a lengthy quote from Paul on this topic. It was about Melanie Coe, and not Terry Doran, according to that quote. The implication of the writeup there is that the "man" was a romantic interest, but it's not clear from Paul's quote.

And wow, Brian Wilson covered that song as his final encore at a few shows in England last September. Just as well I wasn't there, I'd probably still be crying.

Hmm. I always thought that she was running away with a car mechanic, not a salesman. It seemed more likely that she would fall for a rough gear-head type of guy and not some slick salesman. Also that would make the parents more upset since he was a lowly blue-collar worker, a salesman at least wears a suit. But I'm from Jersey and grew up listening to Springsteen as much as The Beetles so I'm probably biased.

I read something a long time ago positing that he was a {moonlighting} abortionist.

Philip Norman's utterly dreadful book Shout! mentions this as a rumor that was spread at the time by fuddy-duddies who feared the Beatles (pg. 294, use the term "abortion with Amazon's Search Inside feature).

For some reason, as an (American) child I always thought the guy was involved in motorsports.

No, here on this side of the Pond (and I include Eire in this) someone who works in the Motor trade is generally a sleezy, smarmy, car salesman. Awful typecasting really but "Sales" here as a profession in the 60's & 70's was much less respected than in the USA.
A mechanic in contrast was a relatively solid & honest profession (this may be a class thing, in my social class we could only dream of a man with a trade!)

I'm interested in Brujita's comment. I'd never heard of an abortion reference in relation to the motor trade. Now if you'd said bus driver (Abortion is currently illegal in Ireland ((well-technically it's legal until the 9th month due to some iditotic shenannigans by the Government but no-one will do one))and young women traditionally took the 'bus to England')

A mechanic in contrast was a relatively solid & honest profession (this may be a class thing, in my social class we could only dream of a man with a trade!)

I was probably reading some of my family's history into it. My mom came from an upper-middle class Bronx family and my dad was a truck mechanic from rural Pennsylvania. To say that my Mom's family didn't think much of my old man would be an understatement.