In a still - or renewed - patriarchal world, a woman is fed all the familiar clichés about dreams, hope and finding “the right man,” but her reality is four painful marriages and a life of sorrow and strife instead of the relief she was promised. As she sings her way down a “highway of bad times,” the song undercuts easy platitudes and shows how hard-won joy can make those old comforting phrases sound hollow and a cruel.