My wife and I were in a diner somewhere catching some lunch, and it had a jukebox. I always look for obscure stuff to play on jukeboxes, and it had the acoustic version of "Pink Houses" (probably the B side of some other hit from that album, I don't remember). I picked it, and listened to the lyrics really for the first time.
I'm from the Midwest, just as John is, so all those things he's singing about in that song are so familiar to me that it just sounded like a string of clichés. Which is what they are, of course, but it wasn't until I moved to the East Coast, then to Chicago, that I really understood the point of the song. It's all those quaint little things that mean America to him. Also, the song is much better as just a voice and guitar song, which I'm sure is how all of John's songs start out.