there is a definite consept to this album which i think is living in modern america, and perhaps living in the modern western world.

for instance:
life wasted: for me this is about how life is tough and will drag you down but you must persevere "why swim the channel just to get this far?, halfway there, why would you turn around?" this lyric in a way reminds me of a line from shakespeare!!!! something like "i am in blood stepped in so far, that returning were as difficult as go o'er" but this was what macbeth said to justify his killing and what not. thats just useless sidenote!!!

wws: a song about governments taking people for granted. eddie has avoided naming names which allows the songs to remain universal.

It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devil's on their shoulder
Laying claim to the take that our soldiers save
Does not equate, and the truth's already out there

love those lyrics.

comatose: this i think is about people with their head in the sand. about people who chose to ignore problems or just don't care about problems that exist in our world today and exist in the very fundamentals of the way in which we live.

severed hand: song apparently about using drugs to achieve some kind of enlightenment in my opinion. "If I don't lose control Explore and not explode
A preternatural other plane With the power to maintain"

marker made of sand: another reference to falling up.... can't figure out what he means by falling up but anywho.... some more lyrics here about war "Now you got both sides claiming 'killing in god's name'. But god is nowhere to be found, conveniently..."

parachutes: is kinda out of place as i feel in places its an ode to ed's new found love for Jill and Olivia. "And love What a different life Had I not found this love with you" there are also small references to war

and eddie seems content and "I don’t want to know your plans
but together share the dawn
and I won’t need nothing else
cause when we’re dead
we would’ve had it all"

seems he's saying if he died now he'd be happy cos he has now what he neeeded all his life.

unemployable: obvious song about unemployment and the pressure it puts on a man with a family. i feel this character is perhaps someone who subsequenty has to join the army to make money and is sent away. perhaps it is his wife singing to him in come back and his wife could be the narrator in army reserve also

Big Wave: a song about eddies love of surfing. perhaps this song would've been more suited to the more introspective lyrics of no code and yield. this song is very cool, especially if you are a surfer. my surfer buddy loves this song, says it describes how he feels when surfing.

Gone: this song fits into the overall theme of the album. its an eddie song in the tradition of "getting the fuck outta a bad situation" like mfc, untitled and rvm. its that feeling we all get from living in the capitalist society of just wanting to get up and leave it all behind and be free. nice thought. impossible.

wasteed reprise: again fits in the theme of life wasted in the modern world.

army reserve: a song about a wife at home waiting for a loved one to return from war. she has to lie to her kids to make them feel all is ok when she knows it's not "Her son's slanted
Always giving her
The sideways eye
The empty chair where dad sits
How loud can silence get?
And mom, she reassures
To contain him
But it's becoming a lie"

it finisheds with a plea from the wife to her husband
Darling you'll save me
If you save yourself

Come Back: kinda conitnues the theme of army reserve. i imagine these are the wifes thoughts as she lies alone and cold in bed. she's trying to hold on but finding it harder and harder. she tells her husband that she has been faithfull to him in every way "I still remain true"

inside job: another more introspective song about mike. mike in interviews and thru the years has always seemed like a very upbeat and happy guy, but it seems these masks his darker interior

Underneath this smile lies everything
All my hopes and anger, pride and shame
Make myself a pact not to shut doors on the past
Just for today I am free

he wishes to not forget his past but to learn from it.

How i choose to feel is how i am

this is the central idea of the album. Mike says that you can control how you feel. this feels in line with the theory about how in a bad situation people can choose to be a victim. kinda feels like a sequel to down.

no, no, no.

here is the real meanings:


life wasted: drugs

wws: bush

comatose: Corporation CEO's

severed hand: wouldn't be able to masturbate

marker made of sand: dying for allah

parachutes: jumping off the roof with trash bags or umbrellas

unemployable: GED people

Big Wave: 80's hair

Gone: leaving a party at 2 am with an ugly chic

wasted reprise: i don't want to get wasted but god it feels good to be stoned

army reserve: fighting for oil, not freedom

Come Back: what you want the waiter to do at Olive Garden and bring some more fucking breadsticks while your at it

inside job: getting a BJ in the back seat of a car

hehe cheers for responding. thought i was alover there for a while.

Well I've been reading the boards today and I noticed a couple things that I thought I'd share (feel free to add or comment).

This album seems somewhat like a concept album to me. I've only listened to it once (I was a good boy and forced myself to not even listen to WWS before today) but I picked up a lot of things that seem very interesting - but could be just coincidence.

First off, we have the Life Wasted / Wasted Reprise combination. In some kinds of classical music (And in modern musicals as well) a reprise is when you return to the original theme of the work and play it somewhat differently. It is usually representative of some sort of *change* in the main character(s) or in the situation. The Wasted Reprise is obviously played differently than Life Wasted, but it is also, obviously the same theme/song. (The lyrics are switched around a little too, I believe). It is also noteworthy that Wasted Reprise is almost at the end - not at the absolute end, or the middle, but on its way to the end (sort of where you usually find a climax).

Then there is the Avocado. First off, I'll note that on the front part you have an Avocado with a core and on the back you have one without it. It is hollow - missing its core. I'm not sure this jives with the lyrics/theme just because the last song of the album seems like one where the person is resolving to be better - so their core should be strengthened. But I digress...the fact is that one has the core and the other is hollow.

Lastly, the 'thank you, goodnight' line. There isn't much to say once you've presented your work (play, musical, opera, etc.). You thank your audience and bid them farewell. Theoretically, you have given them (the audience) all they have and now it is theirs to take and do what you will with it. Usually these 'works' are presented at night - so it would be fitting to wish them goodnight.

Again, I haven't spent much time (if any) on the musical/lyrical themes but it is interesting that ALL of the rocker and the seemingly lyrically darker songs (with themes about suicide, wasted life, unconsciousness) are first while the more melancholy songs (that seem to be more 'understanding') are at the end.

So that’s really it. It seems like a stretch but the strange thing is that I wasn't looking for anything while listening to the album. All of this just kind of stood out so I figured I would share it - and I'd love ot hear what other folks have to say.

..

nice first post... keep listening IT gets BETTER!

I heard Life Wasted today on the radio and loved it, so I guess I like 3/13 so far

bump--other people's thoughts?

well, if stip is interested, i should go ahead and bump this too.... let's keep the thoughts comin' guys. i'm still a couple more listens out from sharing any ideas...

I've got a big post coming on this but I won't have time to write it for at least a week. Anyone else?

Ive listened to it NON STOP all weekend..... and until this post, the order didnt seem right to me.... but now, after reading this, and thinking of it as a concept album..... theme wise....

Unemployable and Big Wave just seem out of place where they are....
But if the first 5 or 6 songs are about sinking into a Life Wasted.....
Unemployable hits rock bottom....
what else is there to do then but waste the day Surfing?

What I find odd..... is all the pre-album news PJ leaked out was about "hard rocking / punked up / back to their Vitalogy days"

yet, after about 10+ listens.... its Gone, Come Back, and Inside Job that are REALLY standing out as the gems of this album..... Anyone else feel this way?

WWS and Comatose are great punked up songs, Life Wasted and Severed Hand are very strong..... but its that triple shot of Gone, Come Back, and Inside Job that i love.....

Army Reserve and Markers in the Sand, are definetly "current events" songs..... But will also stand up over time as well.....

I really cant wait to hear these songs live though..... Thats what I love so much about Binaural... all those songs sound so awesome live. I think this album is going to be the same way.

10 years from now, im betting

Do The Evolution, Save You, and WWS are still standards in the live play sets. (and of course Even Flow and Corduroy)

the 'current events' songs work because they are made timeless. I'm not even sure MITS is a current event song but army reserve could work anywhere, anytime. Bushleaguer not so much

Here's a post I made a while ago, I still feel the same way about the album so there's use in re-writing it. I might go into greater detail later...

Life Wasted -- The narrator is trying to reinstill the personal strength to whom ever it's addressed to. The message is "I have overcome and so should you."

WWS-- Here's what we have to overcome in the largest worldy manifestation. The same weight and value of one human life is seen here as in Life Wasted.

Comatose -- I stil have no idea what this song is about. But the underlying theme of hope in chaos is found in the bridge. "Leave the hatred on the cross."

Severed Hand -- Here's what happens when we can't deal with all the shit in the last two songs, we need escape. The song suggests maybe that's okay. There is an attempt to free ourselfs from normal rational thought and maybe that brings us closer to understanding "what is human, what is more." Which leads nicely to...

Marker in the Sand -- This lyrically the best song on the record, hands down. It is cotemplating God, morality and specifically crticial of fundemental thought, those "unfrogiving, needing forgiveness first." Again the sentiment of letting love rule pops up.

Parachutes -- Here's that love, on a personal level. The narrator wonders why these other things like war and religion, "heaven knows if there's a ceiling, gone so low fromt he kneeling," get in the way of something so simple as love.

Unemployable -- Here's an example of what gets in the way of the simple life. It's a blue-collar worker who realizes he cannot provide for his family becuase of reasons determined by ouside forces. He cynically and bitterly laments "oh, I've seen the light."

Big Wave -- Alright, this does'nt fit so well lyrically after Unemployable but goes back to the individual and his significance to the larger world. Here, the surfer feels drawn back to the ocean, the place from where he and all life on earth came from. He feels harmonious here.

Gone -- But not here, in the city and he feels once he escapes the modern troubles he will "become what I could be." Again, the value of one human life and the potential if we overcome.

Wasted Reprise -- In case you forgot what Ed is trying to get at.

Army Reserve -- The mother in this song keeps up the positive attitude about "fighting for freedom" but she already knows all the things that have been brought up in the songs so far.

Come Back -- And this could easily be the same character. It works as a sad love song but specifically, in the context of this album, I think it's meant to be about a solider who has "gone away." We have all lost someone we've loved and should be able to connect the dots by now as to what Ed is trying make us understand.

Inside Job -- Alright so what have we learned? The world is fucked up but the world is just a word we use for all the individual human beings that exist. So fixing the world starts from within yourself. "Life comes from within your heart and desire."

In Marker, I take it as beliving things that are not rational. Specifically, those who believe they can kill in God's name or who preach forgivness and don't practice it. They are seeing things that are untrue and should come down to reality with the living, real people and practice the love they claim to subscribe to.

News Flash: O RLY? Nearly all albums are about living in the modern western world, because all albums are inspired by the creators lives.....which take place in the modern western world. Who the fuck puts out an album inspired by their life and struggles in the middle ages?

Jeez, why don't you jump down his throat and be a dick about it.

First, say something that oblivious and stupid. Try to. Then rag on me for making fun of idiots.

the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war the war

marker made of sand: another reference to falling up.... can't figure out what he means by falling up

Considering Marker has a lot of religious overtones I interpret the line to reference the Evangelical Christian view of the rapture in which believers literally rise up (falling up) to Heaven to stand next to God and non-believers perish on Earth.

Leaving vs. being left behind

The value of human life vs. the crushing influence of current events

Determining what can be given up, and what should be fought for, so that life can be both worth living and livable.

Water...