Just kind of being at peace with the end of the world.
And I don't mean in like an apathetic way.
I just mean like, instead of waking up every day
during the apocalypse like right now,
and being heartbroken,
you're just kinda like, "Okay, what can I do today?"
Like taking it kind of a day
at a time instead of giving up.
I was breaking up with my drummer.
We dated for a long time
and he brought this guitar line.
And the, "I know, I know, I know,"
just kind of about like breakup acceptance,
and we write a lot of songs together.
Over the course of like literally three years,
I would just kind of continue to write
to that really, really sad melody.
The first half of the song is just like miserable.
Connor from Bright Eyes,
his old tour manager, Bill Sullivan,
who used to work with The Replacements, legendary dude,
he used to get out of the bus
in a particularly depressing part of Germany
and just be like, "Fuck, I hate this part of Texas."
I just, I love that so much.
And it also just puts such a perfect point on hating tour,
'cause the first half of the song is kind of about like
how you hate being on tour.
You hate certain things about being on tour,
and then you hate when you come home, also.
Counting down the days 'til you get to go home.
And then also "klicks" are like a military metric.
Going on tour kind of is like that.
I mean, a lot of people leave unresolved social situations
and then they don't have to think about it.
Like you kinda do get to leave your life.
So it does kind of feel like, you know,
you're getting taken into an alternate reality.
When you're on tour,
at least I do this,
like I'll save recipes on Pinterest
and I'll decide I'm gonna garden now.
I mean, I've been home for like over a year
and I have no garden.
I think it's just that idea of romanticizing your life
and then when you get home,
what you actually do is like nothing compared
to what you fantasized about.
The song is obviously
a lot about the apocalypse,
and I just thought of different
subsets of people that would be affected by it.
And the kids who hang out every day surfing,
when they finally go,
the kids who were there every single day,
I feel like you really know that shit's going down.
I think it was Connor who said,
when I was just obsessing over the song on tour
or something he was like, "Sunset, swing set."
And then I remembered all these nights.
I would cancel on my friends
and be like, "I'm just gonna have a relaxing night in,"
and then by like 9:00 PM
you realize that you wish you'd gone out or something.
So I would walk down from this apartment
to the park next door
and just like sit on the swings,
'cause it made me feel like at least I left my house.
When I get too close to people,
I start to treat them like my parents,
where you just say stuff to them that you don't,
you don't even realize is in you.
I just feel like, yeah,
you don't even really have to do that much
to make up sometimes
'cause both people wanna make up,
but you're being a dick
and you don't have to admit
that you're being a dick.
You just can just kind of like float back into peace.
This is when it really starts to kick in
where I thought of what
would actually go down if the world was ending
and I was still in LA.
My friends that were a little bit too scared
to leave would be in bunkers,
and I would drive up the five freeway and
go to a place that doesn't exist.
Basically, my grandparents lived in Northern California
my whole life and I've always kind of romanticized it,
but they, they're kind of scattered around and,
the home that they lived in for my whole life is gone now.
The idea that I even have something to go up to anymore
is kind of fake.
I want the hero's journey for myself
or like the origin story,
but I'm super, super white,
and every time I go into the sun
it's just like poison.
So I think driving out into the sun and,
and like Icarus shit,
like, and then you just get scorched.
Pop-country radio
has always been kind of close to my heart
because my grandparents listened to it,
my mom listens to it,
but ever since the election
it's made me realize, I mean,
I think this is like the root of white privilege
where I'm like, "A lot of this stuff is racist!"
Even though it's so fucked up,
and even though that there is no place
for me in the pop-country world,
I know like a bunch of Toby Keith songs
and fuck Toby Keith.
But when I'm alone in my car,
trying to stay awake especially,
I'll turn on pop-country and I'm like,
"Oh, I actually do know all these lyrics."
One time when I was driving up,
I saw a Space X launch that nobody told me was happening.
I pulled over and opened the internet,
nothing said anything about it,
but a couple of people on Instagram were like,
"It's an alien invasion."
And then I found out it was Space X
and I was stoked for them,
but also very disappointed that it wasn't aliens.
I did see a billboard that said, "The end is near,"
and lots of aborted fetuses on the five freeway
and you're like, "Who are they giving billboards to?"
But then, the kind of like whimsical,
it's like really nothing in that verse
has been whimsical yet.
But then the idea,
like even a haunted house with a picket fence, it's like,
I see it, and I want it.
And then you turn around
and the world is gone behind you,
that's kind of the one fiction.
When we started recording the album, I was like,
"I really wanna scream on the end of this record."
And so I kind of worked back from that
and brought meaning to it.
But I thought it was fun to be like,
"The end is here, of the album."
Something I love about Genius Lyrics is that
I got sent one for "Smoke Signals,"
One of my songs for my first record,
and there's this whole shit about like,
"Clearly, she says 'pelicans are circling' because
they're a symbolism of like death in a lot of cultures."
And I was like, "No, I meant seagulls,
but it didn't sound good!"
So, yeah, I like how much credit people give me.