The Plan

I guess I'll give it a shot. This is my interpretation. I look forward to spirited discourse about it :)

After deeply listening to "There Is No Enemy" and specifically the song "Planting Seeds", I was struck by how anti-establishment the song was. For example, there's a line that goes like this:

They think that they get it but they always get it wrong They'll play your favorite song Just to sell shit to you

I heard that they'll sell anything and I think they might I think Bill Hicks was right About what they should do

The key to figuring out this lyric is in this youtube clip of one of his famous stand-up routines which you can view here youtube.com/watch

Hicks basically condemns people in Advertising of being "satan's little helpers" and then to "kill themselves". Obviously, since he wrote a song about it, Doug Martsch sympathizes with this view.

This view about advertising is almost never singular and can nearly always be symptomatic of a personal anti-establishment ethos. Individuals that share this ethos believe that if we don't wake up to the establishments plans, we are headed into a dark authoritarian world where wealth, actions, and thoughts are controlled for the benefit of an elite few in power. Anyone that has read books like "Animal Farm", "Brave New World" and "1984" can quickly understand this point of view and its hypothetical realities.

It is my belief that Martsch is cautioning us about "The Plan" that he thinks the wealthy and powerful few are implementing to "take over the world" ala "1984" . Now, I know this may sound crazy but just be patient with me. It really fits along with the anti-advertising views I've shown you in "Planting Seeds". Advertising is seen often as "the man", it is very persuasive, and is seen by some to be a form of propaganda: for examples, look to the various US Army commercials telling you to "Be All That You Can Be" or this commercial that Macintosh put out in 1984 youtube.com/watch

Also, if any of you have been to a Built To Spill show or seen concert footage you can clearly see that Martsch is a softspoken, sensitive and esoteric figure and these are usually individuals who read and are informed about history. The "Plan" to take over the world DOES keep coming up again. We've seen it with Hitler, Napoleon, the British Empire, The Roman Empire, The Huns, and the list goes on. Martsch says "The plan won't accomplish anything, if it's not implemented." seemingly pleading with us to stop it. Next he goes on to say:"It makes me think of everyone, and the cause of this is evident, but the remedy cannot be found, cause it's so well hidden." . Your average American has arguably been zombified into watching reality television and sports ad naseum. The few that actually DO have a hunger for knowledge usually fall prey to simply watching advertising funded filtered cable news. The famous scene from the movie Network comes to mind youtube.com/watch To Martsch, we cannot find the remedy because the plan, if there is one, to take over the world is VERY well hidden.

"This history lesson doesn't make any sense, in any less than ten thousand year increments, of common sense." A lot of people believe that we have 'revisionist' history books leave out key elements that would otherwise paint our country in a negative light. This may be the key to what Martsch is alluding to here. Without the true objective history, the story doesn't make sense. The line about ten thousand year increments may be the idea that while we are individuals living in the specific society, we are blind to its faults. To a future culture studying our society, however, what we did wrong may be as clear as crystal.

If you don't agree, please be constructive and tell me why. Simply saying, "Wow too much time on your hands?" is lazy. It also won't affect me. I like spending my free time musing about what one of my favorite bands could have meant in a song. How do you spend your free time so much wiser? Rooting for the Jets? Watching Bad Girls Club while you touch yourself? Pwning people in Call of Duty? (this last part was just for the trolls. apologies to all of you nice contributers that had to read this :D)

This song is about "what is wrong with the world" and how people have been trying to "fix it" since the dawn of time. They make it seem like it is so complicated, but in truth it only takes common sense to figure out what the worlds problems and their solutions are.

Hey Geemo, It is 2 1/2 years later, I thought you were coming back!

i'm going to write a digital adaptation of Waiting for Godot entitled "Waiting for GeeMo." the similarities really are striking. you will all be contacted, of course, about portraying yourselves.

Coming up to a decade later, and I don't think we're any closer to the real meaning. GeeMo, it hasn't been ten thousand years yet, but we need your thoughts now more than ever.

GeeMo never did tell us what it means.

Now I will die a man with unanswered questions.

Geemo plz post it. you have had ample time to figure it out.

It is now a new decade, and no sign of GeeMo. We keep the vigil.

Not one of my favorite interpretations, but one I couldn't resist when on various substances: the plan is God's (or Somebody's) plan for the world, and all the hell that can happen in civil war and genocide and disease moment to moment only really makes sense in the largest context.

You could extrapolate that to political leaders' plans in general, or the fact that humanity just in general is a planning species. Some people have already hit upon that, just that we're planners.

I think th3house might be right that they have some specific plan in mind, and the one to conquer the world is assuredly a plan that keeps coming up throughout history, but the plan to make the whole world in love with itself is an even more common plan--one most people never go as far as most conquistadors go in implementing.

Anyway, I am sure GeeMo will clarify for us all when he gets back.

My first love of Built To Spill songs...whatever...I'm too lazy to figure out what it means for now...i'll post it later....

I like to think this is about Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

this song is so cool it in a skateboarding movie dont which one it is anyone helr me plase