Hmm, to the user "doda": I think you explained it correctly.
And to the user "t0d0": Aren't you just "pontificating" on POINTLESS things yourself? This entire comcept of a song is pretty pointless. There is more important, practical things to be upset with in the world than silly little scene things that are going on in our one country of the U.S. This guy likes drama and he likes to get worked up for the sheer gusto of it. He isn't saying anything that really matters at all, although he uses great vocabulary and it is an awesome sounding song that words cannot describe.

to me, i think this song is about the hypocrisy of the people around him and him admitting in a way that he is a slave to the same hypocrisy.in the part where it says i drift drift drift i think he is basically saying how he seems to be drifting through his life. at the end of the song he find in himself the need to get away from the world around him to "taste the breeze of every great city" and to change his life into something meaningful.

[as for the whole mental hospital thing, who the fuck cares?his music is great. end of story.]

this is my favorite song by say anything by far

Ugh, what a drama king.
"...Pontificating to each other forever competing for that one moment of self aggrandizing glory "
STFU and take a chill pill

not "away still" "lay still" i agree w/ thomas, except he's not saying he hasn't done those things or won't in the future, he's saying now that's he's aware of it he will ostracize himself. he's so genius none of us really know i think...

the reason for the extensive vocabulary is to create satire. And i don't think the song is about "emos" or "scenesters." I am pretty sure it describes the elitest, pretentious, liberal idiots who ironically are the most ignorant individuals on this planet.

"Oh we're not worthy!"

Hahah that is probably my favorite line out of the song, because i think it may be a tribute to Wayne's World. Did you guys notice that? He says it juuust like they do in the movie, when Wayne and Garth get on the ground and repeart "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!" to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.

Hahahah..ok maybe not, but i think its funny, and that's all that matters.

@sheslikeohsoemo...

I just stood up at work and gave you a standing applause.
I'm nearly 26 now and have been preaching your same stance since I was 12 and some kid asked me why I was wearing a "the exploited" t-shirt. Everyone is a clone and guess what kiddies...it's ALL been done before.

Reminds of the hipster kids in Richmond, VA.
It's like: "u lyke mcr. wtfposeurlolz?"

I think he was just trying to point out how hypocritical the 'scene' is that his band seems to be a part of. I have to agree. People act like I'm not allowed to be into the same music as them just because I excel in athletics and I spent most of my spare time related to athletics. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to Punk or Emo concerts and got the "you don't belong here" look - just because I don't dress and look like them.
Oh, but I'm the conformist and they're not, right?
It's music, and everyone's allowed to like/dislike whatever they want.
I guarantee Bands don't care what their fans look and dress like - just as long as they love the music, come to the concerts, and buy an album every now and then.

you're all missing the point...

sure it comments on the crappiness of the "scene", but the verse "well let me tell you this..." is saying that i'm no better than any of that anyway.

this whole CD is a social commentary then turning around and saying, "fuck me too, i guess" and just dealing with it all. save a few tracks of course.

it's genius.

This song can be generally taken as a pissed off rant to the whole hypocritical and materialistic world that so many people get sucked in to. It's a proverbial middle finger to all of the hypocrites who get sucked into everything they claim to be against, whether it be a gluttonous lifestyle, trying to hard to fit in with people one swears to hate, capitalist corporate america, etc, etc. But no matter what it is, it's the most articulate and honest piece of work I have heard in a long time, and almost three years after listening to it for the first time, it's still my favorite song.

i did a project on this song for psychology so, here we go with my interpretation:

Say Anything – Admit it!
I. Music
a. Ensemble: drums, guitar, bass, synth/computer.
b. Rhythmic emphasis: The song is somewhat fast paced, and has a strong beat, with some tempo changes.
c. The singer uses talking, and singing and sometimes yelling, which helps get the point across.
II. Lyrics
a. The song’s major themes are the ironic concept of other people trying so hard to be different and not conform, but while doing that; they actually do conform, within their group of “non-conformist” friends. The song shows that the writer is comfortable and proud of his self, and thinks that these types of people are amusing.
b. There is a cultural message addressing those who try to be different, and he’s calling them out, for attempting to be different.

Read this blog--more specifically the short response by Max at the end--and that should give you a really good idea of what Max directed this song at.

Although.. I don't know if the blog came before or after Admit It!!! -- so if the song came first, then nevermind O_o

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=2296310&blogID=175185898&Mytoken=1182DB8E-6193-4291-8FC6BFB42CBBB64832289597

This song is about all those people out there who are complete total frauds in their lives. People who lie to themselves in order to make themselves feel better by putting on a persona that allows them to be the criticizer instead of the criticized. Bemis is urging people to be content with themselves and accept their flaws. Its basically what I feel like screaming to pretty much everyone I meet. I love it.

Wait Bemis is not like "wait forget it cause I'm part of this." He's saying he can accept himself with his faults in that one stanza, which puts him apart from the rest of the crowd. The frauds don't realize their faults: "With the same superiority complex/Shared by the high school jocks who made your life a living hell " Whereas Bemis does by admitting his faults: "I self medicate with drugs and alcohol to treat my extreme social anxiety."

Direct quote from Max Bemis from a recent interview on absolutepunk.net :

I grew up in L.a, which at the time (turn of the century) had this scene revolving around certain bands made of people who were so afraid to be sincere that they were almost mean, and boy did they prosper. I moved away from them to go to school at Sarah Lawrence College in New York because I thought there would be more integrity on the opposite coast and it was there that I learned shame and pretension wasn’t constricted to any group of people; we are all guilty of it. The song isn’t about “fall out boy fans” or “hipsters”. It’s about anyone who judges other people because they’re “normal.” It’s about you and I because everyone does it sometimes. The only thing you can do is fight that ego and be proud of the things in your life that are true.

Everytime I listen to this song, the very begining reminds me of Rent.
I know it sounds really weird, but I think of Rent every single time.
Anyone else reminded of Rent?

1 Reply

this song is about people who make fun of jocks and preps becasue they think they are confroming and then they tend to think they are better then everyone else because they dont go along with the music that everyone else listens to and wear different clothes. but this song points out that they are in some way trying to fit in and they are going against what they were fighting against. making them hypacrites without realization of it.

hi i'm new here and i know this is long but it may help...


ADMIT IT, TIM KINSELLA

Tim Kinsella(Joan of Arc, former member of various Chicago post punk and emo bands)'s Article in the latest issue of Alternative Press, concerning the August issue of AP and my reply:

Beirut. The Patriot Act. Palestine. Africa. Wal-Mart. Clear Channel. Peak oil. Global devastation. The backward talk of those in power that dominates and suffocates our cultural discourse. Overpopulation. The dawning of neo-feudalist Theocracy in America. It's a busy, interesting place we've got here. Lots of information aimed at us. The hidden hand of power.

But beyond our control, dark energy, string theory, conceptions of an infinite mutiverse render any issues of free obsolete. We are really only allowed questions. WE can't understand anything. How could we? We live at the lip of the bubble of understanding of our own designs - never not curious, and never able to poke through.

So my point - I do have one - is that in our world, the most basic requirement we share is kept in balance only if it's shaken in many directions at the same time. And what can any of us do to help rectify the situation? We must integrate our politics into our lifestyle, acknowledge that every bridge, hook, melody and sales strategy has political demensions.

In short, I am asking that every band that appeared in the August 2006 issue of Alternative Press break up.

Sorry.

Desperate times require desperate measures. There's no good reason why "ex-rockstar" shouldn't be the most common job in the future. It's obvious from flipping through an issue of this magazine that there are too many bands, all trying in different ways to look and sound like each other. It's unsustainable. Why don't you guys all save yourself the inevitable worry and humiliation the future holds, break up now, and be the first mass movement in cutural history to self-consciously commit suicide?

There are pictures of maybe half a dozen people in that issue that I know, trust, respect and consider my friends. And I'm sorry to ask this of you guys, some of you have helped us in the past, and I appreciate it, but our country needs you. Your bands have to break up. You guys on the cover (one of you was 13 in 2001, so you're now at draft age), we need you to quit.

Even you guys that just had a thumbnail band photo in an ad, sorry. Collateral damage, I guess. However you each choose to understand it, let's all agree we need to draw the line clearly. Every band whose name is even mentioned in the August 2006 issue of AP must break up immediately. So, Cute Is What We Aim For, consider your new aim ansering the call of our country. Underoath, pledge allegiance to the freedom of your fellow citizens. Circa Survive, you ran an add, and I'm sorry, that's enough. You must not survive.

I know this seems like a bummer to you guys, but think about it. Throughout history, music has been at the center of every culture. Music is what people have always had between them to help each other understand how to live. The values of a culture are hiddin within its music. And I dont mean that in a Christian-rock or straight-edge way. I mean our culture is not only sick, but its taking the whole world down with it, and its symptoms are in song structures and rituals of performance.

The simplistic, sensational, emotionalistim of soaring crescendos - whose success or failure relate only to how familiar they seem on first listen - must become tired and redundant by design. When you reach your saturation point and can no longer react to these octave chords' urgent demands, then what? Will all displays of emotion seem silly? Mustn't it be true, like the boy who cried wolf, that every feigned-spontaneous emotional signifier thrust upon you by some band will just deaden your sense of empathy in the future? Perhaps even in a real-world situation, with real-world consequences? If TV and reality can be so interwined, past signifiers of rebellion is rebellion, and this is punk rock, why not?

Don't the sensationalist requirements of vicarious catharsis ask so much, that our empathy will be spent before it ever has a chance to blossom? I mean, I might not be able to understand when someone is hurting - and in turn know how to help them - if my formative experiences with understanding emotions is via these fashionable men and women.

But it's not too late. If the bands break up, maybe we can have music again in the future, and we will be able to hear it for what it is - not what it's being sold as.

I know this is a lot to ask of bands. And no one 22-year-old New Jersey kid is to blame - it's the design that is flawed. But one can't stay quiet. One has a responsibility to stand up for what one sees as god and right in the world, and if my plea can make a difference in even one young band's life - if just one band breaks up - my work here will have been worth it.

Found on absolutepunk.net

MY BRIEF REPLY :

Hello Everyone, Max Bemis from Say Anything here.

Not that you would know, Tim, being that you are the kind of music-hermit who only listens to his own records, we are probably one of those bands you refer to, if not, we might as well be. I'd just like to point out to everyone that Tim is old, jaded, ill informed and his very own bands not only submit for the tours of the bands he disses, but Tim is a member of joan of arc and make believe, both of which are still relatively poppy run of the mill progressive psuedo- mathy emo bands. he was on jade tree records which, though an indie, is still a COG IN THE EMO MACHINE HE CLAIMS IS CULTURE EATING ITSELF. To someone even more jaded, he would be the complete tool for ushering in the entire emo movement.

By refusing to embrace humanism and try to understand, rather than alienate the next generation and their choice in music or how they choose to express himself, he has become a fascist neo conservative of rock and roll: the worst kind of hypocrite. Don't let this asshole tell you what to do or even joke about the music your pour your passion into.

If bad bands exist, they exist so good bands can come and take their place: so art and expression can constantly evolve. Keep making music. If you don't like the music that's around, FORM YOUR OWN FUCKING BAND. MAKE A BIG FUCKING ROCK AND ROLL RECORD OR BETTER YET, SOME SUB PAR MATH ROCK RECORD ABOUT HOW CORPORATE AMERICA DICTATES FASHIONS, TRENDS, AND THUS, THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. Don't BITCH ABOUT IT and try and cross promote your own INFLATED SELF by writing AN ARTICLE in a youth cultured magazine that will only make KIDS FEEL SHITTY ABOUT THEMSELVES and WHO THEY ARE: something as disgusting as homophobia, genderism, or ignorance that you preach against. You are emophobic. Self LOATHING EMOPHOBIC. And the sick thing is, I love the music you make. It influences my music. And you are a part of this, not to mention the fact that you've been reviewed and mentioned countless times in Alternative Press. Of course you'd pick a fight with one of the smaller publications that exist. What about Rolling Stone. What about fucking TIME MAGAZINE, Tim?

If you're one Tim's six friends, send his this message:

FUCK YOU KINSELLA. YOUR REVOLUTION IS DEAD AND WAS BORN OUT OF LAZINESS. P.S I RIPPED YOUR LAST RECORD.

Love Maxim

This song is completely amazing. It's like a "FUCK OFF!" to everyone who tries to puI’m proud of my life and the things that I have done
"Proud of myself and the loner I’ve become t you down!"

To the two people who mentioned Rent, I def. hear it too. It reminded me of "La Vi Boheme" the first time I heard it.

The vibe is similiar (though it's a different message) and the way the lyrics are written are similiar too. I wonder if he did this on purpose:
http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=129889

Amazing and brilliant song though.

Hmm, actually correction - it's La Vie Boheme.

I know some bitch who this song is perfectly directed at, shes the one wholl spend her paycheck on hip clothes no one ever sees, and throws a fuckin tantrum if ANYONE has that some shirt, she thinks shes god and in her extreme effort to stick it to modern day lifestyles, she has soaked right into this uptight snooty group of elitist bohemian wannabes. i would think a true "bohemian" wouldnt know the definition of bohemian, its just how they live. i love this song and cant get enough. fuck the corporate world, and fuck all those who say fuck the corporate world. quit worrying about it

What makes the song for me is the very end, the whole bit about "wanting to taste the breeze of every great city", and how "you'll" (meaning them, the hypocrites) will come to him "made of urgencies unfulfilled."

Love it! "When I'm dead, I'll rest." is practically my motto :p

When I first heard the beginning of this song I thought What an idiot, this guy is making fun of people who make fun of other people and he's judging them as he bitches about how they judge others.
But then i heard the end of the song and I realized he was trying to tell other people to be real and that he's proud of himself and everything that being himself entails. Which is really cool and how i try to live my life.
Much love to say anything!