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Looking at all the rows
All these records look like big zeros
Got your picture on the back of a forty-five
A placeholder till you take up mine
A placeholder till you take up mine
I'm the person you'll never need
The biggest loser on sixteenth street
The invisible man with the see-through mind
A placeholder till you take up mine
A placeholder till you take up mine
Break off of in someone's laughter
You can tell right there
He's still a square
He likes the way that you look now
Like an open book
Just like my favorite song
Some pretty words that didn't last that long
Like a package sent priority overnight
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
All these records look like big zeros
Got your picture on the back of a forty-five
A placeholder till you take up mine
A placeholder till you take up mine
I'm the person you'll never need
The biggest loser on sixteenth street
The invisible man with the see-through mind
A placeholder till you take up mine
A placeholder till you take up mine
Break off of in someone's laughter
You can tell right there
He's still a square
He likes the way that you look now
Like an open book
Just like my favorite song
Some pretty words that didn't last that long
Like a package sent priority overnight
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
Placeholder come and take up mine
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I think the placeholder is holding his place at his ex's side.
Maybe Elliott thinks he was just a placeholder too. He does say that she can tell that this new guy is a square.
"He likes the way that you look now, like an open book."
it reminds me of the song See You Later when he says "Saying how your better now since it killed all of your other cares." Theyr'e both about someone he loved now being accepted by someone who didn't except them before. Maybe the two songs are about the same person.
It is a good song even though it is one of the ones I didn't think much of early on.
Does anybody what he means when he says "45"? A record or a gun?
I think a record would make more sense because of the other references to records in this song, but yeah, just wondering because usually when people say "a 45" they're talking about a gun.
In response to some of the comments above, there likely is no god, and the world is no where near perfect. Evidence of the world working to well for us is an illusion. If it rains into a hole in the ground, and the puddle formed were to become sentient it might think to itself, "This hole fits me perfectly, this world is built for me." but we know this is false. Physics exists and we're built around it, not the other way around.
He's singing about how he's so replaceable, and that no one would miss him after he's gone. Everyone sees through him and his thoughts.
At least that's what I saw it as.
"all these records look like big zeroes" pathetic fallacy, to describe his mood, he's down, he feels like a zero, a loser "The biggest loser on 16th Street" this is the effect unrequited love has on most people.
"A placeholder until you take up mine" A placeholder, someone who holds a place, he's holding this place for this girl whose picture is on "the back of a 45." He wants her to "take up" his.