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Underline everything
I'm a professional in my beloved white shirt
Underline everything
I'm a professional in my beloved white shirt
I'm going down among the saints
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens
Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens
Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves
And I wanna rush in with the fools
Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves
And I wanna rush in with the fools
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens
Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens
Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!
I'm going down among the saints
3:30 in the last night for you to save this
You're zoning out, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out
3:30 in the last night for you to save this
You're zoning out, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out
This isn't working, you, my middlebrow fuck up
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I think I'm just hard of hearing, but I always thought the last line was "this isn't working, my little Brown fucker"--the first time I heard the song, it kind-of shocked me. I kept telling myself I'd look up the lyrics, but didn't until now.
My interpretation of the song is simply that he praises higher society (almost contemptuously, i.e. "raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens!") and attempts to mimic it, but fails to keep up.
You�re zoning out, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out'?
i have no idea how the '3:30 in the last night for you to save this' line even works grammitically, it just kinda seems wrong. also does anyone else here 'unannounced' instead of 'zoning out'?
This song is about faking your way through a white collar job, but knowing that the precarious maintenance between touring and being a musician and recording and staying out until all hours and showing up at the office at 9 a.m. is not going to last for long.
People seem to have the most trouble with the line "Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves and I wanna rush in with the fools"
Birds in his sleeves is a clear reference to him knowing his purpose- to be on stage as an entertainer. Old school magicians had doves fly out of their sleeves as a trick. He's like a shotgun cocked and waiting to go off- but he can't let it loose in a cubicle. It may also be a self-deprecating reference (going along with calling himself "middlebrow"), as the National had not yet gotten the kind of attention that follow after this album, Boxer. So I'm sure there's a lot of doubt about whether he'd ever escape from the cubicle and when he will have to actually take that job seriously- or whether he even could if he tried.
I've always thought it was about someone trapped in a "successful" white-collar job looking for an opportunity for something more (kind of in the vein of "Mistaken for Strangers"). I think the first line lays out his current reality (professional in a white shirt . . .); the "raise our glasses to the heavens line" is the pressure to celebrate mediocrity (a filthy triumph); the "out of my league" line is an acknowledgment that he want ssomething different (i.e. he wants to start doing something "magical" and go out among the fools); the "3:30 . . . zoning out" line talks about how he can't focus on his "real" life even when the stakes are high (or maybe it's a realization that the opportunity to do something different is passing him by while he's too zoned out to grasp it); and the last line is his depressing realization that he's unhappy with a middlebrow lifestyle and fear that it might be too late to do something else.
I'm not quite sure how to fit in the line about going down among the saints, but a google search indicates that the phrase is sometimes used in Mormon texts referring to people coming to Salt Lake City in the 1880s as going down among the saints of Zion. Not sure that's what Matt was thinking of, and even if it was, not really sure what it's a metaphor for or how it relates to any of the interpretations on here.
Anyway, my general interpretation seems to fit in with how the band spend a lot of time on day jobs while playing in clubs at night trying to make it as a rock band, but there's certainly nothing authoritative about my interpretation.
-gets a new job, feels confident and excited and grown up
"Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens, Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria"
-still goes out and parties every night because he feels so accomplished
"out of my league i have birds in my sleeves and i want to rush in with the fools"
-he's not equipped to hold down his new job, because he's not as grown up as he thinks he is - he still constantly thinks about getting out of work and partying with his friends
"3:30 in the last night for you to save this, zoning out, zoning out, zoning out"
-trying to finish a project for the next day that he's been putting off and he's just too damn tired to get it done
"this isn't working, you, my middlebrow fucker"
-could be him getting fired, but i really see it more as his own disgusted realization of his irresponsible and immature ways
I think the entire Boxer album, save for Gospel, is about struggling to find a foothold in the adult world during the mid-late twenties transition from carefree, young, partying to responsible adults, and this is possibly it's most direct song. I think it's a description of him in his early professional days, overconfident and having not yet realized that work has become a much more significant part of his life than he wants it to be