incredible.

Gobsmaked. This song, this album. Astonishing. As to meaning... er... a celebration of life in the face of, well, what we all face. Can't rephrase it any way that does justice to the above.

Thank you so much for posting these lyrics. This song is amazing. Best thing this year. There is no meaning I could formulate that would be better than simply putting some headphones on and cranking this song up. Simply incredible.

totally agree
best 2007 album. no doubt.. totaly fresh sounds and amazing melodies.

There's definetly a celebratory aspect in the refrain, but it's a celebration that is bittersweet; as made evident by the contrast between versus and chorus. If the majority of the song has us shifting between this celebration (of sorts) and a deeper melancholy, the artist then moves to resolve this tension with the last verse by entertaing the posibility of addressing the melancholia and pathologies of (our) society by a shift to a more rural, agrarian lifestyle. Which I read (crudly) as the "dude, let's start a commune" conversation. Really, great stuff.

I have nothing interesting to add...just that this song is freakin incredible. I was hooked on first listen.

jesus fucking christ, I haven't heard a single thing I liked much all of 2007 and I see this band playing this song on Conan the other night and it just blew me away for some reason, I don't even listen to anything like this lately(soundwise) either. I couldn't even hear the lyrics then, after reading them now though it's just 10 times better. Sorry I have nothing to add, like the others and just wanted to say great band haha Grabbed the album right away

Question though, does he say something different on the first line along the lines of " in alright, but it's alright, but it's alright"? Can't seem to make it out.

It sounds to me like he says "and folks they ain't alright (all right?), but it's alright..."

excellent jam!

i agree with shill it says something about "folks"

this song irks me in that it gives such a mixed message. the whole thing reeks of "stop and smell the flowers, maaaan!" hippie idealism, yet at the end they have the gall to use children's voices, as if stressing the importance of the future to us. sure we shouldn't always be worrying about what a mess of the world we're making for our children and children's children, but at the same time turning a completely blind eye to it is markedly more dangerous. the voices at the end would've fit much better and been much more moving if the song was more a celebration of the potential for making a better world for our children, rather than empty New Age aphorisms.

I am pretty sure on the second line of the second verse is
"meltdown on monday morning"

I am pretty sure on the second line of the second verse is
"meltdown on monday morning"

I see where ripelivejam is going with this, but I think the complete opposite. I think that they're singing about trying to escape from the chaos the human race has created, not necessarily environmental or anything like that, but amongst ourselves, like the wars, the pain, etc. Its just saying we need to forget about the meaningless things we're using as an excuse to destroy, and try to create a better future for the next generations.

I freak about the future a lot, so for me this song tells me its ok not to despair, its ok and necessary to stop worrying so much about things that we cant control. It's true its kinda hedonistic, but at the bottom i think its mostly liberating.

They say ok, we are here, we can see all this shit hitting the fan, but while it happens we are still alive and we should enjoy it. Celebrate being humans by doing what makes us truly happy.

Cause, we cant do much, except maybe trying to preserve the little peace of mind we have left threathened by living in this scary times we live in.

celebration of ´the HERE AND NOW´

"With no Berlin wall what the hell you gonna do"

The Berlin wall was symbolized the separation between democracy and communism. Without the Berlin wall, how are you supposed to separate the two ideologies?

If you think about when he says "I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into", imagine being in a time of ww1 and what the people of that time were going through. Imagine if we were going through that right now. We say, "oh it's in the past and look at how they worried; their worries are irrelevant to our time!" So, perhaps the time that we are living in, and worrying in, will be looked back in 2080 as somewhat "irrelevant".

So we might as well all be farmers and not bother with worrying.. become passive observers, if you will.
(I don't mean that farming is a passive lifestyle. Farmers feed us and make us a fat and happy nation.)

I have to say this song blew me away and corresponded to a time in my life when I rejuvenated myself in a lot of ways and had amazing experiences. peace. I still sing this song every time life gets me down and I fight it and give more and go harder

incredible
40wattclub has it down pat

these "times were living in" are times of apathy and this "future he was born into" is a seemingly meaningless one, not one of fame or importance as we've been raised to believe we'd have.

"outsiders dressed up like sunday morning" illustrates the lost feeling he has amongst all these fake people, and how our time is one of isolation and loneliness

in disagreement with tifnz, i think what "with no berlin wall what the hell you gonna do" means is that we are a lost generation - we have no battle to fight, no purpose. nothing big is happening in our time,so our lives feel meaningless. as tyler durden said, we have no great war, our war is a spiritual war, which is what this line is getting at.

on a side note, its interesting that this hippie esque music arises from a hippie esque people, a 'lost generation', people once again defying the position handed to them. like history repeating itself.

the chorus is the message of the song, which is a hedonistic and hippie one. its saying live for the now, its the way to get by and overcome the obstacles described in the verses. smell the roses. the fact that he uses 2080, not some year far, far in the future emphasises his message, we really havent got that long to live, so its important we enjoy it despite a grim future. he provides an alternative view to all these "think about the future" issues that bombard us these days, which we need, as its getting too much. he says that our purpose is but to live.

"and the moon shines bright on the water tonight so we wont drown in the summer sound" is such a meaningful two lines. it says "we get by" - perhaps only just. perhaps we can only just save ourselves from drowning, and going under, being beaten, but we are such strong creatures that we can take the smallest thing such as the beauty of moonlight and let it save us. there is always hope.

By the bridge, hes gotten so desperate (he's "grabbing at the chance") with his situation that hes suggesting this really quite drastic ultimatum. he suggests an escape from our cold, harsh reality by getting back to basics, and stepping back in time to days when to live was a struggle in itself - you had to grow your own food ie. people had a purpose and were not faced with the issue of a meaingless existance.

it was also a time when people were more simple, and contented by "winning blue ribbons in county contests", because there were simply less problems of consumerism and materialism. to summarise, "dude, lets start a commune" is exactly what hes saying, because essentially, its just drastic - we need to wipe the slate clean, go back a century or two and just start again. that is the state we're in, why the bridge out of the whole song hammers it home the most. hes saying "is this the way forward?", "do we need this?"

and something that makes it so affecting, is quite how desperate it is and how it is so clear that although he doesnt say it, he absolutely craves this escape. the lyrics AND the music paint this scene as being a complete idyll to him ("handsome farmers"). The modal music and old fashioned flutey thing not only accentuates the step back in time but the medievalness of it gives it a fairy tale quality - like the legendary dragon slaying tales of old ie. this escape is elusive, and hard to attain. also, the way he suggests this course of action so directly as if things were that simple is child-like, and ironically sad as we know its not that simple and he can't just snap his fingers and have that life.

The following fill is easily the most beautiful part of the song, to express the beauty of his vision.

All of this combines to leave us with a nostalgic feeling, and a sadness that these happy times are mostly gone from the world and it really effectively alerts us to the sad height of the situation we got ourselves into, that we need to go that far to pull ourselves back from the brink.

It's so odd that most folks refer to the music as hippie-like. In my mind this song is 90% African rythym. Especially that lilting guitar in the background. So much more so than the overhyped Vampire Weekend.

This is one of the most amazing songs I've heard in awhile.

The bridge is the reason I fell in love with this song. Apart from its unbelievably harmonious sound, it takes two stances on a oft suggested solution to industrialization and consumerism in modern society. On one side the allure of a romantic life in the county being a farmer, living off the land, and being totally homegrown is immense. Who wouldn't want that unless you're some dumb, overindulged pissant-robot that's obviously brainwashed by commercial america?

But on the other hand, there's something cliche suggested in each of these lines, as if it's ridiculous to want to be so rural and think its possible to attain it. I mean, "handsome farmers"? Is everyone who returns to agriculture really gonna become magically hot? No but we grab at the chance to get that fantasy.

Then "21 sons" and "marry my daughters" hints at a creepy incestuousness that is unavoidable in small communal societies. If we all had 50 people per town and lived on 100 acres, it's unlikely that we'll diversify our genes like we can in current huge cities.

The utopia is beginning to break down in our minds: "pain...in a jar behind us" is a direct jab at the silly notion that all our flaws are somehow objectified and embodied in huge building and 30-second tv ads. We CAN'T leave that behind by moving to the country. (Maybe for Daniel Day Lewis and Juliette Binoche in "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" but not for the whole world. Not en masse.)

And again in "pick the pain into blue ribbon winners" doesn't that sound ludicrous? Perhaps the songwriter thinks we can observe our imperfections and city-based disease from afar, like a specimen in a jar. And whoever has the most road rage and alcoholism separated from themselves wins! I'm doubtful.

This could be a commentary on art itself, while mocking the artists' attempts to improve themselves by turning their ex-lovers, bad fathers, Oedipally attractive mothers into songs and literature and painting. But who will care about them if and when they sort out their issues? Will you listen to Britney Spears when she sees the light and stops being a voracious slut? Would Kurt Cobain be popular if he gave up the weed and smack and became a well-adjusted young man? Hell no. We. Want. The. Pain.

Maybe I'm off topic. No, I am off topic. Point being, solving our problems is never as simple as identifying the source. And this song seems to suggest that we don't even have the source right. The problem is us. We're programmed to be stupid and spiteful and greedy. Think some dirt road scenery and a vegetable garden out front a stone cottage will make that all go away? Think again.

This is one of those songs that on first listen makes me want to lay claim to it as part of my own personal life soundtrack. The sound and lyrics are both so poignant.

I have an idea concerning the title of this song. Just a theory, think there's some validity to it.

George Orwell wrote his magnum opus, "1984" and published it in the year 1948.
Yeasayer took off as a band an began touring in 2008. Just pull a switcheroo of the last two digits. 2080.

There are some similarities between Orwell's dystopian novel and this song, especially in the first stanza.

Maybe I'm wrong - just something to think about.