Mess of Me

Well thank god Epeterso isn't right. I'd hate to think this song was that shallow....

Jon Foreman- "Lyrically the song is yearning for abundant life to spring from past mistakes. The song attempts to explore the darkest parts of the human animal and transcend them, rising above these gloomy moments to find true life. If you're Freud, you call these darker urges the death drive. If you're St. Paul, you talk about doing the things you don't want to do. Whatever you call them, these dark places destroy us if we leave them unchecked. I feel that tension everyday, between the right and the wrong, between life and death. And yet there is no easy path to freedom from self. It’s a narrow road and few find it. We've all thought about the quick fix: that special something/someone that could take the pain away. Yet the problems in my life are much bigger than any temporary solution. We die a little everyday- physically, spiritually; we are in sorry shape. Ain't no drug to make me well. Ain't no drug that can relieve me from the monster of myself. Ain't no one to blame. But my decision is made. I want to follow this through... I want to spend the rest of my life alive.

This tune has lived several lives all revolving around the guitar hook. It started out as a song called "I Saw Satan (Fall Like Lightning)" I wrote it a couple years back when I was stealing heavily from scripture. We dragged it into the studio with Charlie Peacock for a week of recording at Big Fish Studios and came out with a really great bridge. Then we wrote a new chorus, called the song "There Ain't No Drug" and built the verse lyrics around the new chorus. We made the bridge the chorus after that. (And at this point I was about as lost as you, dear reader. These are the limitations of having no limitations!) So we stepped away from this song. We knew it was a great one, we were just too inside it. When we came back to it we realized that we were really close... we just needed the final push- so we re-tracked everything at Mike's place. Tim was the champion of this tune: lifting it from one phase to the next, never giving up on the riff. I'm really proud of Tim for pushing through till the final version that ended up on the record."

This is an AWESOME song ! On a general scale, I think this song is basically about how a person has messed up their life and society's obsession with the 'pharmaceutical' industry to get "never ending, everlasting life" - (according to Jon Foreman). And the reason their sick is because of themselves [The Sickness is myself...] their the ones obsessed and when they feel depressed, or down they generally turn to the pharmaceutical industry instead of looking to the core problem: Themselves. And this song's urgent cry is "I Wanna spend the rest of my life alive !"...

ON A TECHNICAL NOTE: Dont you just love the first few seconds as it builds up in stereo...similar in a sense to 'Meant To Live'

To me, the drug is anything that is our escape, something we depend on, rely on to alter us, the way a drug does. There's nothing that can actually cure our ailment, because we've totally screwed up the diagnosis and prescription. Rather than trying to heal a wound through an escape, we should be first trying to heal our dependence on the escape.

I truly love this song. This album is my favorite out of all of their others by far..... what I think the main meaning of this song is the verse that says there aint no drug to make me well, meaning that since you made a mess of yourself a drug cannot cure your mess but you need to invite God into your life and he is the only one who can take away the mess in your life and give you a clean slate once again.

Well, unfortunately davideskimo you're way off the mark, loona you're getting close. This has nothin to do with pharmaceuticals. The drug is whatever takes you away. Switchfoot is a deeply christian band and that is reflected in most of Foreman's lyrics, in theme form.

This song is about how everyone takes themselves away from God. And How foreman want to live the right way for the rest of his time, though there is nothing there is nothing you can buy to fix that break from the almighty.

Some cool references: 1.) The blind leading the blind. "It's hard to free the ones you love Oh, when you can't forgive yourself." just as Jesus spoke about it. Matthew 7:3-5, 2.)"The rest of my life alive": John 6:47, 3.) "Reverse this tragedy" Man's fall from grace has been described as the first tragedy, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_fall_from_grace he could be alluding to reversing that by becoming one with the Father again.