I really like the irony in that final line -- "You know I would love a surprise." The narrator of this song seems like a fairly unambitious guy, stuck in the rat race, "trying to keep [his] eyes on the prize, you know how it goes." Ellen and Ben seem to represent unabashed romance in all its messy, self-destructive glory, and our narrator is really put off by it. Yet he tells himself, and us, that he's the kind of guy who likes surprises, spontaneity, fun things.
It's that old conflict between keeping your head above water and letting your heart do what it wants. It's something the Plan was concerned with from its first album, and I just think it's fitting that all those tensions are summed up in the last song and the last line of the band's career.
I really like the irony in that final line -- "You know I would love a surprise." The narrator of this song seems like a fairly unambitious guy, stuck in the rat race, "trying to keep [his] eyes on the prize, you know how it goes." Ellen and Ben seem to represent unabashed romance in all its messy, self-destructive glory, and our narrator is really put off by it. Yet he tells himself, and us, that he's the kind of guy who likes surprises, spontaneity, fun things.
It's that old conflict between keeping your head above water and letting your heart do what it wants. It's something the Plan was concerned with from its first album, and I just think it's fitting that all those tensions are summed up in the last song and the last line of the band's career.