I've been listening to this quite often lately and I think the song is about a very average, very normal guy who has a very average and boring job ('white shirt', 'underlining', 'middlebrow fuck-up').
He does whoever wish he weren't so average but instead different (and above) from the average, normal person. But he doesn't quite know who to escape this mediocrity so he starts drinking, hoping to escape his worries or hoping it will give him the courage to do something not so average. It's also the reason he talks about 'out of my league':above normal, 'birds up his sleeve'=a special ability, 'rush in with the fools'=do something bold and brave. The zoning part, I consider to be the part where he has already been drinking so much he's 'zoning out'. And in the end he concludes nothing will ever work and he is and will always be a 'middlebrow fuck-up'.
But I guess since the lead singer himself doesn't really know what it's about, any interpretation is correct.
I've been listening to this quite often lately and I think the song is about a very average, very normal guy who has a very average and boring job ('white shirt', 'underlining', 'middlebrow fuck-up').
He does whoever wish he weren't so average but instead different (and above) from the average, normal person. But he doesn't quite know who to escape this mediocrity so he starts drinking, hoping to escape his worries or hoping it will give him the courage to do something not so average. It's also the reason he talks about 'out of my league':above normal, 'birds up his sleeve'=a special ability, 'rush in with the fools'=do something bold and brave. The zoning part, I consider to be the part where he has already been drinking so much he's 'zoning out'. And in the end he concludes nothing will ever work and he is and will always be a 'middlebrow fuck-up'.
But I guess since the lead singer himself doesn't really know what it's about, any interpretation is correct.