A city with no children is a city with no future. However, the reference to this feeling is less about the external environment (i.e., the city) and more about the singer's internal world as he struggles with his weighty past and disillusionment. As an emerging adult, he is trying to reconcile feelings of adolescent idealism with the stark reality of living in a world that is less than perfect, confusingly ambiguous, and mired in shades of grey.
The song begins with a reference to being hurt and expecting some type of compassionate response from an absent caregiver in return. Yet this response does not come, the singer becomes bitter, and he realizes that he cannot fully rely on this person. He then laments about not fully embracing this person when his world was simpler and it was easier for him to risk loving, a time in which he was not jaded. Thus, in this vein, my guess is that the "world war" is more about drawn out interpersonal conflicts between family members and less about our somewhat tenuous geopolitical environment. Ostensibly, it is a war between a child and parent and it engenders feelings of uncertainty and uneasiness. The dream about the trip back to Houston then refers to atavistic family drama and not knowing (being in the dark) exactly how things will will go but knowing that they will not go well (kind of a similar vibe to "This Year" by the Mountain Goats). Moreover, given that the singer is dreaming about this, the uneasiness he feels about his past still presses on his subconscious even if he is able to adequately distract himself while awake.
Continuing with the emerging adult theme, flash forward a few years and the singer is prosperous but due to the weight of his past, he does not feel free or liberated by his new wealth. Instead, he feels like a prisoner of the past and his new circumstances. He hides underground to escape inclement weather. In other words, he retreats from elements in the external world (i.e., interpersonal relationships) to avoid future loss or pain. He tries to justify his lifestyle and previous decisions to himself in questioning: "Do you think your righteousness can pay the interest on your debt?" Here he really seems to be saying: "To get by, I changed because I had to." However, it is interesting that he says "interest on the debt" as if he has accepted his debt and now wants to just get by in an imperfect world that he cannot fix. This makes me question whether "debt" implies a financial debt.
Now, let's break down the chorus to pull this together. The city with no children is an environment that is bereft of youthful nativity or adolescent idealism. The garden is the singer's view of himself and his potential to change the world (his world) at a younger age. The millionaire is the unsatisfied adult that struggles with his own financial success, disillusionment from deviating from previously held values, and a personal history that is littered with disappointment, conflict, longing, and emptiness. He has simply yet painfully lost his youthful spark. Damn, I wish I could write songs like this.
@sulkowski I agree that the 'debt' could actually be a real debt. I had always imagined that it was metaphorical for the debt of his mistakes, like lessons he needs to learn because of his ignorance in the past, but the more I hear it, and not to mention he mentions millionaire in the chorus, and he is a millionaire, that the lyric has a literal sense speaking about an actual monetary debt. Maybe he actually paid his financial debt when he became famous and he is drawing a comparison of being able to paying that debt off, and wishing...
@sulkowski I agree that the 'debt' could actually be a real debt. I had always imagined that it was metaphorical for the debt of his mistakes, like lessons he needs to learn because of his ignorance in the past, but the more I hear it, and not to mention he mentions millionaire in the chorus, and he is a millionaire, that the lyric has a literal sense speaking about an actual monetary debt. Maybe he actually paid his financial debt when he became famous and he is drawing a comparison of being able to paying that debt off, and wishing he could do the same about his past mistakes.
A city with no children is a city with no future. However, the reference to this feeling is less about the external environment (i.e., the city) and more about the singer's internal world as he struggles with his weighty past and disillusionment. As an emerging adult, he is trying to reconcile feelings of adolescent idealism with the stark reality of living in a world that is less than perfect, confusingly ambiguous, and mired in shades of grey.
The song begins with a reference to being hurt and expecting some type of compassionate response from an absent caregiver in return. Yet this response does not come, the singer becomes bitter, and he realizes that he cannot fully rely on this person. He then laments about not fully embracing this person when his world was simpler and it was easier for him to risk loving, a time in which he was not jaded. Thus, in this vein, my guess is that the "world war" is more about drawn out interpersonal conflicts between family members and less about our somewhat tenuous geopolitical environment. Ostensibly, it is a war between a child and parent and it engenders feelings of uncertainty and uneasiness. The dream about the trip back to Houston then refers to atavistic family drama and not knowing (being in the dark) exactly how things will will go but knowing that they will not go well (kind of a similar vibe to "This Year" by the Mountain Goats). Moreover, given that the singer is dreaming about this, the uneasiness he feels about his past still presses on his subconscious even if he is able to adequately distract himself while awake.
Continuing with the emerging adult theme, flash forward a few years and the singer is prosperous but due to the weight of his past, he does not feel free or liberated by his new wealth. Instead, he feels like a prisoner of the past and his new circumstances. He hides underground to escape inclement weather. In other words, he retreats from elements in the external world (i.e., interpersonal relationships) to avoid future loss or pain. He tries to justify his lifestyle and previous decisions to himself in questioning: "Do you think your righteousness can pay the interest on your debt?" Here he really seems to be saying: "To get by, I changed because I had to." However, it is interesting that he says "interest on the debt" as if he has accepted his debt and now wants to just get by in an imperfect world that he cannot fix. This makes me question whether "debt" implies a financial debt.
Now, let's break down the chorus to pull this together. The city with no children is an environment that is bereft of youthful nativity or adolescent idealism. The garden is the singer's view of himself and his potential to change the world (his world) at a younger age. The millionaire is the unsatisfied adult that struggles with his own financial success, disillusionment from deviating from previously held values, and a personal history that is littered with disappointment, conflict, longing, and emptiness. He has simply yet painfully lost his youthful spark. Damn, I wish I could write songs like this.
@sulkowski I agree that the 'debt' could actually be a real debt. I had always imagined that it was metaphorical for the debt of his mistakes, like lessons he needs to learn because of his ignorance in the past, but the more I hear it, and not to mention he mentions millionaire in the chorus, and he is a millionaire, that the lyric has a literal sense speaking about an actual monetary debt. Maybe he actually paid his financial debt when he became famous and he is drawing a comparison of being able to paying that debt off, and wishing...
@sulkowski I agree that the 'debt' could actually be a real debt. I had always imagined that it was metaphorical for the debt of his mistakes, like lessons he needs to learn because of his ignorance in the past, but the more I hear it, and not to mention he mentions millionaire in the chorus, and he is a millionaire, that the lyric has a literal sense speaking about an actual monetary debt. Maybe he actually paid his financial debt when he became famous and he is drawing a comparison of being able to paying that debt off, and wishing he could do the same about his past mistakes.