This song is mostly about the lies people tell themselves in times where you're obligated to be happy, like the New Year. The first two lines "So this is the new year/and I don't feel any different" sums a lot of the song up. The perception that things change and start over and get better after the New Year is a false perception. "The clanking of crystal/Explosions of in the distance" I believe is talking about fireworks, but the "explosions of in the distance" could also be about the horrible events to come.
The part where Gibbard talks about resolutions, and calls them "self asssigned penance/for problems with easy solutions" is about how everything everyone wants to solve with their resolutions is so easy to solve but instead we have to condemn ourselves to these BS resolutions that we're never going to follow through on.
"So everybody put your best suit or dress on/Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once" is about how people are pretending that things are going to get better but they're all sort of fake. At the same time, it doesn't sound like they're being condemned for their fakeness, in fact, it sounds as though the singer is joining in. The song is more a sad acknowledgement of the way we have to celebrate as opposed to a cynical barrage on people's happiness.
The next stanza is a musing about how the singer wants closeness with people and that modern advances meant to bring people together just make them feel farther apart. This is very similar to what Gibbard talks about in the album's title song "Transatlanticism."
This song is mostly about the lies people tell themselves in times where you're obligated to be happy, like the New Year. The first two lines "So this is the new year/and I don't feel any different" sums a lot of the song up. The perception that things change and start over and get better after the New Year is a false perception. "The clanking of crystal/Explosions of in the distance" I believe is talking about fireworks, but the "explosions of in the distance" could also be about the horrible events to come.
The part where Gibbard talks about resolutions, and calls them "self asssigned penance/for problems with easy solutions" is about how everything everyone wants to solve with their resolutions is so easy to solve but instead we have to condemn ourselves to these BS resolutions that we're never going to follow through on.
"So everybody put your best suit or dress on/Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once" is about how people are pretending that things are going to get better but they're all sort of fake. At the same time, it doesn't sound like they're being condemned for their fakeness, in fact, it sounds as though the singer is joining in. The song is more a sad acknowledgement of the way we have to celebrate as opposed to a cynical barrage on people's happiness.
The next stanza is a musing about how the singer wants closeness with people and that modern advances meant to bring people together just make them feel farther apart. This is very similar to what Gibbard talks about in the album's title song "Transatlanticism."
@epicandy5 Yes!! thank you. You nailed it.
@epicandy5 Yes!! thank you. You nailed it.