Jamie...deciphering Fair to Midland lyrics: Bright Bulbs and Sharp Tools

Fair to Midland is my favorite band in the world. I think what makes them so amazing, besides their sound, is their lyrics. Lyrics that are to the point, straightforward, have almost no value to me. Lyrics that make you think, that make you work ever so slightly to find their meaning...that's satisfying.

Of course, that means that the lyrics run the risk of meaning nothing at all.

Like I was saying in a previous Jamie Jabber, words are designed to go into YOUR head and pull from your reference library. This means that when you start getting into obscure lyrics and loose meanings, the definition now becomes widely varied across people. That's fantastic...it's like we each get our own unique emotions from the same words where as something like, "I love you, baby, I need you in my life" leaves almost no room for interpretation while "Suffice it to say, there's a time and a place so I wait for the tug of war and who you'll pull for" can have a wide range of interpretations DEPENDING ON WHO LISTENS TO IT.

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Today, I wanted to decipher a line from "Bright Bulbs and Sharp Tools", an unreleased demo for a song on their upcoming album. Here are the lyrics followed by a link to the song.


Now heaven knows I've got one short damn fuse
So come sit down a spell while I light up the room
If walls could talk, they'd be know-it-all's
So we live in the sticks, there are some fish you can catch
And it makes my skin crawl
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so what's the use?
And she knew, she knew...

He fights like hell because he wants to glow
And would tackle the sun to be a bright bulb
I wonder if he'll wake us up in time?

He's gray
And has to hide somewhere in between black and white
Is he insane? But never was praying, before it's over,
I hope he takes you too

They say attack can be your best defense
And I've got mother's smile, both my dad's fists
John Doe escapes, carry his name
And when it's time to sign, ask where; not why

And it makes my blood boil
Those black letter days, all their mail just winds up lost

He's gray
And has to hide somewhere in between black and white
Is he insane? But never was praying, before it's over,
I hope he takes you too

You see whispers in the winter
Temper doesn't laugh

And every spring, I hear them sing, I hear them sing
(Oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh-oooh)
Every spring, I hear them sing, I hear them sing
Every spring, I hear them sing

If he's going down
If he's going under the ground
I hope he takes you too

Whoa, whoa, whoa

I hope he takes you too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvfy8ym08k8

The line we are going to be looking at today is:

He fights like hell because he wants to glow
And would tackle the sun to be a bright bulb
I wonder if he'll wake us up in time?

Like with most of their lyrics, you need to invest a little bit of effort to find your own definition. That work, that effort, makes the meaning you find very rewarding. So it wasn't until I thought about it that I came up with a very neat interpretation.

"He fights like hell because he wants to glow" to me means that the subject of this song works very hard at what he does because of the way he wants to appear to other people. It is so important to him what others think of him that it is his fuel to succeed.

"And would tackle the sun to be a bright bulb" to me signifies that he is willing to destroy anything around him that is better or performs greater than he does. The contrast that would make him look less is something he can't abide. But tackling the sun is stupid...the sun is massive. You will die. It's impossible. Still, his will to tackle the sun, like a little dog picking a fight with a much bigger dog, is unfazed. He will kill himself trying to stifle those that are better than he is.

"I wonder if he'll wake us up in time?" is really neat. It takes the literal consequence of him destroying the sun and asks the question, "Now that the sun is gone, he will have to take the responsibilities of the sun. The sun did such a good job of waking us up on time...I wonder if he'll wake us up in time. This can then be taken a few different ways, for example, dealing with the consequences of the actions of a person who destroys others to be the highest on the totem pole.

So yeah, that's that. There is so much good stuff in these songs that I will probably be doing this for a while.