Who Are You, Defenders of the Universe?

Actually, I thought this song was more about the homeless. Look at the line, "we're not all bloodsucking leeches, for we all have families too, but that don't mean that we really love them or that we don't."

And there's the line, "We don't expect a handout or anything". When you think about it, he's trying to say that the homeless can't really help being what they are. The "give us what we want" lines could be the voices of society, telling them to work for them, get a life, job, etc.

ALIEN INVASION!

Seriously, i've been listening to this song for over a year and a few months, and every time I listen to it I am convinced that it's about an alien invastion.

i wanted to know what you guys thought this song meant... the first two stanzas especially caught my eye

My impression was always that it was something corporate-based.

at first i thought you meant the band something corperate, but i see what you mean. yea i thought it had somethign to do with corperations too, but then again they dont want it "here, in fron of people or on the phone" so really it could be something else. i really wish someone would give out some ideas.

I think it's the "we" that makes me think of corporations. No other person, on their own, uses "we." Unless they are in the Mafia...

That's quite likely, actually, since Murray Lightburn (the frontman of The Dears) was actually homeless for a long while. Good idea, there!

From my perspective, I see the song as being about corrupt government, wiretapping their citizens and spying on their citizens as a means of control, the government being personified as a single person who is trying to convince the citizens that they can help them.

At the same time, I completely see how the song can be about homelessness, and bringing about change to help those who are homeless.

Well, I found this song because it's in an ad of a TV series about a hostage situation. I then checked the lyrics out, and it makes sense to me. Maybe it's about a cop bargaining with a bank robber, and it's some kind of a conversation between them.

It is futile to assess any information from any part of this album if the assessment is applied to less than the whole that one believes it is. It's out there, and I don't believe in the entire album.