The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
We got knocked off the horse and we can't get back up. We can try to change but we've still got our bills that we gotta pay. And the payments stay the same no matter where you move and no matter how cheap the rent.
Stop screaming for a change.
Start screaming for a wage.
And the irony of plastic is when it starts replacing cash, soon enough you have no cash and it gets replaced with debt and all you're left with is past mistakes and the envelopes change color: all dimly lit pastels, they go white, then yellow then pink. It's like a fucking party to celebrate that you're fucked.
Electric flow and dirty clothes and students loans, oh god, ya gotta pay 'em.
Electric flow and student loans and dirty clothes, oh god, ya gotta clean 'em.
While you can't get a decent wage, I still can't find a job. Yeah, my life just repeats the 2005 series of rejected applications and me botching interviews and waiting for phone calls from a temp agency that never calls at all. It's never easy it's always electric flow...
The attack, I'm feeling the attack, I'm feeling the attack
of basic social skills I know I know I know I know I lack
I'm hyper-cognizant of facts
I'm well aware that we are barely scraping by
My good intentions aren't enough to salvage that
Gimme 1 gimme 2 gimme 3 4 5
Gimme more per hour so I can afford to pay for food and gas
And bags to throw away the trash
Ya gotta throw away the trash.
It's hard to pay the bills whne you can't work a forty hour week.
It's hard to interview when I am too depressed to even speak.
It's hard to have a blast when we spend all our spare time feeling weak because we're thinking about that electric flow etc.
Stop screaming for a change.
Start screaming for a wage.
And the irony of plastic is when it starts replacing cash, soon enough you have no cash and it gets replaced with debt and all you're left with is past mistakes and the envelopes change color: all dimly lit pastels, they go white, then yellow then pink. It's like a fucking party to celebrate that you're fucked.
Electric flow and dirty clothes and students loans, oh god, ya gotta pay 'em.
Electric flow and student loans and dirty clothes, oh god, ya gotta clean 'em.
While you can't get a decent wage, I still can't find a job. Yeah, my life just repeats the 2005 series of rejected applications and me botching interviews and waiting for phone calls from a temp agency that never calls at all. It's never easy it's always electric flow...
The attack, I'm feeling the attack, I'm feeling the attack
of basic social skills I know I know I know I know I lack
I'm hyper-cognizant of facts
I'm well aware that we are barely scraping by
My good intentions aren't enough to salvage that
Gimme 1 gimme 2 gimme 3 4 5
Gimme more per hour so I can afford to pay for food and gas
And bags to throw away the trash
Ya gotta throw away the trash.
It's hard to pay the bills whne you can't work a forty hour week.
It's hard to interview when I am too depressed to even speak.
It's hard to have a blast when we spend all our spare time feeling weak because we're thinking about that electric flow etc.
Lyrics submitted by MintyMintyMinty
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His craziness symbolyses how when all the debt builds up on you and it just gets insane. Freakin awsome.
What does the part about envelopes mean?
Just the different colour envelopes you get sent when you're in debt. At first they're like you're regular mail in white envelopes, but once you get a little behind they starting coming in yellow for whatever reason, like they're trying to catch your eye in case you've just been forgetting to pay them. The pink ones come when they're super pissed you're not paying and are at risk of going to a collection agency or whatever.