That's how it starts We go back to your house We check the charts And start to figure it out And if it's crowded, all the better Because we know we're gonna be up late But if you're worried about the weather Then you picked the wrong place to stay That's how it starts And so it starts You switch the engine on We set controls for the heart of the sun One of the ways we show our age And if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up, if the sun comes up And I still don't wanna stagger home Then it's the memory of our betters That are keeping us on our feet You spent the first five years trying to get with the plan And the next five years trying to be with your friends again You're talking 45 turns just as fast as you can Yeah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend It comes apart The way it does in bad films Except in parts When the moral kicks in Though when we're running out of the drugs And the conversation's winding away I wouldn't trade one stupid decision For another five years of life You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can And the next ten people who are trying to be polite When you're blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight And to tell the truth Oh, this could be the last time So here we go Like a sales force into the night And if I made a fool, if I made a fool, if I made a fool on the road, there's always this And if I'm sewn into submission I can still come home to this And with a face like a dad and a laughable stand You can sleep on the plane or review what you said When you're drunk and the kids leave impossible tasks You think over and over, "hey, I'm finally dead." Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand Tou look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop You forgot what you meant when you read what you said And you always knew you were tired, but then Where are your friends tonight Where are your friends tonight Where are your friends tonight If I could see all my friends tonight I think that this song is a postmodernist cry for significance and meaning, because most of us now live in a world of hyperrealism. I would invite the reader to look at what they are doing right now, for instance: I wrote a comment on a website that I had just became a member of, and it could be that, subjectively, this song meant a lot to me at that moment in time. But, really, the fact that I was in my room at that moment in time (I, or anyone who will be reading this is, at this or that moment in time, having hyperreal perceptions) does not take away from the fact that the majority of my (now, your) perception was (is) made up of what I believed to be real (words appearing as I press buttons; you, either reading because you're interested, or clicking on something else because you have lost interest). In fact, what is occuring before me objectively is just a series of lights, which are reacting to an interconnected series of electronic curcuits. This does not take away from the fact that what is appearing before me seems real, of course, but it cannot be touched, felt; it is merely “pretend.” The second and third stanzas are, I think, a critique of the internet, and how social networks produce both inactivity and a gradual desensitization to objective experience. We have replaced objective social interaction with hyperreal interaction, thus creating an artificial environment, where uncomfortable (thus beneficial) experience is nonexistent. At the end of stanza 3, "Yeah, I know it gets tired, but it's better when we pretend," implies that this hyperreality seems better than reality itself. We spend so much time immersed in hyperreality that we don't realize our own fatigue (that which is a result of a lack of actual objective experience) and gradually degrade. Moral principles have no place in this subjective/objective hyperrealism, because there are no consequences for mannerisms/thoughts/words that would be considered “unacceptable” in actual objective experience. We may proceed to be as pompous and asshole-ish as we please, with no repercussions, on this artificial “e-plane.” Because actual objective experience does not operate under these conditions, we feel the need to load ourselves up with drugs to make the real world seem hyperreal. All of our "friends" are mostly seen on a digital format. When actual interaction occurs, we come to the painful and unwitting realization that we haven't had any "real" interaction with them... only hyperreal interaction. So, it necessarily follows that a feeling of abandonment ensues in modern existence, because most of us are now at the whim of the screen.