8 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
Pensacola Lyrics
Oh pride is not a sin,
And that's why I have gone on down to Wal-Mart
With my checkbook to get you some.
Like waves in which you drown me, shouting
I know you must've realized by now
And by the lawnchairs there
Next to the racks of guns
Your self esteem is waiting
Canned up in alluminum
And that's why I have gone on down to Wal-Mart
With my checkbook to get you some.
I know you must've realized by now
And by the lawnchairs there
Your self esteem is waiting
Canned up in alluminum
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
It's a response to consumer culture? (where esteem is gained/shown in owning things/brands)
well I think the canned up in aluminum line refers to alcohol (beer cans specifically), most people feel better about themselves when they drink.
I think its about a person who is abusive to his wife or girlfriend. So he goes to walmart and gets beer, so both he and his wife can get drunk, where the abuse starts, and the wife/girlfriend has to turn to alcohol just to escape it.
after reading doughty's book it's hard not to imagine that this is just a statement to the rest of the guys in the band. or some kind of genuine plea, at first quiet and meek but growing into a scream. sounds like he wrote most of it alone with a drum machine and sequencer. he is singing so softly you can hear the buzz of the recording devices in the background. something very raw about that, it compliments perfectly his state of being at the time.
I think that this song is a comment on the somewhat ironic regard in which the lower class holds themselves, like people who shop at Wal-Mart out of necessity and are still radically self-important. That only accounts for the bookends of the song, though, so I'm probably wrong.
I love how Mike sounds when he sings "I knowwww", though. It sounds raw and fraught with emotion, a perfect crescendo in a song to which I didn't used to give much thought.
"Your self-esteem is waiting, canned up in aluminum". Magnificent.
red neck drunk!! woooo
As much as I want to go right along with tungstenchecksin's interpretation, I just don't think it's about class. I think there's something to what she says, though.
Doughty, while an addict, went to Pensacola to get away from everything. There he lived with Gus, his one friend in the extended Soul Coughing group, his tour manager. He said that it seemed like a kind of white-trashy southern town. He was a fish out of water there.
They drank too much in Pensacola. He's going to buy beer. They go to a Wal-Mart to get it. The experience brings about a negative and dirty feeling, like the first realization that they're addicted to alcohol.