pencil fight

Alright, I see the meaning of this song has completely gone over the head of most.

The pencil is hypothetical. Probably stands for his pride, or his attitude towards life. The song is about a boy contemplating suicide because of his home life that no one else knows about. The last lines and talk about death give this away.

awesome song.

this song is one of the best songs ive ever heard heh its about pencil fighting GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pencil fights are fun.

Atomship rules.

kick ass

This song is just plain old fun.
Guess I missed out on chilhood Pencil Fights, but Atomship would be the band to capitolize on such a thing! Off the wall! I love their tight drummer!

theres some kick ass guitar in this song

I abosolutely agree with KamikazeSkies. I think the pencil is a metaphor for his pride.

"death my friends ya leave with one thing and that one thing is pride. And pride throughout changes in time between the sky that you love to the ground that you hate. Pride between everything that once was your pride, can never die." I think that part kinda empahsizes that also.

I love this song but that's more because of its versatility. You could say it’s about overcoming suicide or abuse but that's simplifying it or seeing it in a narrowly. In a broader way, to me it’s about impermanence. The lyricist lets you fill in subtext by telling you a story that can be an allegory for anyone's need for meaning and finding control in their life through a destructive force. So in broad strokes, this is my breakdown stanza by stanza.

The first verse refers to a pencil made of steel, not literally but its seems to be where his mind goes when life is similar to a cancer; which existentially is always. We live, we lose, we feel, we slowly die every day. That’s not being Emo or negative, it’s just a fact.

The second verse goes into a different direction as it describes what a pencil fight means exactly in the perspective of our narrator. The lyrics talk about defying authority just by having the fight, the destruction of his own pencil being somewhat explosive. He seems to be using it as a safe outlet for his destructive frustrations and the feelings of inadequacy that are common for most teenagers but if not addressed can lead to depression and social anxiety.

To me the bridge seems more about struggling with impermanence. Realizing we all will eventually die is a right a passage that everyone takes differently. Some kids put way too much importance in meaningless relationships and pointless gestures of pride. Here the lyrics use pride as a meaningful pursuit but that is to cherish what was rather than accept a meaningless existence. While living in the past may seem just pointless, the point is that we all have to deal this way. It’s no different from believing a religion, having hope for tomorrow or having faith in ourselves, either way we all do it or our problems fester in the face of nihilism.

The chorus is both sincere and vague having only two lines. Thinking “Pencil Fight” not only is following an ideal that not only will we die but we need to break stuff to feel in control. The second line seems both guilty and relived because only after we explode do we realize how destructive our actions were.

In fact, the whole song can be read as a story about a kid who's in shock after his unbreakable is broken and then struggles with the meaning of a world where his pencil is nothing but splinters in his hair and he’s the one that did it. Understanding that everything will eventually break he decides to find substance in the fact that he broke things well, because what else do we really accomplish in life? Even when we build homes for the homeless we do so only by destroying trees. Creating a pace maker involves mutilating matter to surgical need. So take pride in your destruction since all we leave behind are splinters.