Verbatim

I agree with LoveIsAPlace on the first verse and how it's questioning perceptions of "normal" sexuality. To say a bit more about the shaky verbatim and change in the air, I think this is referring to gender stereotypes. The verbatim is the stereotype, repeated ad nauseum that, for example, anyone in drag is queer. It's shaking now because society is becoming more liberal and all these idiosyncrasies people have are now being accepted for what they are, natural.

Yeah, missing a majorly cool line.

And it's pretty plain to see the meaning.

It's a stand about how a guy doesn't have to eat nails for breakfast to still dig chicks, and about loving a sort of backwards guy, which is truly what girls want. "A man who can slap but can also stroke."

It also speaks about how change is in the air, and they have to deal with the hard facts. "Goin' in the wind is an eddy of the truth and it's naked"

Verbatim means a direct quote, so that means that the truth is a straight quote, rolling on an eddy, or a mini cyclone.

Agreed with LoveIsAPlace's analysis. Oh man this is such a cool, catchy song, it's been stuck in my head all day xD I love how Mother Mother uses the sounds of syllables to their advantage.

I'm going to address a few lines here:

"Goin' in the wind is an eddy of the truth and it's naked It's verbatim and it's shakin' No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no more getting' elated"

This and the verse with the hospital and smokestack makes this more of a melancholy song for me. The "eddy of the truth" seems to suggest that the farther away the wind takes the facts, the more they get distorted. So we're left with a "shaky verbatim" that can't be taken at face value. Maybe that's the way the world is going, where things can easily get out of hand?

Not sure how "listless invitations" relates to that, though;;;

haha I love it

so damn gooood.

A lot of people seem to ask abt the hospital part of the song, so heres my interpretation. Its a continuation of describing stereotypes like the ones listed before with “boxer in the brief or a twelve ounce steak” being stereotypes of male masculinity. Ryan says “i see people dying there but my tender age makes it hard to care” and “incinerator and a big smoke stack its a phallic symbol and it makes me laugh” i could see this as more male stereotypes with the hospital detailing a lack of empathy for the elderly or sick as he is healthy and young, and the smoke stack showing his childishness as he sees a phallic symbol in something thats hurting the environment. both a lack of empathy and childishness are stereotypes for men, but these lines are followed by “all i need is a heart attack cmon humble my bones with a cardiac” i think this is him mocking society for telling men basically “you dont have empathy, you need to be humbled” but he mocks it in a hyperbolic way, claiming he/men need a heart attack to be humbled. Then straight after, we get the lines “i am the rooster in the morning im the cock of the day, im the boxers in the brief im a twelve ounce steak” this could be him continuing his mocking, sarcastically saying that all he indeed is is all the stereotypes. this whole song seems to be a mocking commentary on masculinity and how society views men and how men act due to this. but of course thats just my opinion. Love this song!

guys it's gay,,,the song is gay,,,,

Contrary to what people are saying, I think a few other Mother Mother songs (think Wrecking Ball for example) reinforce certain destructive male stereotypes and people seem to ignore the verse in this song about the singer in fact embodying those stereotypes (I am the rooster in the morning, cock of the day, boxer in the briefs etc).

If anything I think the singer is misleading the listener ("for the love of f*** for the sake of Pete did you ever really think you'd love a guy like me?" Followed by his confession of actually being hyper masculine) and I wonder if he's actually calling attention to how easy it is to just quote verbatim whatever is transiently desirable at the time to win people over.

"Goin' in the wind is an eddy of the truth and it's naked"

No matter how hard you try to keep something a secret, some small detail will escape you to reveal it. It may not be the whole story, but it will shed light.

He’s masking how he truly feels by covering it up with masculine cliches. And it’s an on going battle in his head he goes back and fourth on - but in the song the coin lands back on masculine. Per se.