My Brother, the Astronaut

“I searched ‘psychiatry’ and surveyed the facts $83 billion say Americans can’t relax”: google.co.uk/search (Annual cost of depression in US estimated at $83 billion) and also, from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget, : “The costs associated with the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets amounted to about $83-billion in 2005 Dollars”. Now, this second one could just be some kind of massive coincidence but, well, it’s nice either way.

Like many of the songs on the album, this song is about the experience of being in a band, trying to ‘make it big’, and the inherent rather extreme mental state required or suffered by those who attempt to do so. You have to put yourself into the public eye, full of self-belief, either genuine or assumed, that you as a person, as a mind, an entity, have something to offer that will enrich the lives of other people. “Well Getchoo!”, thinking you’re superior to everyone else. It’s obviously a prepostorously narcissistic yet wholly necessary thing to believe, in other words you have to be a bit of a ‘space cadet’ to even stand a chance of being successful, yet as everyone knows, the chances of actually ‘making it’ are miniscule, hence we have “acres of dead space cadets” – all the people from bands who never made it. Also, putting all yours hopes into becoming successful, where so many people have failed, is an extremely long shot, a “40-yard pass through the graveyard”. “What I can’t catch is all you get” is presumeably a comment on having to ‘look out for #1’, i.e. other people will only benefit if you make a mistake, or from the surpluses that you can’t handle; altruism is not a quality compatible with ‘big success’.

Yet to a sensitive, aware person, as great artists must surely be, this forced pattern of thinking and behaviour would cause great mental strain (“they’re gonna need therapy”). The song explores the contrast between the restrained, stiff-upper lip ‘English’ way of dealing with such things - “I understand completely, but I’d rather not ask”; “You’re English, you’ll be fine”, and its consequences, i.e. the contemporary binge-drinking culture that arises as a result of people being unable to process their emotions in a healthy way: “intoxicant rivers through binge-drinkers’ livers”, contrasted with the over-analytical therapeutic culture of America: “$83 billion say Americans can’t relax”, and then perhaps the author’s own suggestion, which is to ‘repress’, as they say, or perhaps simply ignore, anything that isn’t having a disablingly negative effect. “Thanks for memory, but it was getting in the way lately. Here’s to the memory, but if it’s not killing me, it doesn’t bother me”. This is clearly intended as an ironic statement, in the sense of it being a self-consciously ridiculous statement which is at the same time delivered with complete sincerity. It, interestingly, reminds me very much of The Strokes: “So I turned around, oh babe it’s gonna be alright, it was a great big lie, ’cause I left that night. Yeah”.

Well I think that about covers it.

“I honestly don’t have a clue what I’m talking about”.

this is one of my favorate songs in the world! I love elle milano! as for meaning...i dont have a clue:S its one of those songs that has no meaning that you can see. but still is a great song

Yeah, cos you really tried to find meaning... I guess it's about how everything is so dramatized in the US. It could perhaps be about his brother moving away, or even about him fighting in the war. "Getchoo" is a bit like the infamous "Gotcha" headline from the Falklands war when 2.5 thousand Argentinas were killed. The whole 'space cadet' thing could be about how so many people are ignorant and don't think about their actions. Obviously I'm totally bullshitting but it's better than saying it has 'no meaning you can see.'

Oh, I forgot, I think “This cabin fever” refers to the band recording the album in a remote cottage in Kent, and going slightly mad as a result.

thank you!

great analysis!