The Frown Song

This song wears the same sort of anger that Folds directed at the general public for their general apathy in All U Can Eat, but this time his target was much more specific.

This is a look at a day in the life of a wealthy, petulant, egomaniacal, unlikeable, shallow woman who could hail from nearly any suburb in the country.

Her morning consists of treating her weekly Shiatsu therapy like an unbearable burden, traipsing out to lunch with her friends where she burdens, bullies, and stiffs the waitress, and then heading out for some shoe shopping while she and her comrades trade nasty insults about the various whores who might be fucking the guru from Shiatsu.

Her afternoon is spent harrassing and patronizing a bathroom attendant, a youngster working in a coffee shop, and doing a little more shopping at an Anthropolgie store whose ironic title and location will be forever lost on her.

Finally, she returns alone for the only moment of seeming joy in her entire day, as she secretly plays the role of "guru slut" that she and her friends had spent the morning ridiculing. Even she cannot escape her own venom.

I know that this song is about one of his ex-wives, who I recall he left for a yoga guru. The whole song, to me, revolves around the line "Speculate who might be fucking the guru." (You have to love that line...) He's saying that, after their divorce, she should have been the one looking back and saying "Which one of us was wrong? Which one was fucking the guru?" Whether he was right, no one can say.

And in the end, he says "Now we know who's been fucking the guru." He's saying she decided on something, she's accepted an answer, and now she's happy, but he doesn't say what she decided--that really could go either way. She could be happy with the realization that he was wrong and now he's gone, or she could be satisfied with the decision that she was wrong and the divorce was the right thing.

The whole song also makes me wonder how much of this is him trying tell her she was wrong, or if it's him trying telling the world that she admitted she was wrong. Or maybe he isn't even saying she was wrong, maybe he's trying to say they were both at fault, that it isn't just black and white.

first

frown to smile. i would like to understand the GURU line thou

From what I see, it looks like he is talking about ungrateful, rich white women.

I agree with zembla. That seems spot on. Could the 'fashionable frown' have something to do with Botox or plastic surgery?

I get the feeling that the people he's talking about here are the grown-up versions of the folks from "The Battle of Who Could Care Less".

after this stanza:

Oh, I know it can get hard when you look out your backyard See the O-Zone falling apart before you And recyclings a bitch I've got just one wish...

that our children wont grow up in a freaking trash can ^ add that line to the lyrics.

i lovvvvvvve this song, it was fun when he did it live and had the guy with the smiley face mask come out.

Or do you remember how we managed before? We could afford regular nervous breakdowns

The question mark should be a line further down - that'd make sense.

thanks zembla, i was wondering what the guru thing meant

This song is basically "The Ladies who Lunch" from that musical with Elaine Stritch put in different words