Love in the Time of Human Papillomavirus

my favorite from the new album. beautiful, disarming song. i see it as being sung to a somewhat unsatisfactory girlfriend by sean about his sense that whatever death has to offer is probably better than this. even the title seems to be conveying this, by juxtaposing the beauty and pureness of love to the stigma we've attached to the hilariously-named human papillomavirus.

one thing i should probably make clear before i do anymore songs is that i interpret sean to be, while not quite suicidal, of the opinion that being alive is probably not worth all the hassle. i have no idea if this is actually true since i've never met or spoken to him (though i'd love to) but that's the perspective i'm looking at all this from. if it's wrong, then i'm wrong. simple.

Also my favourite off the new album. The way I look at it, it's from the pov of a guy with a 'somewhat unsatisfactory' girlfriend, as imp put it. Not a particularly happy relationship (at least not all the time) but one he just puts up with, never blaming her for any of their problems. Kind of a really apathetic relationship, where they stay together just because. Or on a more positive note, maybe it's about two really unhappy people, staying together because it's slightly better that way, in spite of all the problems they have. (After all, he does say 'Or I'll live alone less happy.') The last verse kills me dead each time I listen to it. And I've never thought of Sean as particularly suicidal, just a guy who calls it like he sees it. A lot of AJJ's songs are actually weirdly optimistic.

yeah i mean, youre right, there is certainly plenty of optimism to be found in ajj songs if you're looking hard enough. like i said, i don't think he's exactly SUICIDAL, just aware of how shitty this life can actually be and curious if death might not be a better solution after all. i dunno. maybe i'm just superimposing how i feel onto people i admire.

Taken literally, I'm pretty damn sure this song is from the perspective of someone whose lover has AIDS.

Well, HPV, no AIDS, obviously, don't know why I said that. But yeah, taken literally, it seems that simple.

i really like this song. i listened to it while walking to work real early this morning in the winter frost while the ravens were in the trees and he says something in the first line or two about crows and since crows and ravens are in the same family, i felt that the moment was special. ha. i think sean may have, at one time, been a negative nancy, but after working through some personal issues has come to embrace the capabilities of the human race. i think he does his part to help inspire good feelings in others. instead of sulking in this depressing world by saying 'fuck it'.....this song, might be about people who grow old together compared to people who grow old alone for unexplainable reasons. i think my interpretation is wrong. but thats what i think of. thx ajj

"We could live there together Or I'll live alone less happy But I'll live Unfortunately"

best part of the song. :)

I just discovered there is a book called 'Love in the Time if Cholera' to which the title is obviously a reference. From Wikipedia: "García Márquez's main notion is that lovesickness is literally an illness, a disease comparable to cholera." So it seems that AJJ are evoking a similar comparison but in the time of another contagious disease/infection - HPV,.

I thought this was a more obvious one, but apparently not..maybe I'm the one that's wrong but I figured this is loosely about mental illness, but not entirely. It's about being a broken, damaged person with lots of baggage and problems. Relationships are hard in that situation because you don't want your issues and struggles to bring down the person you love most in the same way they haunt you. I think it's more about seeing oneself as being like a disease to the ones they love, always a burden, nothing but sadness, anger, and self-loathing

. ....feeling like you understand why someone wouldn't want to spend their life with you, not blaming them in anyway because you don't even want to be with you...yet holding out hope that maybe this is the person that genuinely thinks you're worth the trouble and decides to be with you in anyway....while remaining guarded enough to not be disappointed if and when they change their mind.

I mean, I feel like I could copy and paste this same exact thing for a handful of other AJJ songs and it would be accurate...admitting to inadequacy, super classic AJJ theme if you think about it. Sean writes from his soul, most all of it is autobiographical and he rarely uses complex metaphors...he lays it right out for you to make sure it's very clear where he stands. It isn't a bad thing, I'm just saying he's usually fairly direct about his message, he doesn't want you to be thinking about what his lyrics mean, he wants you to focus on what they mean for you. Short story made very long, but procrastination knows no limits, I guess.

oh my god if you actually knew sean this song is so fucking sad