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Plastic Cup Lyrics
Well you could always count on your friends to get you high, that's right
And you could always count on the 'rents to get you by, you could fly
And now they make you piss into a plastic cup and give it up
The cup will probably be here long after we're gone - what's wrong?
They'll probably dig it up a thousand years from now and how
They'll probably wonder what the hell we used it for and more
This must be the cup the king held every night as he cried
Well maybe you should go out and write your own damn song and move on
And you could always count on the 'rents to get you by, you could fly
And now they make you piss into a plastic cup and give it up
The cup will probably be here long after we're gone - what's wrong?
They'll probably dig it up a thousand years from now and how
They'll probably wonder what the hell we used it for and more
This must be the cup the king held every night as he cried
Well maybe you should go out and write your own damn song and move on
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I think one of the themes of Plastic Cup is about how what’s important now will not be important forever, and how that’s okay but also how what is important depends upon the perspective of the individual.
This is apparent in the 1st verse when a change in circumstances appears to have affected an individual and they are being reluctantly made to reassess things by another individual who is describing the changes as though it is time for them to conform (
And you could always count on the 'rents to get you by).The song goes on to describes how when one retrospectively looks back without the complete picture the past may be misinterpreted (
This must be the cup the king held every night). This misinterpretation may be partially by accident but also through a desire to add interest or over interpret the mundane. For the individual in the song they are being made to look back on their previous life by an individual who may not have been there or only has a partial understanding.Finally, as with other comments on this song I do not fully understand the context of the last two lines. My interpretation is that the individual from the 1st verse is responding to the individual speaking in the 1st verse saying that instead of commenting on others peoples existence or situation they should focus on themselves (
you should go out and write your own damn song) as they dont have the complete picture so they should go and pave their own path (And Move on`).Another beautiful, beautiful song from Low. Short and sweet, this song croons with a stark commentary on the nature of time and mortality, peppered with small questions and moments that test this idea of how time is related to human existence.
What I don't really have an interpretation for is the last line of the song, which really hits a soft spot for me, as Low tends to do over and over again. I suppose it just sort of wraps it all up with a lovely flavor of bittersweet insincerity. It's kind of like, yea so what if things exist long after we're gone?
According to NPR (who I'm sure spoke to Alan about this song and the video) the song "recalls a friend's substance abuse, a lifetime of dependence on others and a soul-crushing future of pointless drug tests." And as someone who's been there yeah it is soul crushing and futile-when I was ready to stop I stopped, no amount of pissing into cups in front of people to be tested before I got my meds was going to change that. The rest of the song I guess can have interpretations in different ways and each way can be right but I don't think the there's much denying thats what the first verse at the least is about