Normal Person

A song about the way people perceive normalcy, that can be interpreted on a personal scale and on a sociological scale. The opening verse seems to be about a child who is unsure of whether he is normal or not based on the standards of his peers ("Waiting after school, you want to know if you're a normal person too/ well, are you?"), and in this case, the normalcy seems to be bullying, or simply a power struggle ("Is anyone as cruel as a normal person?"). I take it that the main message of the song is how this cruelty or power-struggle is now perceived as normal in modern-day society. Let's face it: here in America, we live in an individualistic society. We aren't condemned for hording wealth, taking short cuts to get to the top, or only looking out for ourselves. We are subtly encouraged to do these very things. What is the main message behind all TV commercials? "It's all about you." All about the individual. Therefore, no one perceives it as weird when people exercise their power on each other or act cruel. It's just a means for the individual to get what they want.

yep, pretty much says it, that cruel is the new normal...well really it has always been the new normal, but it just gets rehashed again and again, and usually this is the sign of the death of a civilization...when cruelty becomes acceptable on a wide scale...and not just cruelty, but cruelty in tune with the mantra of a cruel state...its a total psychology that is enforced and re-enforced from birth...

This song suggest that you are not perceived as normal until people really understand you, and then they have figured you out and you are boring, hence normal.

The ending talks about how if you cannot be figured out, then maybe you can help us understand what you know.

Then the protaganist swings it back the other way saying I have never ever met a normal person like you... Suggesting that in reality that since you are strange I consider that normal and I can identify you, and the rest of them are the normal ones. It could be thought of as finding a person one can identify with, the one that thinks just as you no matter what the "normal" is perceived as by "all the others". It is important to note that the protaganist calls "them" the others.

Ending with a proper greeting in acceptance, hence wanting to start a relationship.

I thought of the concept of this song when I was 10, so I might be reading too much into this, but I think it's about how if so many people are 'not normal' what makes "normal" the norm? And why do we let people perceived as normal push us, the majority, around?

People are mostly good, but the society we live in isn't

"We Exist" and "Normal Person" both use the verse:

"Maybe if you hang together You can make the changes in our hearts And if you hang together You can change us, just where should you start?"

More than the social sense of the word "normal" I think he was criticizing how the upper class has always resembled the way things should be. For example he talks about things like "They take their tea at two", dreaming in "Proper English", never being overly expressive "When they get excited, they try to hide it". All that really speaks more about the upper class, and the top-down social order of things rather than a basic schoolyard sense of the word "normal"

Other than that the song is pretty self explanatory. It points out that being normal isn't necessarily a good thing, and questions why we even have this pre-determined sense of what is "normal".