Never Do Anything

I'd agree with the other interpretations, but I'd go one step further. I dated the type of guy this song describes, and I've seen this kind of behavior firsthand (hell, I've even participated in it, sadly).

This song is about a guy who is so incredibly insecure and underconfident that he will go to great extremes to prove otherwise to himself and other people. Unfortunately, because he lacks confidence he's never going to actually be able to prove anything.

This guy has talent ("I'll bet you there's a song in there") but he's not confident enough to actually use it. He spends an extraordinary amount of time looking at the sucess of others ("That guy should be me") and probably even putting it down, claiming that if he were in their shoes he'd do their job better. But his claims are all for the benefit of others: he knows full well he either doesn't have as much potential as he claims, or won't ever live up to the potential he has, because he lacks the confidence to do anything but complain.

On to the second verse, we discover this guy is a little manipulative (The X in tic-tac-toe goes first, so they always have a better chance of winning) and his ideas of sucess are often flawed and underachieving (how many internet get-rich schemes actually work? Answer: none), probably because he secretly believes he can't do any better than that, dispite his bravado.

All of this lying to himself and others has pegged him as "an angry man" with a chip on his shoulder, angry at himself for not living up to his potential, and angry at the world for not being easier to live in.

"Life passed me by, but it's not my fault." This is the key line in the song. The reason, the ONLY reason, this guy will never amount to anything is because he is unwilling to take responsibility for his lack of sucess. In his mind, he hasn't failed because he's a lazy, manipulative slacker; he's failed because life isn't fair, or he wasn't given enough chances, or the cards were stacked against him. So instead of changing his actions and modes of thinking, he just sits back and bitches about how much God must hate him, further aggrivating his belief that he will never amount to anything. ("I'll lick my wounds, could you pass the salt?")

The rest of the song just reiterates everything already said, in classic BNL style.

Fantastic song, if only the type of person it describes were able to understand that it describes them, eh?

I think the opening lines "Wiped out down the stairs/I'll bet you there's a song in there" are a reference to their song "Back" that was cut from Born on a Pirate Ship. That song is about a guy who fell down two flights of stairs and broke his back.

I think this song is about a guy who says he will be great, and he will make something of his life...but he will never do it, and he knows.

He knows he has the potential to be great, but he doesn't want to take the time to achieve it.

http://www.freewebs.com/thejakesite

I think the line "Give me one more day, and still I'll never do anything." means that this guy is saying that even though he could have been famous and everything and is kinda annoyed that he isn't, in reality, he's content with what he has and who he is.

I love the idea of a pro tick tack toe player, just BNL silliness.

This song totally related to me when I heard it. I realised that I was the person in the song, that I was wasting my potential, and just coming across as the "angry man" who seemed resentful of everyone's success when in reality it was my sheer laziness that was stopping me achieve what I wanted.

Amazing song written by an amazing word-smith, Steven Page.

It's "also-ran", not "off soul hand".

I'm just happy this song exists!