4 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
Progress Lyrics
Here we have our dust-free dining set
We guarantee it won't collect a speck
Freeing up the children to instead
Grow into your molding
Heed more of your scolding
Go early to their new self-making beds
It seems like you'd be tired of losing face
Like you'd want to put the children in their place
The more you have to tell them to do their chores
The more you run the risk of being ignored
If you're lucky they'll turn out as good as you
You tell them that they're good kids
But you know it isn't not true
Your father drank a little
You're on liver number two
Progress has a way of feigning ease
Convenient new inventions bait the tease
For though it is impossible to cure
A husband bent on cheating
The oxygen's depleting
A child who's always bragging
A wife's persistent nagging
We're equipped to live as though it were
If you're lucky they'll turn out as good as you
You tell them that they're good kids
But you know that it isn't true
Your father drank a little
You're on liver number two
We guarantee it won't collect a speck
Freeing up the children to instead
Grow into your molding
Heed more of your scolding
Go early to their new self-making beds
Like you'd want to put the children in their place
The more you have to tell them to do their chores
The more you run the risk of being ignored
You tell them that they're good kids
But you know it isn't not true
You're on liver number two
Convenient new inventions bait the tease
For though it is impossible to cure
A husband bent on cheating
The oxygen's depleting
A child who's always bragging
A wife's persistent nagging
We're equipped to live as though it were
You tell them that they're good kids
But you know that it isn't true
You're on liver number two
Song Info
Submitted by
dan. On May 01, 2002
More Pedro the Lion
Rapture
Bad Diary Days
The Longer I Lay Here
Secret of the Easy Yoke
A Mind of Her Own
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
I think I jumped the gun a little too early on saying that last song was the best example of the human condtion. Here Bazan shows us more of this sad dysfunctional family. This family has all of the great inventions of modern technology from “dust-free dining sets” to “self-making” beds. You know what the great thing about modern technology is? It gives us more time to have our kids follow in our molding.
The picture of this family is not the molding that we are Christians want to live, but sadly it is closer to how we act as well are the rest of society. The sins of the grandfather have carried down to the father (who is “on liver number two”) and God knows it will be passed on to the kids. Depravity should only make us get on our knees and turn to God.
It is obvious in this song that the kids have followed in their parents ways. The parents fear punishing them because they are only going to be ignored. Which is exactly what they are doing to each other. The husband is cheating, the kids bragging, and the wife is nagging, and it is all thanks to the progress of “convient new inventions”. Writing that line reminds me of Fight Club and their struggle to fight against so-called progress. If only our fight was for morality, it seems like people would turn to God and not “liver number two”.
I agree. I think that even though the inventions are futuristic, the ideas and attitudes are current.
I like the version on the Progress EP better than the "computer-change-my-voice-like-Cher-or-a-boy-band" version found on Control.
For those who don't know, this song was originally titled "April 6, 2039."
I think Bazan did that voice at the beginning in order to simulate an announcer at a store. That's what I hear.
I actually prefer this version to the EP version. I think the performance sounds very thin and unemotional on the EP as compared to this one. What an accurate song this is.