AVC: Because that was originally one of Martin's songs, "Simple Exercises" from Pure Trash.
AB: He would play that when he was opening for me. I was waiting to go onstage, and I'd be singing to myself backstage over that tune. That kind of division of labor is pretty foreign to me, but it was pretty satisfying to just go intuitively reflect: "What does this song want to happen?" And to just write a word for every keystroke. While we were in the studio in Minneapolis, I would get up and have breakfast at a café and write a few lines, and it was kind of my regimen, I'd write another couple lines for "Simple X." I guess that the song is a bit about breakfast, or that period of the day, being a possible key to world peace. [Laughs.]
From his interview with the Onion:
AVC: Because that was originally one of Martin's songs, "Simple Exercises" from Pure Trash.
AB: He would play that when he was opening for me. I was waiting to go onstage, and I'd be singing to myself backstage over that tune. That kind of division of labor is pretty foreign to me, but it was pretty satisfying to just go intuitively reflect: "What does this song want to happen?" And to just write a word for every keystroke. While we were in the studio in Minneapolis, I would get up and have breakfast at a café and write a few lines, and it was kind of my regimen, I'd write another couple lines for "Simple X." I guess that the song is a bit about breakfast, or that period of the day, being a possible key to world peace. [Laughs.]