"Basically an allegory of thinking that you want something and ultimately realizing that it won't make you feel any happier after you get it. And now that you're enlightened, you put someone else on that same path you just followed [that second person might as well be our protagonist at the beginning of the song, so it's cyclical]."
Totally agree with this. We never really know what we want.
He feels excluded and powerless at first, ostracized from the popularity and successfulness he has always wanted.
Then I think the invitation is a symbol of something that suddenly empowers him (although he probably had that ability all along)...
And once he is able to "play the game" successfully of being a socialite, he realizes it isn't what he thought it was anyway.
Really reminds me of the party mentality and disillusionment that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about in the 1920s.
And then this song transitions perfectly into Gyroscope in the narrative scheme, because the girl in Gyroscope is already "in" with the crowd, but not any happier with the "losers".
"Basically an allegory of thinking that you want something and ultimately realizing that it won't make you feel any happier after you get it. And now that you're enlightened, you put someone else on that same path you just followed [that second person might as well be our protagonist at the beginning of the song, so it's cyclical]."
Totally agree with this. We never really know what we want.
He feels excluded and powerless at first, ostracized from the popularity and successfulness he has always wanted. Then I think the invitation is a symbol of something that suddenly empowers him (although he probably had that ability all along)... And once he is able to "play the game" successfully of being a socialite, he realizes it isn't what he thought it was anyway.
Really reminds me of the party mentality and disillusionment that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about in the 1920s.
And then this song transitions perfectly into Gyroscope in the narrative scheme, because the girl in Gyroscope is already "in" with the crowd, but not any happier with the "losers".