This song is literally about existentialism. Sartre (the father of existentialism) talks about how relationships are futile because the person you’re with is always “other” and you can’t possibly know them like you know yourself. You’re always objectifying the person by imposing an image of what you believe they are onto them. Sartre says this makes one person more sadistic by doing the objectifying and the other masochistic by letting themselves be objectified. The line: “we're damned by the existential moment,” makes the influence pretty clear. I love the idea of Ben and Regina talking about Sartre and existentialism and being like “Hey lets write a song about it.” It’s a really great embodiment of the theory and it kind of cracks me up.
This song is literally about existentialism. Sartre (the father of existentialism) talks about how relationships are futile because the person you’re with is always “other” and you can’t possibly know them like you know yourself. You’re always objectifying the person by imposing an image of what you believe they are onto them. Sartre says this makes one person more sadistic by doing the objectifying and the other masochistic by letting themselves be objectified. The line: “we're damned by the existential moment,” makes the influence pretty clear. I love the idea of Ben and Regina talking about Sartre and existentialism and being like “Hey lets write a song about it.” It’s a really great embodiment of the theory and it kind of cracks me up.