Great lyrics, I think it can be interpreted on multiple levels. In my opinion the key line is "The trick is to try to be free/And tend to the void, don't just fill it." People have voids in their lives where they long for happiness, companionship, etc. and instead of digging down to the root of why they feel this way and fixing it, they try to fill these voids with (drugs, material things, girls/guys, etc.) so I think he's using the colloquialism of there's "Plenty of Girls in the Sea" to illustrate that point. He uses the lines about the surgeons not being perfect or the lifeguard not being about the muscle or tan to illustrate that typically the thing we use to temporarily fill those voids, still leave us feeling empty inside in the end, because we need to TEND to the void, not just FILL IT. When people experience heartbreak, people try to make them feel better (fill the void) by saying "well there's plenty of girls/guys in the sea" and so while this song could be about a relationship on the surface, I think it goes a bit beyond that.
Great lyrics, I think it can be interpreted on multiple levels. In my opinion the key line is "The trick is to try to be free/And tend to the void, don't just fill it." People have voids in their lives where they long for happiness, companionship, etc. and instead of digging down to the root of why they feel this way and fixing it, they try to fill these voids with (drugs, material things, girls/guys, etc.) so I think he's using the colloquialism of there's "Plenty of Girls in the Sea" to illustrate that point. He uses the lines about the surgeons not being perfect or the lifeguard not being about the muscle or tan to illustrate that typically the thing we use to temporarily fill those voids, still leave us feeling empty inside in the end, because we need to TEND to the void, not just FILL IT. When people experience heartbreak, people try to make them feel better (fill the void) by saying "well there's plenty of girls/guys in the sea" and so while this song could be about a relationship on the surface, I think it goes a bit beyond that.