Song is clearly about a guy who has to take a drug test, probably for work, and isn't happy about it. He might be worried that he's not going to pass it ("I'm not ready to face that..."). Regardless, there's nothing more that he wants to do than smoke a bowl and listen to a Dead album on his headphones, but he can't today.
It's not out of character for Ira to reference the Grateful Dead. They've covered the Dead before, and Ira namechecks them often at live shows. A few years ago at a show I was at he talked at length about how excited he was that he scored Greyfolded (a weird out of print Dead album) at the local record store. McNew recently did a concert with Bill Frisell consisting of only Dead songs. Clearly they're fans of the Dead, although the reference in this song is perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek (as many of Ira's early lyrics were).
Song is clearly about a guy who has to take a drug test, probably for work, and isn't happy about it. He might be worried that he's not going to pass it ("I'm not ready to face that..."). Regardless, there's nothing more that he wants to do than smoke a bowl and listen to a Dead album on his headphones, but he can't today.
It's not out of character for Ira to reference the Grateful Dead. They've covered the Dead before, and Ira namechecks them often at live shows. A few years ago at a show I was at he talked at length about how excited he was that he scored Greyfolded (a weird out of print Dead album) at the local record store. McNew recently did a concert with Bill Frisell consisting of only Dead songs. Clearly they're fans of the Dead, although the reference in this song is perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek (as many of Ira's early lyrics were).
@spaceotter Spot-on analysis
@spaceotter Spot-on analysis