From an interview with WGBH Boston.
Q: Hanley was going through a breakup while writing the record…
A: Oh yeah. It was a pretty big breakup.
Q: … and things that happened in that relationship made their way into the song.
A: He always used to tell people that, 'you’re a parody of yourself.' Like that was his ultimate diss that he could give someone. And honestly to this day he's like,'Where are my royalties for that line?' I think he just asked me that again like 2 years ago. And he had a book called The Comfort of Strangers under our coffee table for years. I never read it but the title stood out to me. So that became ‘comfort of knowledge’ and it’s about karma and energy. And the ‘comfort of a knowledge of a rise above the sky above,’ is like you know you’re going to heaven so just do whatever you want while you’re here. It’s a rejection of that idea.
Q: She believes that your time on earth is finite, and that you should be the best version of yourself while you’re here.
A: You should be good while you’re here. You should live the best version of yourself while you’re here as opposed to relying on this huge sky ghost to take care of you later.
From an interview with WGBH Boston. Q: Hanley was going through a breakup while writing the record… A: Oh yeah. It was a pretty big breakup.
Q: … and things that happened in that relationship made their way into the song. A: He always used to tell people that, 'you’re a parody of yourself.' Like that was his ultimate diss that he could give someone. And honestly to this day he's like,'Where are my royalties for that line?' I think he just asked me that again like 2 years ago. And he had a book called The Comfort of Strangers under our coffee table for years. I never read it but the title stood out to me. So that became ‘comfort of knowledge’ and it’s about karma and energy. And the ‘comfort of a knowledge of a rise above the sky above,’ is like you know you’re going to heaven so just do whatever you want while you’re here. It’s a rejection of that idea.
Q: She believes that your time on earth is finite, and that you should be the best version of yourself while you’re here. A: You should be good while you’re here. You should live the best version of yourself while you’re here as opposed to relying on this huge sky ghost to take care of you later.