In the song New, off his second album, Rules, Alex G delves into the story of a boy named Bobby and a girl named Jan.
There's another response under this song about Jan helping Bobby's addiction, but I believe the opposite is true.
I think the story goes as follows: Jan meets up with Bobby at the park, and he passes a (dollar) bill to her in exchange for drugs. Jan and Bobby then split for the night, going their separate ways.
Jan gets home, wakes her father (for a night job?), then goes to bed. In the middle of the night, she wakes up out of guilt. A voice in her head speculates on who she has become now, in this era of her life, selling drugs to her peers for money, and she rationalizes with it, telling herself this is what people do to become "new," or move away from the past. The voice retaliates, chalking up dealing to a "scheme," and insinuating further that the guilt she felt was from a dream.
My current theory is that Bobby thinks of himself as a failure– hence the whipping he gives himself– and he uses drugs as a way to escape reality.
Bobby gets high and picks up Jan. The nature of their relationship is left ambiguous, and he likely picked her up for a refill or a sesh and dropped her off at home, but the idea of them being romantically involved seems interesting to me.
Jan doesn't speak during the car ride out of guilt for the deepening addiction that Bobby is developing. She can see how it affects him. The song finishes off by repeating the verse where she speaks with her consciousness, but it addresses who Bobby is becoming this time rather than Jan.
In the song New, off his second album, Rules, Alex G delves into the story of a boy named Bobby and a girl named Jan. There's another response under this song about Jan helping Bobby's addiction, but I believe the opposite is true.
I think the story goes as follows: Jan meets up with Bobby at the park, and he passes a (dollar) bill to her in exchange for drugs. Jan and Bobby then split for the night, going their separate ways.
Jan gets home, wakes her father (for a night job?), then goes to bed. In the middle of the night, she wakes up out of guilt. A voice in her head speculates on who she has become now, in this era of her life, selling drugs to her peers for money, and she rationalizes with it, telling herself this is what people do to become "new," or move away from the past. The voice retaliates, chalking up dealing to a "scheme," and insinuating further that the guilt she felt was from a dream.
My current theory is that Bobby thinks of himself as a failure– hence the whipping he gives himself– and he uses drugs as a way to escape reality.
Bobby gets high and picks up Jan. The nature of their relationship is left ambiguous, and he likely picked her up for a refill or a sesh and dropped her off at home, but the idea of them being romantically involved seems interesting to me.
Jan doesn't speak during the car ride out of guilt for the deepening addiction that Bobby is developing. She can see how it affects him. The song finishes off by repeating the verse where she speaks with her consciousness, but it addresses who Bobby is becoming this time rather than Jan.