This song is not a punk “turn on, tune in, drop out” anthem, with all of its pompous, falsely enlightened, hippie airs.
Mike concedes that, even by his own estimation, “I will always be lower than you… lowest totem pole position is where I'd rather stay.”
His view is far more nihilistic: No one escapes the harsh lessons that mortality eventually will teach us all. The frail edifices of false grandeur that we build are destined to crumble. It’s only that the more delusional one is about their own importance, the more painful the fall. This is particularly true when the way you’ve climbed so high is by stepping over everyone. In that case, you’ve left “no one to catch you when you call.”
This song is not a punk “turn on, tune in, drop out” anthem, with all of its pompous, falsely enlightened, hippie airs. Mike concedes that, even by his own estimation, “I will always be lower than you… lowest totem pole position is where I'd rather stay.” His view is far more nihilistic: No one escapes the harsh lessons that mortality eventually will teach us all. The frail edifices of false grandeur that we build are destined to crumble. It’s only that the more delusional one is about their own importance, the more painful the fall. This is particularly true when the way you’ve climbed so high is by stepping over everyone. In that case, you’ve left “no one to catch you when you call.”