Today I'm going to look at a song and do my best to way over-analyze it. Shouldn't be too hard.
First off, here's the song:
Really, it's a lovely song. Awesome beat, some sick flows, but I'm gonna look at a couple of lyrics.
So sick, we get to choose and we skip the plan
Pay no attention, no resentment ever evened out a weaker hand.
Get some comfort from the chemist and we hold each other as close as we can.
The world we live in has made a large portion of the society entirely marginalized. If we try to stick to the normal American Dream way of living, which by now is practically a fabrication, it does nothing but cause more harm, e.g. we are so sick.
And since all of this attempting to survive in an America where the large majority of people are given basically no chance of any real success, why would you stick to the normal plan of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Sometimes doing what you're supposed to do won't make your life a better life.
This is a huge theme throughout the record, and I feel like this is one of the lines that drives that point home most.
Yet, at the same point, fuck it if we can't fit in and make our lives the ideal life. Resenting people who have their shit together and know what they want and are happy with society doesn't make anything actually better. Instead of worrying about how life fucks people over, focus on your own family whatever it may be, and the people the close to you. If you can make your own happiness, you don't need society's idea of it.
People are too easy to dislike other people because of things they have. It accomplishes nothing, and even if you had those things, without those people close to you it would be nothing. Focus on what matters. In that same vein, we get to the opening line of the first verse:
Wait,
Worse things have happened to better people,
That's the mantra.
Even if our situation looks like shit, you know worse has happened to other people. Don't fret over the little shit. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about anything we do. Anything we can do to make our life better is probably a step in the right direction. It's just too many people focus on insignificant plastic things that they want to make their lives better.
And really, is it wrong to be happy with what we have even though some bad things have happened to us? I think to a lot of society, if life isn't perfect we aren't happy. And that seems absolutely counter productive, especially when society precludes us from being truly happy. I guess that goes back to the first half of the chorus where "we are so content to sleep where we land."
If we're not gonna move up, why not be happy with what we have?
Stare easy or fade to another place.
Why stay?
Ain't no sense in mending many fences, they break.
Only taking when there's things to take
All the way.There are lots of short term goals that are unattainable. The first thing that pops into my mind are people who go on crash diets to lose weight, but don't actually change their lifestyle. Or people who sacrifice everything they have for an opportunity to do one thing, but then don't fully commit to that thing. You shouldn't jump off the deep end for a short term opportunity, and you certainly shouldn't give up the things that make your living if you're not going to go all out for the thing that truly makes you happy.
Half assing things will just make everything fucked. Best do everything you can to make your life better, and sometimes the best thing to do is be happy with all the things you have instead of striving for the same things other people want.
You see these same themes throughout a lot of the rest of the song, and the rest of We Don't Even Live Here, P.O.S's new album out now.
A few more choice quotes from Where We Land:
Out the box
Busted but fuck it it's what I got, so I'll trust it...
It's a thin line between coated and closed....
If more of them was honest you know no one would be cautious
Highly recommend the song, and the album, and pretty much all of P.O.S's work.
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