Lately I’m listening to the song “Lemmings” on the Dude Ranch album a lot. And yesterday night I was reading it’s beautiful lyrics on songmeanings.net when I saw a “theory” of the song’s meaning written by sacrifice_for_life1 back in ’04. Somehow it really touched me. (click on more to see the whole post)
sacrifice_for_life1
05-26-2004I always took this song as being about Mark saying goodbye to the SoCal punk scene he’d grown up around and how it was really good to him, but he had different plans than to stay punk-rock forever.
“Words on the back of flyers [for shows], my clothes are in the dryer [touring]
It means nothing, nothing is changing
La familia is dead and gone [punk is dead and gone], the children grew up and moved on [I think Mark feels it's time to grow and move on from the skater punk kid from San Diego he'd always been used to]““Is it too much to ask for the things to work out this time?
I’m only asking for what is mine [staying punk wasn't for him]
I wanted everything [always wanting to be in a band and having everyone in the skate and punk scenes to know who you are], I got it and now I’m gonna
Throw it away, I’ll throw it away (yeah) [that's what happened but now he wants to move on]““Laughing at the bands we hate [in the scene], all the spots we used to skate
They’re still there, but we’ve gone our own ways
I know it’s for the best but sometimes I wonder
Will I ever have friends like you again? [looking back on the bittersweet memories of being a skate punk and even though he knows it's personally for the best, he was apart of something that he knows isn't like anything else. Maybe he's thinking about bands they used to tour with - NOFX, Pennywise - whom wanted to stay true to their roots and Mark respects that but that lifestyle just isn't for him.]““You’re gonna drown in the mess you make
Your self-inflicted hate
You turn your back on the friends you lose
When they don’t follow all your rules [the punk scene saying this to Mark, and all the rules are the "punk rock rules" which are more like unwritten laws (yes, that was a pun, if you didn't catch that)]But people are what they wanna be
They’re not lemmings to the sea
Maybe it’s time you looked at yourself
And stop blaming life on someone else [and Mark says this to the punk scene. I think he's saying goodbye.]“Call me crazy but the last two songs on Dude Ranch are “Lemmings” and “I’m Sorry”, the first sung by Mark and the latter by Tom, but I think Lemmings is Mark’s goodbye to the punk scene and I’m Sorry is Tom’s goodbye. You all probably think I’m looking WAY too far into this, and you know what? I probably am.
What do you think?
And this comment written by starfish182, I feel the same way and I totally agree.
“blink always seems to capture exactly what i’m feeling in certain situations. that’s why they’re my favorite band and always will be whether or not people think they’ve “sold out.” when you get down to it, their music is just plain AWESOME and it really connects with me. it doesn’t change a thing if people vote for them on TRL or whatever.”
What a great band it is.
Click here to read the whole lyrics.
