I know I'm way behind the curve here and at this point who really cares, right? but the few times I've heard this song since its release the question has kept springing up in my mind; 'why does this bother me?' I always experience this knee-jerk, semi-nauseating reaction that hits when I hear Foster The People's song Pumped Up Kicks. I've decided that it's probably best to reflect on and validate or dismiss those feelings since I don't want to end up being one of those people who just takes offense for the sake of taking offense, and not really knowing why (or if) it's a real issue. At first my thought was; well it's inappropriate to juxtapose this subject matter (a song about a school shooting) with a throwaway candy-pop tune. But is it inherently in bad taste or does it simply go against songwriting convention that sad/dark lyrics need "sad" instrumentation? And am I unfairly blaming the song itself because of the fact that people don't really listen to the lyrics of catchy songs? (Brown Sugar?) Although I would argue that lyrics and music function in much of the same way that a film's score does with the image, I'll just give Foster the benefit of the doubt and say that he was attempting to go against songwriting norms.
His explanation of the song? To be clear, I don't care what the reasoning behind any art is (and I use the term 'art' loosely here). With a few rare exceptions art exists and should be judged for what it is, not what's it's supposed to be. Nevertheless, he says;
"I feel like the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated. It's kind of an epidemic. Instead of writing about victims and some tragedy, I wanted to get into the killer's mind, like Truman Capote did in In Cold Blood. I love to write about characters. That's my style. I really like to get inside the heads of other people and try to walk in their shoes."
For me this whole issue would have been a moot point if Foster's reasoning behind the song had been "I just wanted to prove that people don't pay attention and you can say whatever you want if it's catchy enough" or "I wanted to show how bland, mass consumerism drowns out and dilutes real-life tragedies." A more cynical answer in this case would have made perfect sense, but that wasn't his answer, so I'll judge the song according to his given excuse. Foster is saying that the song is meant to take us inside the head of a killer. Alright, this approach (identification) is done all the time, in fact it represents the MAJORITY OF ART so the real question is why are you exploring this subject? For the sake of this argument I'll use the lyrics to Peter Gabriel's 1980 song Family Snapshot as contrast; an introspective tune that takes us into the mind of a Lee Harvey Oswald-like assassin. The difference? Well, Foster's song gives us one reason (possibly two if you count the repetitive, superficial jealousy of the chorus) behind the kid's actions; his absent, careless, possibly abusive father...
"Yeah! He found a six-shooter gun in his dad's closet, with the box of fun things"
"Daddy works a long day, he be coming home late, and he's bringing me a surprise 'cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice"
The song has two short verses, verse 1) the kid has a plan. Verse 2) it's implied he is physically abused.
Beyond that the song doesn't actually explore the kid's motivations, or even his immediate flood of jumbled emotions. It's just a detached, generic synopsis. Every line and action are details that could have just as easily been conveyed by an uninvolved third party. There's nothing that only the kid could know, no inner monologue or private detail. The whole point in a song like this is not necessarily to make you feel sorry for, or establish a person's motives (this isn't a trial), but to explore the actions. It's voyeurism to a lesser degree. It's why people enjoy tabloids and true crime shows. It's why people are endlessly fascinated by violence. What are the mechanisms that drive the action? What is the person trying to accomplish in their warped soul?
Peter Gabriel's song demonstrates:
1) The killer's desire to shake people out of what he perceives as their apathy: "I have been waiting for this, all you people in TV land, I will wake up your empty shells"
2) The desire to be remembered "peak time viewing blown in a flash as I burn into your memory cells, 'cause I'm alive" - "I wanna be somebody, you were like that too" - " I need some attention, I shoot into the light"
3) Obsession: "I don't really hate you, I don't care what you do, we were made for each other, me and you"
4) Never learned to give love: "If you don't get even you learn to take, and I will take you"
5) Because he was never given love (absent parents): "All turn quiet, I've been here before, a lonely boy hiding behind the front door, friends have all gone home, there's my toy gun on the floor, come back mom and dad, you're growing apart, you know that I'm growing up sad"
So, then... what's the point of Pumped Up Kicks? It certainly wasn't to make a statement, because we don't learn anything about ourselves via the character. Action A leads to consequence B, rinse and repeat chorus. We don't learn anything about the kid other than that he shoots up his school-mates for two reasons that a large percentage of children in America can claim; lousy, possibly abusive parents and jealousy. Nihilism? Is the point that anybody could be that kid? Well, that's not really true, most of us have enough of a filter or moral compass to not do something so drastic... and haven't. And that's where storytelling comes into play; somebody did do it and we want to know what's going on (as much as can be understood from an outside perspective). What is the traumatic link to the listener? What catalyst could we conceivably identify with where we could therefore imagine ourselves put on that slippery slope or terrible trajectory? But Foster doesn't really tell us anything; just a sing-songy hook pleasantly gift wrapping a horrifying incident.
Again, Peter Gabriel, who's talented at taking on the personae of deranged individuals, demonstrates this well in another of his songs; Intruder (from the same album as Family Snapshot), this time playing a voyeuristic burglar. I bring it up because it's probably closer in line with Pumped Up Kicks in that it's not about anything else, really, just the act: burglarizing and defiling others' belongings and private spaces. But here the intruder tells us what he likes, what he wants, and we are taken deep inside his psyche by showing the fetishism involved. If Pumped Up Kicks was intended to be a character study then it is an abject failure. Regardless of whose perspective this is meant to be seen from - outside narrator, perpetrator, or an open morality play for the listener to project themselves - the effect is the same: ironic detachment. And here one might say "well, that's the point, it's the detachment that allows a person to be able to commit such acts".
But the clinical sterility and coldness only comes from the lyrics. The music itself, as well as the singer's tonality, makes the kid sound like a mindless killjoy... not as someone committing a desperate act in an attempt at finding some warped sense of meaning. So, then, who is the narrative voice? Is the kid cold and detached or is the narrator? A narrator-driven perspective sounds deeply unsympathetic as well and, with the vocal delivery, almost unaware of the subject matter altogether.
The objection here is not to violence, of course. I have no problem with Johnny Cash singing about "shooting that bad bitch down" or the numerous Blues or Rock songs about the dispatching of people. The question is in how it's presented; is it autobiographical? Is it tongue and cheek? Is the artist making commentary on said event? Do we learn anything from the troubled mind of the perpetrator? I don't feel any of those things listening to Pumped Up Kicks. Hell, the song barely even attempts basic metaphor. What conclusion can we gather about the song then if there's 1) no voyeuristic character study 2) no consequences to actions/moral 3) or statement on how "youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated?" Because this song is certainly not a commentary, it's merely saying 'this happened. The end.' The song itself feels isolating. It's presenting a scenario with no implication: either through the inflection of the vocals or the instrumental choices. It just drifts off into a nihilistic haze.
And that's where I'll leave it; the narrative is superficial. Irresponsible? Nah. In poor taste? Maybe? The overall effect is just... "cool." An off-putting "coolness" that just seems to absolve itself of any need to frame the subject matter. Which is weird considering Mark Foster decided to write about it in the first place...
Which brings me to my own personal theory: that the chorus existed long before the rest of the lyrics and that Foster simply filled in the rest because it sounded too good to change. That the line "all the other kids... better run faster than my bullet" existed before any of the other lyrical content and he shaped the rest of the "story" around that phrase, doing his best not to make it sound too sadistic.
Some might say "dood, it's just a pop song", but that's precisely it, if you can't use the format to do justice to the subject matter, then you probably shouldn't bother at all. Truman Capote had three-hundred-odd pages to construct a profile of the men involved in In Cold Blood. Perhaps Mark was drawing from far too ambitious a character-exploration model to compare to his 3 minute, 4 chord pop song. What I'm saying is that, maybe, in the end, pop isn't the best avenue to explore certain subjects... especially if those pesky lyrics that delve into the dark recesses of life interfere with the effectiveness of your radio jingle.