js_thrill | This Year 365 songs: January 30th (Reply)

Today we have an Orange Ball of Peace

My comments yesterday turned out to be on the nose for today's song/annotations, as well. Darnielle says:

It's the attraction of the difficult equation, you know—wanting to write something that's really simple but that's also hard to solve; wanting to write things that have a solid enough surface for even a child to be able to take in at one glance, but that craze when the light hits them. Wanting to write stories that work just fine as themselves but that hide at least one more story inside of them. Given the choice between giving away too much or not giving away enough, I will, in my personal life, always overdisclose, and, in my professional life, always hold something back. My professional self and my personal self are barely even on speaking terms, and who can blame them?

They don't really understand each other. This song is obviously about a guy who has realized his lifelong ambition of becoming a fireman.

That's why it's such a happy song, in D major with a happy little riff between lines. It's also abour how he didn't actually pass the exam you have to take to work for the Fire Department, but that's okay.

There are a lot of ways to be a fireman.

This isn't quite an answer to my comments from yesterday, about the truths in the narrative that even Darnielle doesn't know, but it sure seems to be getting at that same point about his writing.