Jimmy Eat World Band • Page 102

okay, im going to blab a little bit about some of my thoughts on "Invented" as an album.

like i was saying before, to me Invented is the closest thing a "concept" album that we have gotten from Jimmy Eat World. And not a concept album in the sense that like Armor For Sleeps "What Do To When Youre Dead" is a concept album... but i guess conceptual in the sense that i think it does a pretty good job of narrating a specific story / character throughout the album. People tend to get up in arms on things that are and are not concept albums, that isnt the purpose of this post. all i mean is the songs are really well intertwined and come together to tell a story.

"Heart Is Hard To Find" is such a cool opener, because i feel like it sets things up for the record similar to how "An Introduction To The Album" sets up lyrical themes in the Hoteliers "Home Like Noplace Is There". Lyrically it almost has a sense of exhaustion. Like this kind of heart-ache, or social struggle, or whatever has been internally going on for a long time for the albums person, and this song is like they're finally letting it out. I also just love how the title / lyric of the song heart is hard to find can be related to the theme of the album. because a lot of the first half of the album i get this sense that the charecter is with someone, and the relationship is slowly dying and falling apart. the song finishes off with "It's hard to find the heart, sometimes..." - this may be far fetched but i feel like this line is almost foreshadowing the love that the character latter finds at the end of the album. that words "sometimes", i get a glimmer of hope from that.

the album then goes into "My Best Theory", which introduces the turmoil of this relationship. Which then goes into "Evidence", one of my favorite songs on the album. "Hang up a sheet, between our things, won't have to see evidence"... This song displays that things are starting to get really bad. in my mind, i always envision this couple that is still living together, but they're basically done with each other. Whether sheets are actually hung up in the appartment to separate beds / theyre things, or whether it be figurative, i dont think it matters, because i think its a perfect mental image about the state of the relationship at this point in the album.

I dont know why, but when i imagine this bad and toxic relationship in my head that is described a lot in the first half of this record, i always imagine the couple in a small apartment. So when it goes into "Higher Devotion", despite the fact that i dont sonicly love this song, lyrically its perfect for the flow / arc of the album.
"The quiet should be nice but isn't, I guess we're going to spend the day like this: in psychic screaming". at this point i still have the image of them in this small space, but even more divided now. The character is stuck with this person and this dead relationship, theyre barely talking.
"I'm tired of all the war you bring home I command a higher devotion"

the next 3 ring of songs is probably my favorite sequencing on the record. Movielike, Coffee & Cigarettes, and Stop. Its also going to be the hardest to explain my interpretation of because honestly, my interpretation changes a lot when it comes to these three songs and how they fit in with this story. id love to hear other peoples thoughts on this. i dont know how much detail i want to dive into on these three. ill give it a shot though and maybe run through a couple of my interpretations as fast as i can.

Movielike is fairly obvious. and much like "Higher Devotion, that very first lyric sets the stage for imagary and whats going on. "My face coming down in streaks. All alone with your things, the apartment still ringing". The character is now alone in the apartment, the significant other is moved out completely, thats why the "appartment is ringing", like how all more hollow rooms do.

Coffee & Cigarettes is where it starts to get crazy in terms of where i think this album goes. but hey, this is art and totally up for interpretation right? so no matter how dumb my interpretation of this point forward in the album is... well, whatever, hopefully we can all discuss it haha.
So, in "Movielike" its mentioned that this is all possibly happening in New York. In Coffee & Cigarettes, i think this is when the character decides to get out of New York completely and needs something completely new. i literally imagine the person packing up and heading west. and when they get there, they meet someone new. to me, this song is where the "new love" portion of the album is introduced. also, in this song the theory of moving from New York to out west could ne confirmed with the thought that the tapes the character takes. "the dead from fillmore east" is a live recording from New York. i dno, maybe a stretch but again, just my interpretation of the story. i think a vital part of this song too is the male / female vocal duo. i think that plays a big illustration in the romance aspect of it. i also get the sense from all the songs prior that the past / toxic relationship was pretty complicated. i mean, its sung about how the relationship is screwed, yet theyre still living together... obviously rough. Then in Coffee and Cigarettes, things are now "as simple as it gets". thats the best kind of love. when things are just simple and they make sense, and you can stay up all night with that person because at the beginning its so exciting (staying up with you, coffee and cigarettes)

when "Stop" comes, i always imagine this could be the past bad relationship person continuing to try and communicate with the albums main character, even from so far away. maybe via phone or something.

"Combination of strong and lust
How easily you turn, and turn it off
Do you take what you want
And save it for a better time?
don't act that way
Honey I don't buy it at all
If you're really as tough as your defenses
Let them fall
I see it all in my head.
Cool hands on your steps
You wanna make me mad?
Stop 'cause I am."

that underlined lyric i relate back to the part in higher devotion where it says "Don't know the why or how / Or what my body needs / Give me something I can feel / Show me you can read my mind". a lot times when relationships are gone bad, one of the hardest things can be cutting ties in the physical aspect of the relationship. especially with the idea that they were still living together in the stories phase of Higher Devotion. So that underlined lyric (and all those lyrics) are like a combination of flashback and that ex still trying to talk to the character.

Littlething is a song to the new romance. not going to dive too deep, because you can just take a look at the lyrics and pretty much let your imagination figure out what could be happening. a lot of vibes of anxiety in the early stages of a relationship youre excited about / wanting to be with someone and spend lots of time with them.

Cut talks about the baggage that comes with having had a really bad break up in the past. I sometimes wonder if this song is from the perspective of the new lover, and some of the frustration they're experiencing from being with this person that has such a heavy past (moving across the country to get away from their old life). maybe even a little break up between them, or just a rocky patch where that "baggage" is causing some problems in the relationship progressing.
"There's always some baggage you've got to check
I'm trying
Hope that you'd understand
I'm sorry, boy
I'm not cut for this no more
Yes I loved you, boy
But I'm not cut for this no more"

the only way i make sense of "Action Needs an Audience" being next and right before "Invented", the love climax of the album, is this: maybe due to the problems in "Cut", "Action Needs an Audience" could be a track where the character is talking to himself and pretty much throwing down on he needs to change and let go of the past. obviously a lot of anger and frustration in this song, but it really only makes sense with the story arc if it is directed at the character himself.

We then get to the climax of the record. "Invented" into "Mixtape". these are songs from the charecter to the new significant other. they pretty much close the story and tie everything together. Invented is an account of their meeting / and everything and it is the best song ever written.

So, thats my interpretation of the album. was not expecting this post to turn into an essay, i hope people actually read that so we can discuss some of it, despite how long it is.
THOUGHTS???????????????????????

 

A lot of that makes total sense to me. Gonna give the album a spin later with that stuff in mind.

 

Let me know your thoughts after!

 

Thanks to this I am gonna jump back in to Invented. I haven't listened for a while just because it's probably my least favorite JEW record. I'm gonna spin this today and get back to you. You are just killing it with the good posts lately.

 

Man, this actually made me so happy because that post took forever to write haha

 

need more Jimmy talk the past couple days

 

Crimson and clover, over and over...

 

I want a really self-referential track on the next album called Jimmy Eat World. Maybe group rap, like in the style of Beastie Boys?

The lyrics something like:

"Yo my name is Jimmy, I'm an eater of worlds
fuckin' comin' in hot, I'm a steal yo gurl.
I believe in futures, but I'm always in the middle
Half-invented, I'm demented, like a little diddle fiddle."

 

Be Sensible is seriously one of my favorite b-sides in all of music.

 

Open. Bar. Reception.

 

Are we counting SOMST? If so, easily Disintegration or Closer for me

 

Just picked up the SOMST vinyl at Hastings. Excited to dig into these tracks a little deeper.

 

That was a really good write-up on Invented. Totally makes sense to me. I think I read Jim wrote every song based off of a photograph or something? Like he would look at it and then create a story and characters around it.

 

Found this really interesting and unique cover of Pain. I love everything about and related to Jimmy Eat World.

 

Didn't realize Invented finally started to be out of stock everywhere on vinyl. I took seeing it available on amazon for as cheap as $13 a lot for granted and didn't get it for some reason. Now I'm going to have to scramble to snatch one before it goes up in price more.

 

Dude I am in he same boat. There's a few on discogs but it's either international or way too expensive.

 

Invented was the first record I ever bought on vinyl. The gates/spine are a bit bent up because I got it from Hot Topic. Still never played it actually. I should do that sometime soon.

Was it only released as a single LP? That's what mine is. A 2xLP of it would be ideal though.

 

Futures clearly the best.

 

While I agree it is their best, I'm not sold on it being as cut and dry.

I'm thinking the thread needs a poll. Favorite JEW album. Can only vote for one album, once.

 

There is a poll in the OP but I think you could vote twice

 

Oh cool. I even voted. Must have been a while ago though.

 

I think CTL and Clarity are both easily better than Futures. Honestly there's only 4, maybe 5 songs I really love on Futures.

 

I agree. Clarity and CTL are the top two

 

Obligatory "Futures demolishes the rest of the discography" post.