FILTER SONG INTERPRETATIONS

SHORT BUS SONG INTERPRETATIONS

This song was originally thought to be about Kurt Cobain, but was revealed to be about R. Budd Dwyer, a politician who killed himself before his staff and assorted television news crews.  He was elected Treasurer for the State of Pennsylvania and had been tried and found guilty of racketeering, bribery, fraud, and conspiracy.  Although Hey Man Nice Shot isn't about Kurt Cobain, the line "they'd stick it in your face and let you smell what they considered wrong" sounds like a reference to the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit.  Hey Man Nice Shot is basically sarcastically saying good job shooting yourself and taking a nonchalant attitude by saying "hey man have fun."

"'Hey Man Nice Shot' is about a guy doing something drastic," Rich picks up, "holding a whole bunch of people at bay, and doing something incredibly devastating to himself. I responded to that as some guy trying to make his life better, by making it worse. And trying to make everyone else alive through suicide. I'm not going to bring up his name out of respect for his family, and the fact that I don't want to sell records off of it. As far as me seeing some guy do something crazy [in the eyes of] everyone else, I saw him do something that took a lot of balls—granted, it was very wrong—I still think that if you tried something and it was a fucked-up way of dealing with it, hey man, nice shot. You took a shot at something. I'm not condoning his death, but like a kamikaze pilot, he had the balls to do something. Of course, fighting the U.S. in the ’40s wasn't the best idea in the world for the Japanese, but they were dedicated and they felt this was the best way to deal with battleships. At least there is a spirit there. I don't know if it's right."

DOSE

The lyrics of Dose seem to be directed at someone trying to preach and force their beliefs on people.  The part telling the person to "stick your fingers in your book", is probably in reference to the bible.  The line about going down and saving someone else might be telling the preacher to go "down" to hell.

UNDER

The line that says "I got empty point to make, it's about a faith" may be about the previous song, Dose, which was trying to make a point about a faith.  The whole song seems to be about giving up and taking in the abuse, or "going under."

SPENT

This song seems to be about apathy and wasting time.  The song also seems to be about the slacker lifestyle of Generaton X with the sarcastic "I know you really care."  Also "you're just another x" might be in reference to Generation X.

TAKE ANOTHER

This song seems to be about drug use and basically self-abuse in general.  Trying to say no but eventually giving in as there's nothing worth living for, "I got a nowhere point of view, it makes me wanna take another piece", and taking out your frustrations on yourself.

STUCK IN HERE

A song about generally being stuck in a rut or in a state of depression.  "Forget the hours but not the day" might be saying just try to see the big picture and get through your current situation.

"Especially gripping is "Stuck In Here" the claustrophobic song Patrick wrote in the throes of self-doubt and self-pity. The song, written in his underwear on a Friday night when all his friends were out on the town, renders Patrick emotionally naked, standing before his audience stripped bare without defenses. This is the part of the genius of Filter. The uninhibited, unabashed Patrick is willing to walk the emotional plank in order to communicate with his audience. It's a very essential part of him. E. M. Forster advised us to "Only connect," in Howard's End and Rich Patrick listened."

IT'S OVER

It's Over seems like a companion song to Hey Man Nice Shot, taking a negative look at suicide.  Saying how selfish suicide is, since everyone you know is affected by it.  "Watch your back, I'll watch mine" is a line dealing with the attitude of no one else matters, and only looking out for yourself.

GERBIL

The gerbil in this song seems to be someone living a meaningless life whose inner demons catch up with him.  "He checks out of here", and commits suicide, maybe a prelude to It's Over.

"The song "Gerbil" is essentially about the guy on the answering machine on "Spent". He's just a guy that slipped through the cracks of the system and blames everything on the system, and has kind of decided to live his life outside the system. I respect him, to a certain degree. I really think he's just a loose cannon that needs to be seen by people. I think everyone should meet this guy one time. You'll realize how far people can go off the deep end."

WHITE LIKE THAT

This song takes a reverse look at racism and seems to deal with being discriminated against because you're white. The song may or may not have been inspired by the song "Passing Complexion" by Big Black, which includes the lyric "He'd been white, he'd been black. They asked him, black like that?"

"In "White Like That" he sings "They call me white trash," delivering a preemptory punch, before the world can.  Not that the world would judge him that harshly - but Filter's tenet is that perception is reality."

CONSIDER THIS

A spiteful song telling someone after all they've done, it would be better if they were dead.

"What's really funny is the song 'Consider This.' It has this mid-’80s anthemic U2 kind of feel. And the message is, ‘I think you'd be better off if you were dead.’ And I'm talking about one specific human being that completely fucked me over."  He takes a drink of beer and looks right at me, anticipating the next question. "And it was not Trent Reznor."

SO COOL

The things people will do to make themselves cool, hurting someone, even killing someone.

SOUNDTRACK SONG INTERPRETATIONS

A song about being betrayed by your friend.  How he wouldn't take any chances and left you when you needed him most.

JURASSITOL

This song seems to deal with that stage in your life when you hate your parents and all people older than you.  The Jurassitol song title is a combination of Geritol and Jurassic, and is consistent with the anti-old people message of the song.  Having to inherit the mistakes of the older generation, and having to pick up their slack.  How they get rich while the younger generation has to work.  The concept of the song is based on the idea of "the young man taking a step back while the old man walks by." 

(CAN'T YOU) TRIP LIKE I DO

"The lyrics are childish," said Patrick, who added that he's not a reader of the Spawn comic series that inspired the movie. "It's like an innocent child trying to communicate 'The understanding of a 4-year-old/ and the rationale of a New York cop.' Essentially it's like I've done things in my life, why don't you give them a shot? Can't everybody feel like I do?" 

"...Just a kind of over-the-top fucking anthem about tripping on fucking acid."

ONE

One is a cover of a Three Dog Night song.

TITLE OF RECORD SONG INTERPRETATIONS

The first verses of this song seem to be lashing out at somebody,  just hating them, and encouraging them to become an alcoholic.  The line "You got your Jesus and I got my space, you got your reasons and I got my case" is similar to some of the lyrics from Dose.  The lyrics then seem to detail the person having a mental breakdown, and becoming addicted to a drug of some kind.

"Like "Welcome to the Fold," to me, is kind of a funny song because I'm just screaming about shit, I'm just mad, I'm just kind of going off. When the chorus hits, who cares, who cares, get off this bullshit, celebrate nothing. Let's not have a celebration for anything. Let's just celebrate the fact that there's nothing to celebrate. Let's have beers just to fucking have beers."

"Welcome to the Fold," was written about people trying to steal his money. "Some girl got hurt," Patrick says. "Got a combat boot in the face out in the desert playing some gig and, 'hey, I got hurt.' It's all about the lawsuit and you take my money." Quoting "Welcome to the Fold," he continues: "'You think you're great. I think you're shit. I hate your face.' It's almost like my lyric writing can be as juvenile and retarded as an eighth grader."

"When the chorus hits, it's just like, 'Who cares?' " Patrick said. "Get off this bullsh--. Celebrate nothing. Let's not have a celebration for anything, let's just celebrate the fact that there's nothing to celebrate. Let's have beers just to f---in' have beers."

CAPTAIN BLIGH

"Captain Bligh is an amalgamation of the mutineer and the mutinee. One is this stodgy, stuck-up captain, and the other guy is rebelling. On one hand, you have the greatest navigator of the Royal Navy, Captain Bligh, and because of his stuck-up inability to relate to his crew, he loses his ship, the Bounty. On the other hand, you have his first mate, Fletcher Christian, who ends up burning the ship and ends up on an island and will never go home again. So they both lose."

"[The song is] kind of based on the relationship between Fletcher Christian and Captain Bligh on the Bounty. [William Bligh was a British naval officer who as captain of the HMS Bounty was set adrift by his mutinous crew during a voyage to Tahiti.] I'm a little bit of a history buff and thought it was so fascinating that this captain of a ship was so talented at navigation and so dedicated to the sea but yet he treated his crew and the people around him so badly that Fletcher Christian led this mutiny on the Bounty and kicked this guy off and then this guy, literally on a small little sailboat, navigates himself all the way back to England from the Caribbean. That just blows my mind."

["Captain Bligh"] is also about saying I've realized that I've been an asshole at certain times of my life, and like I say, "I'm a guilty man," and I can't believe the thing I've done to you, but at the same time pushing different buttons on different people. It's just kind of an adolescent scream-fest. It's a song about confusion. 

"Captain Bligh" is about apologizing. Apologizing for nothing. Apologizing for just being who I am."

The line about trying to give prayer a "shot" leads into the Hey Man Nice Shot type beginning of It's Gonna Kill Me.

IT'S GONNA KILL ME

"It's about the girl. "She's my favorite piece of plastic." That's the telephone held next to my ear. "This girl's got a grip/Where's mine?" She had me in control. "I spent the last night walking home/I spent the last night dreaming/I spent the last night screaming." I went from having this amazing time and walking home to screaming on the telephone. The typical date gone bad!"

"It's Gonna Kill Me' was about when I thought that [a woman] was gonna kill me because she was feeding me so many pills," Patrick recalled Monday in a Yahoo!/SonicNet online chat. "She was into the [prescription anti-anxiety drug] Xanax, but I'm not a pill popper, so I saw my way through it."

 THE BEST THINGS

The theme of stoplights seems to be a metaphor for going nowhere in life, and never achieving your goals.  The best things in life seem to be way down the road, and your car is stalled.

TAKE A PICTURE

Take A Picture seems to be about being on a natural high (hence high on an airplane), but fearing that you won't remember what it feels like and it will eventually end.  For a while you seem to know the answers to life's problems, but you know that the feeling won't last.

"Actually, my favorite song is "Take A Picture." It brings up the happiest time in my life, I think. One time when I was just running around a plane naked. Ha! I had a lot of fun on that plane trip."

"Yeah, it was about absolute, fucking unbelievable rock stardom, and I don't remember one second about it. All I remember was waking up with my pants around my ankles, and a nervous yuppie sitting next to me in first class literally panicking. Whoever was with me pulled my wallet out of my pants and took out $800. He gave it to the flight attendant and he said, "Look, he's a rock star. Please don't have him arrested."

SKINNY

This song seems to deal with someone being picked on who is mentally sick, or has a "psychological flu."  They are encouraged not to show any weakness, and to never give up even when all looks lost.  The skinny chorus of the song could mean skinny as in the truth, or skinny as in just being called skinny.

I WILL LEAD YOU

Possibly about being led on a psychedelic trip involving cocaine, a movie, and kissing.  The song title might be a takeoff on U2's "I Will Follow."

CANCER

The cancer in this song is humanity.  This song takes a negative look at humanity's environmental impact on the planet, and how we have spread and conquered the planet like a disease.

"Filter are social anthropologists. They're sending us postcards from the edge­­ an early warning system, cautioning us not to dawdle or waste our time lamenting our fate; urging us to go out and start to repair the damage. Like they did in their own lives. They take the pulse of our culture, and give it back to us as a soundtrack. Their odd fusion of cigarettes, Budweisers, Buffalo chicken wings, automatic tellers, and the Internet is as telling as Robespierre and his cronies were about France's Reign of Terror. But it's too early to tell what Filter's reign will be called."

"We're monkeys, for Christ sakes. Racism and hatred and greed and lying and cheating and stealing and murder. That's like the number one thing we do. Ruining the planet, killing animals for the fun of it, killing each other for the fun of it. Columbine? Those kids were having a blast. And then the party was over, and the highlight of the party was, "Hey, let's fucking kill ourselves." They were laughing. They were goofing-fucking off blowing each other's heads off. "Hey look, look at this!" BOOOM! "Blew his head off." We're a sick society. We're a sick planet."

I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE

"I wrote ten minutes after I put my fist through a wall," remembers Patrick. "I had to go to the hospital to get stitches. I recorded the track, and when I played it for my manager, he asked me, 'What are you singing in that verse?' And I'm like, 'I don't know what I'm sayin'...' I was living the moment, confused and bewildered over a girl who was cruel to me."

"Like, the song "I'm Not the Only One" is about how she cheated on me, and the whole thing is this confused lover boy going, "Oh, my God. I can't believe she did this to me." The anger, the sadness. The resolution that this is really falling apart. It's all there. That was the main thing that ended the relationship. I was totally faithful to her, and after she told me there was another guy, I smashed my fist into the wall. I pretty much shattered it. After I went to the hospital, they had to fucking re-break it and put it back into place."

MISS BLUE

"Miss Blue is kind of this conversation I had where I said, "I don't want to live my life without you, and I can honestly see myself dying because of this relationship." And she's like, "No, I want you to live, I think I'm the first one who will die." And I realized as I wrote the song that it turned almost into this old couple fighting over who was gonna pull the plug first. It gets very Jack Kevorkian. It's a sad song about the end of a love and the end of a life as you know it. I lost it when I sang the last lines of the song, and you can hear that on the record."

"It's kind of funny, because I never thought I'd sing a song about a girl — and you know, 'Don't say goodbye' and that stuff — it's ridiculous what I'm singing about, but I had to."

THE AMALGAMUT SONG INTERPRETATIONS

The Amalgamut is a celebration of this freedom, there is no such thing as "where are you from" in this country. Your ancestors could be Irish, Polish, Jewish, Native American, you can have that culture, but ultimately you're an Amalgamut. Whenever anyone asks me what my heritage is, I could say I am Native American, Irish, Spanish, German, Italian, but instead I proudly say I am a 13th generation American. Be an individual in this country and realize that since the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, World War I, World War II, The Korean War, The Vietnam War, Desert Storm, and The War on Terror, thousands and thous-ands and thousands, maybe millions of men, have died for that freedom. This record is about going out there and being free, because the ideology of freedom isn't just in America, it's in England, it's in France, it's in Italy, it's in Germany, it's in Japan, it's in Canada, it's in Australia, and it's in many other countries. So please go out there and live your lives and remember that you're all free and that we're all Amalgamuts."

This song details the narrator's deep state of personal turmoil, and the reaction of unnamed people in his life who "walk away" from him.

The rocker "You Walk Away" is about "the first time the band tried to leave me."

AMERICAN CLICHE

This song details what has become an "American Cliché." Namely bullying in school. In the seemingly innocent environment of a school bus, which represents school in general, as it is a means of getting somewhere else inlife, kids are caught up in a social life consisting of conformity and group alienation. The character in the first verses has "the last seat on the bus" and is the victim, while the character in the second verses has "the first seat on the bus" and is the aggressor, but deep inside they ask themselves the same questions. They question who to trust, and what trends and movements to follow. But the character in the second verses directs his turmoil outward, "making his friend beaten" in a shallow bid to "make himself the same" and fit in.

Remember when you were getting on the bus when you were in high school and they'd pick on you? That's an American cliché we could do without. And showing up to your friends' schools with a couple of shotguns and 50 pipe bombs isn't good either. So, don't be that cliché. Don't be ridiculous. Get out there and fight the urge to be negative and harmful. That's really what I was thinking of [when I wrote 'American Cliché'].

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

"Where Do We Go From Here" is a plaintive cry, reflecting young people's confusion at what paths to take and what decisions to make for the future. From the the "half-truths" of the media, to the fickleness of societal trends, the narrator is not so glad "he met you", meaning society and the world in general. The things in the world that make him "scraped and bruised", and the unhealthy relationships that make him "wheeze", make him desperate for some sort of escape. It all "makes him want to go away", but as the chorus exclaims, "stop dreaming 'bout the shiny gun"; suicide is not the answer.

"It's kind of about how confused I feel about my direction in life and what I'm supposed to do. At least I've always known I was going to be in a band, but there are so many people out there that have no idea what they want to do in the future. One minute these kids are like, 'Well, I guess we're going off to college, and then we're gonna live normal lives,' and then all of a sudden September 11 happens and it seems like there's even more confusion now."

COLUMIND

In this song the narrator directs his anger towards the killers at Columbine, and others who share the same murderous mindset, or "Columind." He rallies against the futility of it all, asking "what they get done here", and  asking them if they reached their "killing goal." Their bloodthirst causes them to "want everything" and to "kill everything."

There were a couple moments of Columbine [in 'American Cliché']. When I was a kid, I felt that rage. But my rage was, 'You know what, I'm going to dye my hair black and I'm going to pick up a guitar.' My revenge is doing well. Their revenge is 'let's kill.' Don't be that cliché, be the other cliché. Be the success story.

Yeah, because depression and angst are easy. They're easy negative gravitational emotions . . . Try to cultivate something. If those guys had picked up guitars rather than shotguns or machine pistols they might be giving us a run for our money right now. They obviously had a lot of pent up emotion and frustration and, of course, it's not that simple -- there are a lot of other things that went into why that happened. Try and cultivate something -- turn it around.

THE MISSING

I wrote all the music for 'The Missing' right before [the Sept. 11 terror attacks]. It was a very solemn, sad, melancholy song to begin with. Boom, 9/11 happens. That night, I go in and start writing the lyrics. And I'm telling you, it poured out of me. I was so distraught . . . It helped me get over it -- or at least to move on. You don't get over something like that.

"I started this one song 'The Missing' on September 9, and the verses were about the complete lack of faith I have in God. I mean, I can't believe in a God that would let this Earth turn into what it is. And then 9/11 comes around and I come back to sing the choruses, and all of a sudden it's about the cruelty of other men. It took on a whole different meaning, and that happened with a lot of the songs."

THE ONLY WAY (IS THE WRONG WAY)

War is a horrible thing, but sometimes it is the "only way." That is the theme of this song, which details the the collective thought processes of America after 9-11. When it feels like the world is "with me or against me" and it feels like everything we took for granted, all of life's "promises", are a mess. Meanwhile the narrator asks those responsible if they thought America would "disappear" or "wash away" after their act of war, and asks the world in general if they thought America would "last this long" or "get this strong." The narrator ends the song with "you always push me down", perhaps expressing disappointment at the anti-American attitudes of some people.

MY LONG WALK TO JAIL

Also planned for the album is the hard, anthemic rock tune "My Long Walk to Jail," which was inspired by a random call Patrick received in the studio from an inmate serving time at Chicago's Cook County Jail. The song begins with an operator recording, announcing that the call is coming from a prison.

"This guy gets on the phone, and says, 'I don't know who I'm talking to, I just want to talk to anyone, I'm losing my mind in prison, I've been here for two weeks and I've got to talk to someone,' " he said. "I sat there and talked to this guy for the allotted 10 minutes."

The conversation got Patrick thinking about his own brief brush with imprisonment a few years back. He spent 12 hours in an Arizona jail for hitting a fan with a beer bottle at a concert; the singer claims the bottle slipped from his hands by accident when he was attempting to cool the crowd off.

"[The song] is almost like I'm saying goodbye to my mother and my family and my friends but optimistically [vowing to] get through this just like I get through anything else," he said.

"Basically, the song talks about how this kid fell off the tracks and is afraid of the gangbangers doing really bad things to him in jail. It has this vibe about how prison can breed criminals instead of curing them. People go in there and it's like Criminal University. You're scared as sh-- when you enter, but you have to learn all the rules of the place to survive."

SO I QUIT

Possibly a statement against drug abuse, detailing the reasons why the narrator "quit", namely disgust at the abusers. The verses seem to be a response against people who obtain and abuse legal drugs, becoming pathetic addicts just like common "hoods" and "whores." They better not try and take anything from the narrator, or he'll make those fucking pieces of shit die.

GOD DAMN ME

An introspective look at the narrator's self, detailing the problems he seems to love getting himself into ("there isn't enough hot water to be in"), and the limitations he feels in life ("there isn't enough sky to fly in"). He wistfully states "God damn me", which can be interpreted as either an affectionate or unhappy statement about himself, but which is probably a little of both, reflecting the dual nature of most people.

The ballad "Goddamned Me" is "kind of a backhanded apology, like, 'You're stuck with me — What are you gonna do?'"

I LIKE THE WORLD TODAY

The statement "I like the world today, I like it when it's green" refers to the world being "green", as opposed to the barreness of winter, as a metaphor for when things in the world seem right. But as the narrator points out, the world can also be "mean as hell." And it's "a hell of a price to pay" to maintain the greenness against those who would despoil it, from terrorists to school shooters to those who walk away.