1% Of One


“The lyrics are kind of stupid. They’re about a soundman listening to this band playing, and he’s getting blown away. Maybe he’s stoned. He trips out, and the song goes off into a dream world. The band is us, of course — who else could it be?”Stephen Malkmus (1173)

Shibboleth


“Lyrically, it has some rather complicated ideas about Christianity and the need for limits — something about how there can’t be morality without sin. It’s got some funny things that have nothing to do with that, too. Like “I’m a connoisseur of scrapple.” I thought that was apropos of our world now. People are trying to make the best hamburger or the best taco or the best bacon, so I put in scrapple, which is a people’s cheap meat. As we juggle through all this bullshit that I’ve made that is quality at times — cheap meat — it’s still there. A line like that could easily have been in “Summer Babe,” except I wouldn’t have been worrying about life-hacking fast food. So, yeah, times have changed.”Stephen Malkmus (1173)