Animal Collective’s Fleet Foxes-slobbered-on, Kanye-endorsed video for “My Girls” has been bumpin’ around for a few days and has been getting some pretty positive praise, despite generally looking like an expensive version of Green Man from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. And more than any lyric on Merriweather Post Pavilion, the chorus to “My Girls” has people Tweetinging or Tumblring or whatever the fuck they do now. The most common reading on (always-accurate!!!11) lyric sites is:
I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status
I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls
Sure, in hard economic times, it’s rockcrit 101 to champion dudes who sing about the joys of simplicity and domestic life. What twentysomething who just got laid off from his graphic design job doesn’t want to occasionally be reminded that there are more important things in life than bottle service? (Conversely, politics blog The American Scene is paints Sr. Panda as a crunchy conservative in his “longing for property and for home.” What?)
But, really, fuck the economy. Is this dude saying “adobe slats” or “adobe slabs”? And what does that even mean?
Says SongMeanings.com commenter tonyjames:
adobe slabs refers to building a home from the ground up like way back in the day. basically stating that as father he’s going to work hard in providing for his children. but yes i agree that while most animal collective songs are a little difficult to interpret on the first try, this one is way easy to understand. its in general a song about a man providing for his family and making his father proud in the process.
So yeah, I love the sentiment and, hell, I even love this bloopy-bloppy mess of a song. But even so, I just can’t look past the fact that this is a crappy lyric. And I overlooked “Are we human or are we dancer.” Dig it:
1. By its very definition, social status is not a material thing. At all. Remember when David Cross tried to buy a house on “indie hipster cred”? Doesn’t work!
2. It’s a line about growing up and taking care of your wife and kids but still sung with that Peter Pan syndrome fake-naïveté that these guys haven’t abandoned since they were murmuring “I am the pantha!” through a Line 6 pedal.
3. To force the rhyme of “slat” and “stat[us]” they sort of leave off the “-us” reducing it to “a social stat” which is really like cutie-poo Hollertronix board slang given new life as song lyric. Nix social stat? Totes awes fam bros!
4. “Adobe” is like the least musical word humanly possible, next to maybe “coprophagia” or “phlegmatic” or “weltanschaung.”
5. With four walls and some slabs (or slats), the Panda Clan still doesn’t exactly have a roof.
I dunno. After looking at that cover for seven hours, maybe he means Adobe Photoshop?
Were he smart, he’d've said I just want four walls and Adobe CS4 for myself
This reminds me of Phish’s “You Enjoy Myself” and the won’t you please drive me to Ferenzi line. Nonsensical, yes but neither lyric is why I enjoy both songs
I don’t mean to seem like I care about
I don’t mean to seem like I care about
I don’t mean to seem like I care about
I don’t mean to seem like I care about
I don’t mean to seem like I care about
please as if to describe what is said to often describing what somebody or others might say is being the state of wordish perhaps
the title of the post insinuates that the post will answer the question, “Why is the worst lyric on MPP resonating with everyone?” but no attempt is actually made. just a bunch of reasons why it shouldn’t.
the answer, of course, is that it’s catchy and repeatable. this is often the case with bad lyrics, or lyrics that don’t make a lot of sense when inspected carefully. i mean, hey, did you guys realize that none of the stuff alanis says in “Ironic” is actually ironic??? remember how that didn’t matter one iota to anyone no matter how many times you sprang that nugget on your friends?
but hey, i’m asking for too much - this is simply filling the daily quota for “You Know, We Don’t Really Care For This Animal Collective” posts. just put it in the masthead, already. i want more industry gossip and gene simmons flamewarz.
I actually really like Animal Collective!
too bad. your post comes across as a snarky cumshot.
It’s almost as if I’m writing it for Idolator!
your post comes across as a snarky cumshot.
I shudder to imagine what this might look like.
I didn’t build the four walls I have around me, but I am keeping the dustbunnies safe.
Forget about the RPM challenge. In February, I will write a song with the word coprophagia in it.
Frankly, I had heard the lyric as
I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like they’re social stats
I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls
I assumed the slats meant roof slats, even though their being made of adobe sort of negates the possibility that they are viable roof slats.
This doesn’t change that the lyrics throughout the album are atrocious.
If I could just leave my body for a night…
My Girls might be the most instantly accessible but In the Flowers and No More Running are really special.
And we’ll all float on, OK.
I assume that “adobe slats/slabs” is a part of a home that’s protective but exists in contrast to the four walls. This suggests it’s a roof. But as far as I can make out, roofing in adobe architecture doesn’t involve slats or slabs made of adobe; rather, it involves a wood or metal frame onto which adobe bricks are placed, which are then in turn sealed with adobe mortar.
Conclusion: Animal Collective failed Indigenous American Architecture 101.
@Dickdogfood: And I failed Verb Agreement 101. OK!
I could’ve swore he said “slacks.”
Hmm.
I like their old stuff, and I went to my first concert at the real Merriweather Post (Rush, “Roll the Bones” tour), but that is a hideous lyric, and the album as a whole is really mediocre.
Maybe the lyrics are the equivalent to a musical Christoper McCandless(Into The Wild), and he wants to go out and live off the land in a place made out of adobe slats/slabs, with his girls, and throw away social stat(u)s. The only problem is he finds out the hard way that it’s a horrible idea, and he and his girls die from inferior knowledge of adobe house building.
Eh, the Avey Tare lyrics aren’t so bad.
If Animal Collective songs are about lyrics then everything they’ve ever done sucks (even the instrumentals). A good Animal Collective song is one that isn’t ruined by a) lyrics or b) boring droniness, and this is a good Animal Collective song. Still, I do really wish they would grow a pair and get past what you called the “Peter Pan syndrome” - the main thing that keeps me from actually liking this band.
Wow, item number three in this post just about reads my mind on the hipster lingo annoyance of that “status” as “stats” line. It’s almost a deal breaker on an otherwise excellent song. I want to say “who listens to AC for the lyrics anyway?” but then I remember liking some lines in past songs, which, come to think of it, were all Avey Tare’s, not Panda Bear’s.
Oh hang on a second.
Adobe is a company, building material, and… a color?
Oh shi- no way.
[www.stevesblindsandwallpaper.com]
And this song is totally naive. I mean you need more than a house right? You can’t grow your own food and just live off the land and completely independently. That kind of seems like something they’d do anyway. I can see them living in the woods, apart from everyone, recording music. But maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, my two cents.
I personally think this song is pretty fantastic, simple yes, but that mirrors the simplicity of the lifestyle he’s looking to live.
-Written by this guy’s friend
You, sir, need to stop looking at everything so critically. When they sing about four walls being all they need, you know what they mean. You know they mean a simple house, or at least can infer it with a little help from yo brain muscles.
Taking Status and changing it to “stats” is a simple example of poetic liscense, if you wish to nitpick as much as to not allow slang in it’s most proper form. It’s a tool that has been used for ages, and maybe you’ll remember it from high school english classes. Dante made use of it, heck, Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky couldn’t have even begun to be anything as amazing as it is if he didn’t make up words out of thin air.
You also seem to have fallen under the horrible presumption that’s been a bit of an epidemic latly, and think it’s cool to be as cynical as possible. Please tell me how you can argue that wanting nothing more than a house for you and your family as naieve?
ANyways, I’m done typing though. I’m going to go enjoy this new album some more!
Ah so I have calmed down a bit now. Had a week to reflect.
And listen.
And research.
There isn’t much (There isn’t much)
That I feel I need (That I feel I need)
A solid soul (A solid soul)
And the blood I bleed (And the blood I bleed)
With a little girl (With a little girl)
And by my spouse (And by my spouse)
I only want (Only want)
A proper house (A proper house)
I don’t care
For fancy things
Or to take part
In the precious wait
I will provide
For the ones who ask
I will, with heart,
On my father’s grave (On my father’s grave)
I don’t mean
To seem like I care about
Material things
Like a social stance
I just want
Four walls and adobe slats
For my girls
Lyrics that I believe to be correct~
Should clear up some confusion/doubts =D
But their music is so interpretive, everyone has the potential to hear something different. Purposeful ambiguity
Given that the bulk of the album has a soccer motif running throughout it, my feeling is that he is referring to his balls as “muh girls” and the bit about four walls and adobe slats is actually a metaphor for a new kind of jock strap he is inventing.
He all goes like, “Hey, I’ll be alright if my patent gets rejected, I just want my balls to be safe.”
PS- great album. Just got tix to see them in Montreal.
Ha I always thought it was ‘a dolby stack’ (as in, a stack of dolby speakers).
i read somewhere in an interview that panda bear is reffering to a roof when he says “adobe slats”
adobe slats are what roofing in portugal is made of… where he has been living with his wife and kids.
he has also been called a “loner” and “hermit” many times because when hes not touring or recording, he tends to spend long periods of time alone with his family at home, rarely going out to have “good times” partying and such.
Many times he has claimed that the reason for that is the fact that they are the most important thing to him.. his family keeps him level headed and helps him keep a clear mind after the “crazyness” of touring.. He has said he really, really enjoys the routines that come with family life.
So i am guessing that this song is sort of about that.. exactly what he finds important in life.. all his values, etc… but most importantly.. a roof for his family (which can also be interpreted as saftey for his family)
I love deciphering arcane lyrics. Its maddening. I think he says Adobe Flats. Like a smooth flooring.
This is my perception of the lyrics in what I feel is the best part of the song:
I don’t mean
To seem like I care about
Material things
Like a social status
I just want
Four walls and adobe Flats
For my girls