Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People

Unwrapping_Candy
Unwrapping_Candy Posts: 487 Member
edited October 4 in Chit-Chat
Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People

What do you think of this song, its lyrics, and its meaning?

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

Lyrics:

Robert's got a quick hand
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan
He's got a rolled cigarette
Hanging out of his mouth, he's a cowboy kid
He found a six-shooter gun
In his dad's closet with in a box of fun things
I don't even know what
But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Daddy works a long day
He'll be coming home late and he's coming home late
And he's bringing me a surprise
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice
I've waited for a long time
Yeah the slight of my hand is now a quick pull-trigger
I reason with my cigarette
And say, "your hair's on fire, you must've lost your wits, yeah"
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/foster_the_people/pumped_up_kicks.html ]
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

Run run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run run
Ru-ru-ru-run run run ru-run run

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
«1

Replies

  • PeachyKeene
    PeachyKeene Posts: 1,645 Member
    One scary song! But, really great tune
  • SimplyShanRunning
    SimplyShanRunning Posts: 885 Member
    I think its now stuck in my head AGAIN!!!
  • ♥Faerie♥
    ♥Faerie♥ Posts: 14,053 Member
    Have never really thought about it, but I love that song♥
  • chocolateandvodka
    chocolateandvodka Posts: 1,850 Member
    kind of annoying, but according to the artist(s) themselves, it's about a kid who is constantly left out of things and is basically focused on a group of kids he sees at the bowling alley that he wants to hang out with but has apparently really scary thoughts about.


    i think the writer may have gone to a bit of a theatrical extreme with the dramatization of the perspective, but i see it.

    it isn't about columbine, it isn't about a suicidal kid, and it isn't about any events that actually happened --- according to the band.
  • scs143
    scs143 Posts: 2,190 Member
    It's catchy, but when I catch my 6 year old singing it, I am quite disturbed. I did not know the lyrics or hadn't paid any attention to them, until I heard it from his mouth.
  • King_Bee
    King_Bee Posts: 275 Member
    Good song...right now I have Electric Feel by MGMT stuck in my head...it makes my giblets tingle.

    All along the western front
    People line up to receive.
    She got the power in her hand
    To shock you like you won't believe.
    Saw her in the amazon
    With the voltage running through her skin
    Standing there with nothing on
    She gonna teach me how to swim

    I said ooh girl
    Shock me like an electric eel
    Baby girl
    Turn me on with your electric feel

    I said ooh girl
    Shock me like an electric eel
    Baby girl
    Turn me on with your electric feel

    All along the eastern shore
    Put your circuits in the sea
    This is what the world is for
    Making electricity
    You can feel it in your mind
    [ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/electric-feel-lyrics-mgmt.html ]
    Oh you can do it all the time
    Plug it in and change the world
    You are my electric girl.

    I said ooh girl
    Shock me like an electric eel
    Baby girl
    Turn me on with your electric feel

    I said ooh girl
    Shock me like an electric eel
    Baby girl
    Turn me on with your electric feel

    Do what you feel now
    Electric feel now
    Do what you feel now
    Electric feel now
    Do what you feel now
    Electric feel now
    Do what you feel now
    Electric feel now
    Do what you feel now
    Electric feel now
  • skinnywithin
    skinnywithin Posts: 1,392 Member
    I love the tune so I googled it a few weeks ago and its about killling kids like the columbine thing. VERY DARK song but what a catchy tune!
  • robyng1986
    robyng1986 Posts: 139 Member
    I love this song! at the beginning i could not figure out what they were saying... then closed caption cleared it up for me 'faster than my bullet'??!??! what a shock! lol but the tune is so catchy and i love whistling to the end.
  • BecksgotBack
    BecksgotBack Posts: 385 Member
    I like this song...

    it's that or have my daughter singing "i wanna see your Peacock"...she came home from the babysitters house when she was 4 singing "smack that".

    there's worse things in the world
  • scs143
    scs143 Posts: 2,190 Member
    I like this song...

    it's that or have my daughter singing "i wanna see your Peacock"...she came home from the babysitters house when she was 4 singing "smack that".

    there's worse things in the world

    What is it with that song? Mine was also singing the Peacock song after my sister drove him to the beach one day. Thank God he didn't sing it for long.
  • juliecat1
    juliecat1 Posts: 3,450 Member
    Love the song too. It sounds so hippie and happy go lucky. It wasnt until I was singing along to it that I realized what the lyrics actually were. So dark! Have you heard the unplugged version? Ill see if I can find it. It takes on a much different feel that way.

    here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maZuT3uR-gM
  • fbmandy55
    fbmandy55 Posts: 5,263 Member
    I love this song, look up the Lollapalooza performance of it!!!!

    Not a fan of the unplugged version they recorded live on Altnation.
  • binary_jester
    binary_jester Posts: 3,311 Member
    Same idea as Jeremy from Pearl Jam
  • UsedToBeHusky
    UsedToBeHusky Posts: 15,228 Member
    I liked the tune but never paid attention to the lyrics until my 12-year old asked me, "Is he saying 'faster than my bullet'?"
  • kendratiger20
    kendratiger20 Posts: 32
    Same idea as Jeremy from Pearl Jam

    LOVE that song.. & the video is quite disturbing..

    Pumped up kicks... eh. it's alright. Another Dark song with a sunshiny beat. :ohwell:
  • edorice
    edorice Posts: 4,519 Member
    The song is disturbing to me. I looked up the lyrics to it a couple of months ago. They play it all the time on a local radio station here. I understand that the idea of the song is from the point of view of a troubled teen, but I don't want MY teens singing along with the song.
  • ImperfektAngel
    ImperfektAngel Posts: 811 Member
    Pretty cool when it first came out, now its getting kinda old
  • lilRicki
    lilRicki Posts: 4,555 Member
    Same idea as Jeremy from Pearl Jam

    the kids on my sons's football team were singing it in the locker room...and I kept thinking "it's just like Pearl Jam"...how controversial was that song when it came out?
  • morganhccstudent724
    morganhccstudent724 Posts: 1,261 Member
    Like

    I do a Zumba Toning Song to this :bigsmile:
  • King_Bee
    King_Bee Posts: 275 Member
    Pretty cool when it first came out, now its getting kinda old

    ^^ Yup
  • twinsanity
    twinsanity Posts: 1,757 Member
    I cannot stand that song. It was catchy when it first came out, but since the radio has played it to death, I'm just over it. Never really paid attention to the lyrics before, though. I try not to put too much weight into that, though, either.
  • twotoforty73
    twotoforty73 Posts: 28 Member
    What I get from the song is that the kid, Robert kills his mother, feeds her to his dad (dinner on ice??), kills his dad, then goes to school the next day with a list of kids he wants to kill. It's a catchy tune though, I didn't even know the words they were singing until my daughter told me.
  • lilyinlove
    lilyinlove Posts: 441 Member
    I never put much thought into the lyrics of this song! I just liked it. Now with the lyrics in plain text....Hmmm...
  • marquesajen
    marquesajen Posts: 641
    It's a good song, lyrics could be alot worse, really. I mean Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy" sounds so chill and happy and it's older, whatever, but read the lyrics and it's a bit of a shock:

    Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best
    Excitable boy, they all said
    And he rubbed the pot roast all over his chest
    Excitable boy, they all said

    He took in the four a.m. show at the Clark
    Excitable boy, they all said
    And he bit the usherette's leg in the dark
    Excitable boy, they all said
    Well, he's just an excitable boy

    He took little Suzie to the Junior Prom
    Excitable boy, they all said
    And he raped her and killed her, then he took her home
    Excitable boy, they all said
    Well, he's just an excitable boy
    After ten long years they let him out of the home
    Excitable boy, they all said
    And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones
    Excitable boy, they all said
    Well, he's just an excitable boy

    Great song, though! Songs are just stories, some more gruesome than others.
  • dixiech1ck
    dixiech1ck Posts: 769 Member
    The song is kind of about Columbine -- at least that's what I heard in an interview. Scary, but .. it's catchy. I like the accoustic version.

    Helena Beat is wicked cool - love it!
  • _Timmeh_
    _Timmeh_ Posts: 2,096 Member
    It's a good song, I like it. I thought it was more about some Omaha Nebraska shooting than anything.
    They are just lyrics I'm ok with my kids singing along with the tune......
  • Jennyisbusy
    Jennyisbusy Posts: 1,294 Member
    Sometimes, (read mostly) I just want a song to be about nothing. Going to the candyshop means going to the candyshop, lollipops are lollipops, songs about pumped up kicks and running faster than bullets - errr ummm - maybe about superman??
  • exercisesucks
    exercisesucks Posts: 102
    The song is disturbing to me. I looked up the lyrics to it a couple of months ago. They play it all the time on a local radio station here. I understand that the idea of the song is from the point of view of a troubled teen, but I don't want MY teens singing along with the song.

    Ditto, once we showed it to the girls they stopped listening to it. Guess that's what you call parenting.
  • Cupcake_Anonymous
    Cupcake_Anonymous Posts: 27
    It's sad they went mainstream now all the retards are singing it.
  • Iamfit4life
    Iamfit4life Posts: 3,095 Member
    I really do not like the song at all.
This discussion has been closed.

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