Custom Concern by Modest Mouse Lyrics Meaning – Unveiling the Societal Labyrinth of Monotony
Lyrics
Build up the monuments and steeples
To wear out our eyes
I get up just about noon
My head sends a message for me
To reach for my shoes then walk
Gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta get a job
Goes through the parking lot fields
Doesn’t see no signs that they will yield
And then thought, this’ll never end
This’ll never end, this’ll never stop
Message read on the bathroom wall
Says, “I don’t feel at all like I fall.”
And we’re losing all touch, losing all touch
Building a desert
Modest Mouse’s ‘Custom Concern’ casts a shadow on the sunlit path of the everyday, carving out an anthem for the mundane and the mechanically routine life many seem to plod through. In this introspective dive, we peel back the layers of Isaac Brock’s lyrical genius to uncover the poignant critique of societal constructs and the erosion of individuality.
With its haunting melody and introspective lyrics, ‘Custom Concern’ speaks to the soul of an audience caught in the cyclical nature of contemporary life. Here, we explore the existential undertones and hidden meanings within the song, hoping to articulate the silent screams and whispers that resonate with the modern listener.
Skyscrapers of Routine: The Monoliths of Monotony
The opening lines of ‘Custom Concern’ pierce through the facade of societal progress, laying bare the obsession with building monuments and steeples. These grandiose structures serve as metaphors for the high-rises of daily repetition, obscuring our vision as we wear ourselves down to near-sightedness. There is a profound dissection of how industrialization has not just changed our landscapes but has also scaffolded our lives into prefab constructs.
Modest Mouse captures the relentless pursuit of growth and expansion, a single-minded focus that leaves little room for human emotion or connection. The steeples become watchtowers, ensuring conformity and overseeing the gradual blurring of our vibrant individual hues into one indistinguishable gray.
Waking Up to Existential Echoes: The Noonday Revelation
In ‘Custom Concern,’ the protagonist rises at noon, sideways to the tick-tock of conventional clocks, suggesting a detachment from the world’s temporal routines. This midday awakening symbolizes a moment of clarity amid the fuzziness of the nine-to-five buzz, a wake-up call from life’s autopilot mode. The lyricist’s head ‘sends a message’ as if it were an act separate from the body, denoting an internal struggle between mind and action.
This snapshot of a day in the life places the character in a Sisyphean loop, illuminating the automatic response to the dread of economic survival – ‘gotta get a job.’ The trivial nature of the ‘parking lot fields’ represents the concrete jungle we navigate, unaware of the lack of yield signs, beckoning us to a relentless grind.
“This’ll Never Stop”: The Incessant Churn of the Machine
The repetition of the sentiment, ‘This’ll never end, this’ll never stop,’ acts as a chorus haunting the background of our lives. The words are an echo chamber reinforcing the fear that the vicious cycle has no exit, that the march of time stops for no one – an endless loop underscored by the droning rhythm of the song.
Modest Mouse doesn’t just lament the ceaseless mechanism but also underscores an almost Lovecraftian horror within the predictability of life. It’s not just that things won’t end or stop, but that within this certainty is an omnipresent dread of what lies beneath the veneer of routine.
Bathroom Walls and the Graffiti of Apathy: The Silent Scream
Among the song’s most striking images is the message read on the bathroom wall, ‘I don’t feel at all like I fall.’ Here, the bathroom—a private space often confessional and intimate—becomes the canvas revealing the internal dialogue that many refuse to voice aloud. The disconnect between feeling and falling suggests a numbness, an acquiescence to gravity without the sensation of decline.
The line underscores a theme of detachment and a sense of losing grip – not just with reality but with the sense of self. As the society often celebrated for its connections grows increasingly impersonal, its members scrawl their existential fears in hidden corners, barely whispering above the noise.
Building a Desert: The Oasis of Individuality Dries Up
The concluding lines of ‘Custom Concern’ depict the ultimate outcome of incessant monotony: ‘Building a desert.’ Here the metaphor brims with irony. Deserts are naturally occurring, yet what Modest Mouse suggests is the artificial creation of barrenness, an emotional and spiritual wasteland born of our collective ‘custom concern.’
Under the guise of progress and practicality, society has erected an empty expanse where the spirit starves. The song ends on this note, prompting a reflection on our actions and lifestyle. Are we complicit in crafting this desert, and if so, how does one find an oasis within?
