Foster the People: Pumped Up Kicks Meaning
Song Released: 2010
Pumped Up Kicks Lyrics
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
Yeah found a six-shooter gun
In his dad's closet hidden in a box of fun things, I don't...
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He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth...
I almost forgot to mention this line. This is clear from the later verse when he talks to the cigarette. He doesn't have any human beings in his life that he's close enough to talk to. The cigarette hanging out his mouth is his friend, with its hair on fire. It's obvious Robert is the one who has "lost his wits"... -
Robert's got a quick hand...
Robert's acting impulsively and not stopping to reflect on the morality of his actions as a normal person would...
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan.
Robert has planned out what he's about to do...
He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth...
he's a cowboy kid...
He's a loner
Yeah he found a six shooter gun...
Six shooter is more reference to the cowboy kid.
In his dads closet hidden in a box of fun things...
He found the gun in the closet with the other "fun" things, so Robert is going to have fun with what he does with the gun
and I don't even know what...
Robert also has other "fun" things besides the gun that he found in the closet, maybe bombs, or other weapons of killing.
But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you...
Here the band wants the audience to relate to being the kids with the pumped up kicks and not to being Robert... (I know some of you sickos are relating to Robert and you should get help immediately...lol) -
I beleive that It could be about Robert yes, and just because its a cheerfull tune it was trying to be a little more eery or crazy sounding... (Like incideous when they played Tiptoe through the tulips by Tiny tim) it was just a weird scary feeling. I think that it could be about him because in the end he could be committing suicide just how the song jus ENDS. Ya know.. Well lame explanation but thats my thoughts.
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I believe this song is about Robert Hawkins and how he killed Nine people in the Mall, then killing himself.
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I think it's neither about Robert Hawkins or Robert Steinhaüse. I think that the song is based on shootings that happen in general. The lyrics are moving considering it has quite a cheerful tune, which is weird for a song. The Robert Hawkins case, to me, is unlikely because he suffered depression since the age of six and was constantly in mental hospitals and getting help for his depression. Also the lyrics explain how he is sick of other KIDS, yet Hawkins didn't have very many problems with other kids, and the people he killed were employees from the age 24 and above. Yes, it might have taken place in a shopping mall where he could have seen other kids buying things that he didn't have, but he didn't shoot them. With Robert Steinhaüse case he aimed for the teachers, which has nothing to do with the fact that he was poorer than other kids. The students at the school said that when he came into the classroom he ignored them and only aimed for the teachers, so if he was jelous of other kids why would he kill the teacher? They both ended up committing suicide in the end and the song doesn't mention any suicides. anyway, that's my opinion. if you disagree, that's fine. :)
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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The shooter, Robert, depressed and fired from his job a McDonalds in Nebraska, heads to to the mall with a gun and kills nine people and himself. How dark darkness can be when you feel worthless. Sad thing is, he never knew how valuable he was and the positive contribution he could have made. Great tune with a sobering mesaage from a suicidally depressed boy.
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Pumped up kicks are a symbol of Veblen's 'conspicuous consumption'. The lust for consumer goods, status and wealth are a result of early traumas, where our youthful dreams were shattered by the grinding industrial machine.
The armed Socialist rebellion can be seen in Foster the People's fanmade video of "indie kids" as a rebirth of the hippie aesthetic, now self-armed and self-organizing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLK7hrRijes
(accessed on Apr 4/11)
Run Run Run
The hippies have become yuppies, according to Prof. Heath in The Rebel Sell. And now those gen-xers and Indigo Children
(MJK's Puscifer)are being "radicalize" with violent media, reproducing the infectious Ki with their own disambiguating propaganda.
Vive la Revolucion
Concordia University,
Montreal, QC -
I think Robert in this song is Robert A. Hawkins the westroads mall shooter.
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This one is easy. Robert likes cowboys, cowboys are cool figures. Pumped up kicks are pump nike shoes all the cool kids use to wear back in the early 90's and robert is out to shoot them hince the line better run, out run my gun. "Daddy works a long day" means he works all the time. "He be coming home late and he's bringing a suprise" means he's probaly coming home drunk."dinner is packed on ice" frozen food or t.v. dinners. as for the last few lines I think he might be thinking about killing his father. peace out bitches
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