What do you think Time To Pretend means?

MGMT: Time To Pretend Meaning

Album cover for Time To Pretend album cover

Time To Pretend Lyrics

I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the...

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  1. anonymous
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     Mar 26th 2010 !⃝

    I think one way to interpret this song is that in choosing to be a musician your are choosing choosing creativity, optimism and innocence.
    Yet what happens when you actually suceed in this is that your life no longer has that creativity, optimism and innocence, you follow a set path to early oblivion.

    I think they are trying to say that it doesn't have to be that way.

    Its a beautiful song. XK

  2. anonymous
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     Mar 8th 2010 !⃝

    It's all about getting fucked up, living fas and dying young, life is a disappointment. Get high and enjoy what you can.
    Thats how it speaks to me at any rate

  3. anonymous
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     Feb 17th 2010 !⃝

    i think its about an adult who has dabbled in certain wrongs and is thinking about how good it was before he was older.

  4. anonymous
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     Dec 30th 2009 !⃝

    Cracked it....naw. But being 47 I remember a song in the early 70s that sounded much like this, "Seasons in the sun." They had joy, had fun, but the stars they could reach were just star fish on the beach. It's a copy cat, an updated version that is. Hey, song says it all, shoot heroin and do cocaine ya? Then your mind runs wild and you are thinking of all the childish things of life all the time in your mind dancing to the tune, the music of make believe.
    There ya go....no God, just drugs an make believe.

  5. anonymous
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     Nov 12th 2009 !⃝

    This songs speaks to the futility of life. The song takes us through the life of a rockstar and in its simplicity highlights the ridiculousness of it. And then it all ends by choking on vomit. Despite how pointless it is we are "fated to pretend" that somehow it matters, that our lives have meaning.

  6. anonymous
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     Sep 6th 2009 !⃝

    Ok, this song is pretty easily interpreted. Just as a call out to Maria, it seems like you have a pretty negative view on things in general. That does not mean that this song means that "life sucks". Life only seems like that when you let it get to you. This song, I think, is classic loss of innocence story. They're talking about childhood and how growing up changes EVERYTHING.

  7. anonymous
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     Jul 4th 2009 !⃝

    I think this song is about how much a person;s life changes when they become a celebrity, and then how much they miss their old life. "ill miss my father miss my dog and my home" some of the things we take for granted every day can actually be some of the things we miss most.

  8. anonymous
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     Jun 18th 2009 !⃝

    It's about how everything is so much better when you're a kid, "I miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms" how could it be anything else?

  9. Maria
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     Apr 9th 2009 !⃝

    Depressing reality of what our world has become or becoming, not for all but for some. This song means a lot to people who may "live in the moment." Make the most out of every day; party hard before it's too late! Life sucks, it isn't always easy. It's sometimes better to pretend,than to accept the reality. This song emphasises that life really is not that "great," and most people are in denial of that. They keep going through the motions; they keep pretending. It's a prediction of what is going to happen if people continue to be disconnected from reality; the emotions and situations that entails. We are becoming fated to pretend.

  10. kolocow
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     Mar 28th 2009 !⃝

    This is about being a pop star and what it makes you do, given their in the public eye and 'feted to pretend'. In some ways, and applicable to all of us its about 'the other' - or what we might be in illusory dreams. Its a reverse fatalism, but one where the reality of passing time is ignored. Like Dorian Grey the dreams of what will be, turn to dust. The time to pretend is no time at all. Family life with the worms is the place to be, and in death their is not pretense, but ironically we are closer to worms. Dust to dust, our origin and our destination is all that we are feted to. The rest is pretence.

  11. anonymous
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     Nov 21st 2008 !⃝

    The song pokes fun at falling into the cultural norms of what some consider to be adulthood. Being a band, they make fun of the cultural views that rockstars must live up to a life of drugs and commodities that come with fame. the song basically has a central message that rather then live up to the cultural norms of adulthood, one should retain values of childhood, such as pretending (hence the title) because it brings more joy then living up to social norms in society.

  12. anonymous
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     Oct 30th 2008 !⃝

    This is referred to as their mission statement. They are saying that they don't want to grow up and in an interview they said that they want to be like Peter Pan and be a kid forever. I respect that.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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