Fake Plastic Trees

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today we're going to be

talking about fake plastic trees

now you could take this one of two ways

right

you could literally be talking about the

little focus trees that

sit in the corner of a horrible office

or whatever

which yeah those are fake plastic trees

but we're actually going to be focusing

on the song by radiohead

entitled fake plastic trees

now before we get into the meat of this

song today

is it the real meat or the fake meat

it's that new vegetable meat they're

trying to

force everybody to eat like like a boca

burger well yeah it's kind of trampled

grass and they say it tastes like steak

and if you disagree

then you're a murderer or something like

that yeah i think

a murderer of the environment because is

not because of animal cruelty and

you know the killing of cows which i

didn't realize they did to make steak i

just thought they

cut off the excess kind of meat on cows

and it kept growing back but

apparently it's because there are too

many cows they produce too much methane

and it infects it affects the

environment so that's why they want us

all to eat artificial meat it's got

nothing to do with

anti-animal cruelty it's because of

farts oh

okay yeah but that really wasn't where i

was going to go with it

oh well where where were you going well

i'd like to give a couple of shout outs

today actually

first of all i'd like to give a shout

out to cvs i know they don't sponsor us

but my girlfriend works for them

the truth is they are so much better

than walgreens because i can't take

walgreens seriously have you seen the

length of their receipt

compared to cvs cvs you're guaranteed

like a 12

foot receipt if you buy a snickers bar

but walgreens do this stupid thing where

it's literally only got the items you've

just purchased on there and i don't

think you can be taken

seriously as an over-the-counter

pharmacy distribution store

if you don't have a long-ass receipt i

actually don't get a receipt from

walgreens anymore because i was told by

my wife that she has this

like walgreens customer appreciation

account or whatever and now

it's one of those apps that's in my

apple

phone wallet and i don't even get a seat

anymore so you don't even get a digital

receipt

uh no she does to her email so i never

see the receipt anymore so

i never get a receipt at walgreens

anymore but i did buy something from cvs

i bought one item and i'm pretty sure

the receipt was like four foot long

yeah there's like trees crying as you

kind of walk past them while you're

carrying your cvs

because the ironic thing is whoever

their landscape gardener is

outside the cvs closest to where i live

they've planted a bunch

of trees around the parking lot i'm

assuming part of that was to provide

shade for the people who park there and

use the cvs but

i think it's just to mock the trees when

people walk out with these long receipts

which you're having to wipe

wrap around their arm like about nine

times just to be able to carry it

without tripping over it but i also

wonder if there are native americans

standing outside of a cvs

and people are dropping these huge

receipts down on the ground and they're

crying because of all the littering

that's happening with that yeah i don't

think we have much of a problem with

that in

dfw actually the native americans crying

about the

use of recycled paper for receipts but

anyway shout out cvs

love you love the receipts walgreens you

got up your game because nobody's going

to take you seriously into your sort

lists

inadequacy in the receipt department

but as long as we're talking about them

we do not have an official pharmacy

sponsor and

apparently there's really only two left

walgreens or cvs so we would love for

y'all to battle i'm not

i'm not sure if i want walgreens to

sponsor us i just i think i just want

cvs

i'm holding up cvs to be honest well

which one

has the better beer prices you know i

don't know if i've ever

bought beer and no they both they both

sort of beard now one of them got rid of

cigarettes which you know you and i

don't smoke cigarettes but

i know one of them got rid of cigarettes

maybe both of them

maybe we should find out which one has

the best price on monster

you know like red bull and that type of

stuff you know

that that and spicy and spicy chips

oh yeah we do like our spicy cheese yeah

so maybe we'll judge after that

yeah so anybody from cbs or walgreens

wants to get a hold of us

just uh send us an email the wolf and

the shepherd

gmail.com because yes we're still too

cheap to go in there and actually

create an email address on our actual

domain name because yeah we're just too

lazy to yeah

well the second shout out i want to give

is to the receptionist at your dad's

uh rehab center now this isn't the rehab

center for his

methamphetamine use this is actually

because he got some hips from china and

they broke down after like six weeks so

he's

that is you know they're trying to teach

him how to walk again so i just want to

give a shout out to the receptionist

because she listens to us she said i had

a

soothing voice which is nonsense but i

am actually going to

draw a picture of myself and sign it and

give it to you so you can give it to the

next time you go in there

well but we would like for her to

actually continue to listen

well she's going to frame it put it on

the wall we would do it send her a

framed one but we're too cheap for that

she's gonna have to buy her own frame

possibly from cvs because i believe they

have good prices on nine by seven frames

yeah but i think walgreens has better

prices on seven by nine frames well i

want my long receipt so

i'm gonna suck it there you go there you

go all right so

now that we got all that out of the way

we're gonna talk about the song

fake plastic trees by radiohead

uh great song well first of all let's

back up great band i mean

lots of good songs by radiohead but we

were

sitting here doing our thing trying to

prep for

one of our podcast episodes and

we were listening to music in the

background

and fake plastic trees came on my

playlist

and we said hey that's a great song i

mean both of us said

you know hey that's great song lots of

great lyrics great band

all that good stuff so we figured it's

been a while since we've

talked about a specific song so we

wanted to walk through some of the

lyrics from

fake plastic trees so here we go

a green plastic watering can

for a fake chinese rubber plant

in the fake plastic earth

kind of heavy i mean but i mean let's

stop i mean just right there right out

of the gate

they're just basically hitting how fake

everything is well they're creating a

fake environment for the rest of the

lyrics so everything is set in a fake

landscape yeah i mean

right out of the gate they're saying hey

realize

how fake everything is right now and of

course

by the way did we look up how old this

song is

i want to say like early 90s it was

released in

95 okay mid 90s yeah mid 90s okay

all right so we're we're close there

after that

by the way trying to stay away from the

asides

let let me just get through the first

part of the lyrics right

so let me start over a green plastic

watering can

for a fake chinese rubber plant

in the fake plastic earth she lives with

a broken man

a cracked polystyrene man

who just crumbles and burns

he used to do surgery on the girls

in the 80s but gravity

always wins she

looks like the real thing she

tastes like the real thing my

fake plastic love

but i can't help the feeling if i could

just

blow through the ceiling if i could just

turn and run if i could be

who you wanted all the time

all the time yeah now the i guess

not quite repeated lyrics we did cut out

from that

was the he wears me out she wears me out

she wears and it wears me out so those

are the three kind of interim very short

choruses in between those lyrics now as

we mentioned it did come out

mid 90s 1995 and it came from the album

the benz

now in england we'd already had two

singles released off of

ben's before fake plastic trees came out

but

it was actually their flagship single

here in the united states from that

album they

figured that the style of the music at

the time the

americans more ready for that track

you know than the two we had released in

england because we still had a very

indie i guess influenced charts over

there we just kind of come out of brit

pop

and stuff so indy was still a big thing

whereas over in the united states

it turned more to the kind of pop and

pop hip hop you know bubble gum wrap

type stuff and so they wanted to bring

out something which wasn't necessarily

going to be

as popular right and i remember to be

honest with you the first time that i

heard the song was actually from the

clueless soundtrack

because it was on the clueless

soundtrack and it was the acoustic

version

right so you only heard the acoustic

version of the song and i think that's

when we were doing our you know meeting

or whatever

that's what you heard it was the

acoustic version

not the electric version now i don't

think we're going to get sponsored by

this woman so i think i could make this

comment who was the actress in that was

it alicia silva

silver well that was the main actress

yeah now

i thought she was actually a good

actress because her role she was very

good at

playing kind of brain-dead dumb blondes

but then i think i saw an interview with

her and

i realized she wasn't really acting yeah

yeah it wasn't like

a match made in heaven yeah the the

other girl in

clueless uh stacy dash yeah i remember

her

yeah she was she was the uh lisa

silverstone's character's best friend

or whatever she's actually pretty smart

she looked like she'd be more of a fun

day

yeah no i always liked her yeah

but but we gotta if you're gonna talk

about clueless

you actually have to talk about paul

rudd

because in that movie he looks the same

today

as he did way back then he's gone there

keanu reeves vampire out

of not bothering to age because it's too

much effort yeah there

there's something going on with him and

piano nicholas cage is pretty much the

same way as well other than when he

grows a beard he looks no different

to those you know movies he made like

early 90s

yeah is that why we look so old because

we grow beards

no i think it's because we don't take

care of ourselves oh

that's probably true that that's the

link apparently i've been picking up on

on the internet that if you don't take

care of yourself you look like

oh okay so what you're telling me then

is if i just shave my beard off

i'm not gonna make it more healthier no

difference whatsoever

okay because you know it's gonna take a

lot of work for me to shave

well yeah what was that stuff we got

sent to

um oh from from twobeards.com yeah

that stuff worked they just didn't send

enough of it for you to consistently

shave well i've already ran out yeah i

need to

i need to go in and order some more and

everything because it

kind of made me feel a little bit

healthier yeah i found it

kind of tasty because i accidentally ate

some

yeah well you say accidentally you

spread it on some toast

you weren't supposed to say that well

you tried to get me to try some because

you brought it in

cold toast with it spread on the toast

yeah yeah okay yeah

anyway fake plastic trees now the song

like

a lot of indie songs breaks the rules

for what should be a successful song and

i know we talked about this when we

covered rem's losing my religion

but you know it lasts four minutes 52

seconds almost five minutes which is too

long

for a song to be played on the radio

because

it affects the playlists and the mat

being able to get in as many adverts as

they want to so they try and keep down

you know to songs around three minutes

or just after three minutes and this was

a time

95 where you had the most disposable era

of pop music possibly in history where

these songs were coming out and being

very short and

it was the first rung of the hyper

commercialism

ladder and this song broke again the

rules for radio play

it was too long well not only that but

you have those like you say the three to

three and a half minute songs

then they finish that song they and when

i say they

i'm talking about like the radio djs

right they

interject their shtick play a commercial

then play another song

but you gotta remember back in the 80s

there were a couple of songs where you

knew

when the dj played that song they had to

go to the bathroom like november rain

that was like eight minutes long

so it it's like okay dj has to go to the

bathroom

so he's gonna go ahead and play that

song so he can go ahead and hang the

headphones up

run to the bathroom get to the bathroom

come back

30 seconds before that song ends so he

can pick it up and nobody knows the

difference

yeah so five minutes doesn't really give

you enough time

well it doesn't give you enough time

because it takes you about six minutes

to pee and it takes me

about 14 minutes to do a number two so

we'd be ruined

yeah with it that's true we need like an

overture by like beethoven or something

to really

have a satisfactory bathroom break well

i guess that's why we do podcasts yeah

and that's why we're ideal guests for

classical radio

oh yeah we haven't tapped that part we

haven't yet

but we're coming into it i've got great

ideas

oh and the thing is everybody's dead who

can sue us so yeah i'm

i'm kind of doing my research for that

what the classical music is

yeah that's why you're in charge and

then they're and their uh offspring are

mostly dead as well so

and the um statute limitations on the

copyright has also run out so that's

true

we can maybe even play some of it on the

piano or something if either of us could

play

that's actually a good point i mean we

we could

play some of that old music because of

that

copyright statute of limitations and not

get in trouble

by anybody well i thought we could put

some sound bites in it you know

and then i start howling and you say get

away from those sheep and stuff yeah

yeah yes probably a couple of octaves

lower than that but

you're on the right track yeah we'd

probably upset people

one thing i just remembered actually

when we did cover losing my religion and

i think it was like seven minutes

something or around that six minutes

something almost seven minutes

long that on that album i think was the

title track which i opened was was radio

song

which actually had a go at djs about

just playing disposable

short tracks and then i can't remember

the track order but losing my religion

came pretty quickly after that and so

they actually

uh set up that perfectly

yeah so they were they were kind of

punking their the dj's

there yeah good for them yeah that's why

we like rem right

now the second reason fake plastic trees

was a bit

well breaking the rules as such was that

it's almost devoid of hope when you

listen to it

okay it's not so much devoid of hope as

and there's nothing

afterwards it's just that situation is

devoid of hope now they actually made a

habit of that they released a song

called street spirit and

tom york the lead singer of radio ed

actually said

you know this song is unusual because

there's literally no hope in it from

start to finish and

you know come a i think which was on

okay computer i'm not sure

on that album that's kinda kind of

similar

in that it just doesn't you know have

any hope in it

but you know there's company in misery

you know people will join you in joy

for their own convenience but the true

company comes in misery because those

are the people who truly care about you

if they're there for you during the

miserable times

everybody can gate crash a party nobody

really wants to gate crash a funeral

except for the food i don't know well it

depends on the food you know i mean i

i have been to some funerals where

they've had some really good food

yeah you can get full it's a lot better

than spending 20 bucks at chile

yeah you see we didn't have food at

funerals in england

yeah you just had to eat something on

the way to the funeral

oh that's kind of terrible so you're

eating like fish and chips on the way to

the funeral

and then you're sick from that and then

afterwards you're like hey let's go get

some curry and make ourselves even more

sick

because now we're going to eat some more

terrible food and one thing which

shocked me as well

you know when i came to texas well even

actually when i

you know was living up in the northeast

for a little bit in connecticut

i was shocked that they bury people

during the week because in england

it used to be i don't know what it's

like now but almost exclusively

people would be buried on a saturday or

a sunday but i figured out they're

allowed to bury people on tuesdays and

stuff which was a shock to me

if you look at the fact that maybe

you're a

gravedigger you're an undertaker you're

a funeral director whatever in england

basically that means you're only working

two days a week

and then you have five days off so what

a great job

maybe they've got it right over there

one of the big things did you ever do

you remember the video

for fake plastic trees at all i do not

yeah it's

kind of strange because it's got tom

york and the rest of the band they're

being pushed around a

supermarket or grocery store in these

big oversized shopping carts

and it's got no relation really to the

song

or it's a very hard kind of connection

to make and the

directors said it was some type of

allegory about death and reincarnation

but again when you listen to the lyrics

you kind of figure that

all of these people complaining in this

song have an opportunity to get out of

this situation but they have these

fake prison bars which they justify not

escaping from this situation

and any member of the band during this

video could have just stood up

and got out of the car but it was like

they were almost like in a fake

imprisonment in this cart being pushed

around no control over the direction

and place they were going in the store

and that connects very much to when you

listen to those lyrics where people do

have the opportunity to step out of

those situations and escape

but they create excuse after excuse for

just staying in that kind of dead end

situation

i made that kind of analogy myself

because i ended up watching the video

before

we thought about doing this like about

three four times in a row and tried to

find some meaningful symbolism

yeah but i totally get that because you

talk about

prison so you got the prison part right

so the only thing i can picture a

grocery store like a prison is just like

a casino

i mean there's no clocks there's no

windows you do

feel trapped you're trying to figure out

your way out of there

and it takes you so long to try to get

out of the grocery store

and they park the things that you really

need in the back of the store

the milks in the back of the store the

eggs the butter

all that they put it in the back of the

store and then they make you walk past

all the stuff you don't really need and

by the way

once you get to the end of the store and

you're finally trying to get out

they put all of those other items candy

bars and magazines and everything to try

to get you to just buy

a few more things so it is a prison yeah

there's a fantastic documentary about

that actually about

how they place stuff in stores

and make the lines deliberately slow to

force you to walk past the candy

really slowly so you buy it actually i

lied i just made that up but i think it

would make a great

reason for us to go to the store and

make a documentary if we just took

the phone around and just explained kind

of

this makes no logical sense to get

people in and out of the store quickly

this is to get people to stay twice as

long as in the store

as they really need to that wouldn't be

good for us

trying to make a documentary because

we'd end up buying everything yeah

well not only would we end up buying

everything but we've been struggling of

setting up cameras and doing our podcast

on video when we can't even figure out

how to do that yeah so

we're not the guys for that well we

talked about you know doing

a podcast on ufos and we're waiting for

our friends who are part of

one of the largest ufo research bodies

in the united states but

i thought well we do a podcast on that

we're probably going to get abducted

if we do any research on it whatsoever

and so it's going to be kind of manifest

destiny that

sure but we also don't want them to be

in charge of the cameras

because every time you see a ufo on a

camera it's

like some kind of 1980s

yeah you take a video with a potato yeah

exactly

so um tom york you know when he was

talking about

fake plastic trees i think it became

more successful than

he anticipated normally when you release

songs from an album at least

traditionally in england you'd

release the ones which you'd figure

would be most popular which would sell

best first because then it sells the

album

or at least did back in those days

before itunes and google play and all

this stuff because now you just buy

individual singles

or you get a you know subscription to

something like spotify or iheartradio or

pandora

and you don't have to buy a whole album

but then you know the initial release of

songs was the vehicle for you to be able

to shift that album because if somebody

liked two or three songs on that album

the chances of them buying that album

was much greater

right and i think part of what you kind

of hit on

is it was more about all the songs on

the record

and you had to have that hook song right

yeah you had to have that one song that

said

hey i'm either going to go buy the

single which

you know back in my day whenever i was

buying cd singles or cassette singles

they were like

maybe two three bucks right but you

could get the whole

album for like eight or nine bucks

yeah so if you thought hey i actually

like this band maybe i

want to hear more you'd spend a little

bit more money

nowadays like you say it's all streaming

right

so you don't even have to worry about

that you just have to have that

commercially marketable material that is

out there to get those streams

yeah well before i left england and you

know moved back to the states

there was probably a period i don't know

how long it went on for

where to buy a cd it was close to the

equivalent of

maybe between 25 and 30 dollars because

it was 15 pounds something

you know to buy a cd at some point in

england and so you're talking a ton of

money

for an album which might only have 10

tracks and you really only like two or

three of them but short of going back to

that 80s thing of recording off of the

radio

you know it's very difficult and it was

said that

you know in conspiracy circles that

record companies actually

took a loss on cds for years and years

and years to push that medium

and get cassettes out of the picture

because people couldn't really record

off of the radio onto a cd and nobody

had cassette players anymore

and so you know people weren't pirating

the music as much until

you know the ancient god napster came

into play and people

started downloading songs you know

digitally

no absolutely i i remember when i

was i'm going to say

seventh grade so i'm about 11 12 years

old when i get my first cd

player and i remember i bought a five

disc i didn't buy it my parents bought

it for me because it was

birthday present i got a five disc

cd changer and that's the one that i

wanted

but obviously you buy the the cd player

the cd changer

you got to have a cd and i didn't have

any cds so

the cd changer cost 299

and my dad just was befuddled

because the cd that i bought my first cd

was

22 and he said

so you're gonna spend 22 dollars for

each little disc that you put in here

so you're talking about a hundred

dollars worth of music

that you're actually going to put in

here to fill this five

disc cd changer and of course it was

shortly after that that

cds kind of came down in price and i'm

sure i still

owe columbia house and bmg music a lot

of money

because i used to get uh po boxes and i

would have

stuff sent to them because it was

cheaper to get a po box and

have lots of cds and everything sent to

there and that's how i got most of my

music before the napster days

right well i got into downloading mp3s

pretty early on compared to most people

and i

i was a heavy user of napster and a

couple of other services where you had

to click on a lot of stuff which

you know automatically bought up about

eight foreground ads

and it took you 30 minutes to you know

clear all that stuff from your browser

but in comparison

you know to buying the music it was more

convenient

and a lot of the alternative bands and i

know you have a story on this from one

of the bands do you follow

that you know it was you know a great

way of promoting bands which wouldn't

otherwise get airtime they were actually

grateful for the fact that people were

downloading

downloading their music and sharing it

for free because it broke into audience

audiences they wouldn't necessarily

experiment or go ahead and spend their

money on those albums

right i remember uh when i first saw

flogging molly

my wife and i we actually went to a

mighty mighty boston

show and flogging molly was the opening

band

and when we saw them i said yeah i love

this music

went on to napster downloaded every

track

i could find from flog and molly and

then i burn a cd

wrote on the cd flogging molly cd

whatever you know so i could see it in

my little uh

case logic cd holder that i had

and years later when i met the guys and

started hanging out with them i said

look i i have a confession to make

the first time i saw y'all i didn't buy

any of your music i actually

went on to napster i downloaded that

and i burnt copies of that cd and i gave

him to friends and everything

and one of the guys i won't name him one

of the guys said

that's the best thing you could have

done for us

to share our music because we would

actually

like to gain fans from hearing our music

because if you're walking through the

store and you're trying to find

something to listen to

you're not going to spend fifteen twenty

dollars on something you've never heard

it was better for you to just pass out

those free cds that you were handing to

your friends

and saying hey check these guys out and

then later on yeah you buy a t-shirt you

buy

a you buy something you buy a concert

ticket or whatever and you can actually

support the music yeah

i mean that was a stage where bands

would actually make more music from the

concerts than they ever did from the

record sales because

i think they still do well agents at

that point

they're very much sharkish and you know

being on a traditional record label at

that time whether it be emi

or anybody you know the the record label

took so much

money that you know digital downloads

really set

bands free that they could you know cut

out the middleman but yeah the sales of

t-shirts

and you know live albums they've

produced themselves at concerts and

that was what funded the bands because

they made almost literally

no money worth talking about to support

four or five money of

members of a band you know just some

record sales unless you were like

super huge right and not only that but

and not to get too deep into how that

music business worked but they

they worked on basically a loan where

the band would get a certain amount of

money

to support the tour and the recoup

part was what they were making off the

tour to support the record sales and

everything

and you know a lot of band members that

they ended up

being in a bad spot that's why so many

bands end up switching labels and all

that stuff i mean it's terrible it

i guess it's a good thing in our little

podcast world

that we don't have a label or anything

else i mean we

put all this out for free right we

we don't have to behold to somebody and

yeah we do have some representation

working right now and we're not trying

to make them feel bad because

yeah please make us some kind of money

because we're hungry

but other than that a lot of guys got

screwed and

there are still musicians still getting

screwed

from that yeah and especially those ones

who's so

you know signed into long-term contracts

i mean there is that thing about

you know taylor swift making the mistake

of signing up to a record company

doesn't even own her own music

from the earlier albums and stuff but

you know i don't really feel sorry for

her once she went whoa

anyway but yep you know tom york

radiohead they obviously had a

issue in being super popular in the

united states because their style of

music

you know came out at a time where you

know commercialism and poppy songs in

the united states

was you know the mainstream of

everything and radio stations wanted to

play those quick little disposable songs

tommy when he talked about recording

fake plastic trees

he said the song and i'm quoting this he

said

it was the product of a joke that wasn't

really a joke

but a very lonely drunken evening and

well a breakdown of sorts and he said

that he wrote down the words and laughed

when he was writing them

because i'm assuming he was drunk at the

time when he did it from his previous

statement and he thought they were

really funny yet the first time he went

into the studio to record the song

it was just him the guitar you know the

guitar and his vocals

and in that moment of sobriety they did

three takes of that song and he actually

broke down and cried

well i can totally see that happening

if you look at the lyrics of the song

it's powerful song

i mean it it's a good sounding song and

if you just want to listen to the melody

and kind of hum along or even sing along

still a good song to listen to but it's

it's a powerful

message behind that song and i

understand

why he would go in the studio and just

you know

kind of break down with that song

because yeah

it's kind of a

diatribe or a what do you want to call

it

speech against the establishment of what

is going on

in the music business even that long ago

and now it's translated so

far ahead where it's gotten even worse

well i think it gets played on radio

stations far more now

like you know almost 30 years later than

it did back then

because people understand what a classic

song it is and

you know the guitar part in it even if

you took out the lyrics

you know the build up and the crescendo

of the guitar and especially when you

get the

introduction of the orchestral parts you

know

make that song so powerful and so moving

you know even if the song was sung in a

language where you didn't really

understand anything

it's still a very very moving song well

you know the song's sad

you can hear that in the music you can

hear the music

supposed to be sad it's not supposed to

be happy and upbeat it

it's not one of those upbeat songs it's

not

i don't know choose some kind of upbeat

song like the b52s

right yeah yeah love

shaq there you go i didn't get invited

to that i'll be honest with you

yeah is there a love shot well i don't

know it's closed down now apparently due

to kovid but

i didn't get an invite to it back in the

day when it was popular anyway so

should we change the name of our studio

to the love chat

well i doesn't have any relation to what

happens in here so probably not

oh okay well i'm sure name it after that

movie the disappointments room

yes yeah that that would be yeah that

would be

more apropo yeah now when you um mention

the lyrics in the song

she looks like the real thing she tastes

like the real thing my fake plastic love

i was very much reminded of that show we

talked about in our mail order brides of

the 90 dave fiance which i renamed

92nd fiance because it makes me just

think of a trophy wife whether she's

there for the money not for the love but

for all appearances to everybody outside

of the relationship

it just looks like it's the most perfect

thing but he can see

how entirely artificial you know and how

this relationship is built

you know on sand it's just nothing

stable to it and it's inevitably just

gonna

blow up that's totally true but totally

true

but also again i was very existential

about this because i did all my research

at like 3 a.m in the morning which is

the worst time to do research because

that's also

statistically the most likely time for

you to die

it's 3am in the morning you know the

earlier verses where she's saying about

being trapped

you know the uh she lives with a broken

man a crack polystyrene man who just

crumbles and burns

you know i thought it just sounds like a

man or a very fragile ego

who you know snaps and breaks at

everything because he thought that

she would bring purpose and completion

to his life

but instead the same problems still

exist and he won't stand up for himself

or her like i said that might have been

me being a little bit too in

introspective and existential but you

know that's kind of what i got out of it

and you know if we go the last verse you

know if i could be who you wanted

all the time all the time that's kind of

surrendering yourself for peace you know

in the old days where people wouldn't

get a divorce they'd put up with

domestic

violence and unhappiness and stay

married for 60 years and that last verse

is like well

you know i can't really change myself

and not be myself but

if i could just be what you wanted all

the time maybe

things would be peaceful maybe things

would be happy well suppressing yourself

and being a mold of what the other

person wants i see that kind of

like with my wife because she probably

would like me to

be something else but then she's got to

decide what i'm supposed to be

because i gotta change that all the time

and i get confused

trying to say well i'm supposed to be

this tough guy okay

i'll do that oh now now i'm too bad now

i gotta be sensitive

it's all confusing you know i can't i

can't keep up with that

all the time so if you have to take

anything

meaningful from this song it's what

lyric

i think gravity always wins and it's not

just gravity as in pure gravity and

relating to the lyric about

you know the guy doing surgery and the

women in the 80s and it's renowned for

being terrible then you know women who

got boob jobs in the 80s that

i think half of them exploded and stuff

all their faces dropped

you know below their elbows but yeah

gravity always wins that you can't

cheat the science of anything the

science of compatible relationships

anything time does its damage it erodes

you know it shapes things it builds new

futures isn't

gravity a theory so does that mean you

believe in gravity

uh sometimes just sometimes yeah well my

disbelief of it sometimes has

come back and bitten me in the butt but

no i don't believe it is an absolute

because you know i believe our friend

elon musk

that you know once you start going into

other dimensions

and going into space that gravity is not

as uh

i don't know reputable as you know the

old science says

so obviously we're not talking about the

movie with sandra bullock

right abs as a decent-ish movie although

i wouldn't have put her on a

space walk because i saw her in the

movie speed with keanu reeves and i

didn't think she was really that

qualified to drive a

bus going over 50 miles an hour so i

wouldn't have put her in space

yeah but i thought she did a pretty good

job i mean she jumped that bus

over the little gap in the road yeah

but i honestly look at that that could

have been set in texas now because we

don't finish

any roads over here that's not true yeah

come on no no that is true we do

eventually i mean it's only taken like

20 years to move three quarters of a

mile down

the 820 loop here but exactly they've

widened the road and now they've

actually started re-widening the

starting point so i think by the time

that your kids have grandkids you know

they'll be able to drive down there at 2

a.m in the morning without it taking 40

minutes to go through excellence

well i guess that's why you look at

stuff

so much more positive and positively

than i do yeah i just yeah i really

don't see that happening

anytime soon well with all that

thanks for tuning in to this episode of

the wolf and the shepherd

we hope you will actually go and listen

to

fake plastic trees by radiohead because

one thing that the wolf and i have

talked about

is we would love to be able to play

versions of these songs that we

talk about but there's all this

copyright stuff that we can't

deal with and everything and honestly we

don't have the money to try to

pay for these lawsuits if we tried to

play this song

so so please you know go out and search

fake plastic trees if you haven't heard

the song fake plastic trees by

radiohead listen to the song shoot us an

email

let us know what you think and by the

way we will catch you on the next one